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“Go home and get some sleep,” he says. “Don’t do anything stupid. I’m not leaving you. I just need to clear my head.”
“Promise?”
“Yeah, I promise.”
“Okay.” I lean in to kiss him for another minute, and even though his response is half-hearted, I know he’s still mine. Tomorrow, he’ll feel bad about the fight, especially if I don’t text and give him the silent treatment instead. He’ll have time to think about how badly he messed up to treat me that way when I love him so much. He’ll miss me, and he’ll come crawling back with gifts to win me back.
Finally I pull away and slide the seat forward. I give Colt my best wounded look. “What do you owe Duke?” I ask quietly. “What do you do for him to get your way?”
“You mean,yourway?” he asks. “What did I give him so I could dateyou,so I could takeyouto Homecoming like you wanted?”
I nod. “Is it something that would hurt me? Is that why you won’t tell me?”
“Not everything is about you, Dixie.”
“If it’s not about me, then you can tell me. What are you doing for him?”
Our eyes lock, and he stares me down, like he’s trying to intimidate me, trying to make me drop my gaze first. I don’t, though. For once, I don’t.
After a long pause, he speaks. “None of your fucking business.”
Then he slams the door in my face and stomps off across the gravel, back toward his grandfather’s mansion. I’m about to get out and chase after him like I always do, but then I stop myself. I’m done chasing after him. He didn’t chase after me.
And just when I start to second guess myself and think I should make sure he’s not running to Gloria, I see her climbing into her Mustang with Maverick. The car starts to fill with smoke as they hotbox it, and I sink back into the seat, the wheels in my head already turning.
Colt said it was none of my business, but he’s wrong. It is my business. It’s my business because, like he said, he’s doing it for me—whatever it is.
I’m going to find out.
Cheating is cheating. It doesn’t matter to me who he’s doing it with—woman, man, enby. But it will matter to the school, especially the elite. They pretend they’re cool and progressive if anyone asks, but there’s a reason I’m the only non-conformist who’s ever sat atop the throne. The Dolces were ruthless about who they allowed into the inner circle. The guys are all wealthy, cis, straight, able-bodied men. Not only that, but they’re all tall, fit, socially adept, and relatively attractive. There are gay kids at WHPA, but they hang out in other circles, with alt-kids not athletes.
If I could find something more concrete than a photo in a wallet, I could get Colt back in my debt. I could tell him I’ll keep his secrets if he doesn’t break up with me. I just need him to stay long enough to give me a chance to plant the ring, and then it’ll be cemented.
If he refuses, well, I’ll just have to knock him down a peg. It won’t be hard to get him cast out of the elite circle again. They’re already a little uncomfortable around him, a little standoffish. Colt’s popular again, but it’s different now.He’sdifferent. He doesn’t quite fit, with his memory loss and hisdeformed hand and his neck tattoos. He’s not the perfect, gym bro type that the rest of them are.
And like Duke said, he had the final say in whether they accepted Colt back. It’ll be easy to convince him to pull the plug on Colt’s dream of popularity if I so much as hint he’s been checking out the guys. Even if Colt was telling the truth, Duke won’t want his deals with Colt called into question. He has a reputation with the ladies to uphold, after all.
Now I just have to figure out how to get rid of Gloria, so that when Colt tumbles back to the bottom, she’s not there to catch him when he falls.
I’ll be there.
Not waiting at the bottom, but at the top with a rope. I won’t pull him all the way up, so he’s on even ground. That makes him think he’s better than me. I’ll let him dangle halfway down, so he knows he’s at my mercy. So he knows it all depends on me, and he shows me the respect and worship that a queen deserves.
He’ll be pissed about the post, but I can just say the blog was hacked again and someone else posted it, like I did when the Dolces gave me that video of Mabel and then the one of Harper. Everyone believed it. Baron’s a computer genius after all, Willow Heights’ most notorious hacker. He had reason to want those things exposed, and he’ll have a reason to want Colt exposed—to get him away from his brother. Even from afar, Baron would always look out for Duke, just like I look out for Colt. He’d do what’s best for him, just like I will for Colt.
He may not know it even after all these years, butI’mwhat’s best for him. Gloria Walton’s a chaotic mess with half her head shaved, a trashy slut who fucks around with gangsters now because no one of Willow Heights’ quality will touch her.
Hell, she and Duke are the reason Colt’s so fucked up now. The last thing he needs is to get in deeper with either of them, to get even more fucked up.
Duke will be easy enough. He’ll do whatever I want to buy my silence. The picture in Colt’s wallet and the conversation I overheard will probably be enough to get him to go along. He doesn’t care about Colt, after all. He just likes to humiliate him.
Gloria doesn’t care about him either. If she did, she’d fight for him, the way I am. She wouldn’t be running around spreading her legs for the Skull and Crossbones gang. Then again, she’s used to being gangbanged after three years with the Dolces. She has to get her fix somewhere.
I’m the only one who truly cares about Colt, and that’s why I’m exactly what he needs. A girl who is pure of heart, mind, and body. I’m the only girl untouched by the Dolce hand, the only one unblemished by their depravity. That’s what he needs. Someone stable, who loves him steadfastly and will always be there for him, like I always have. Someone who will go to the ends of the earth to make him hers and who won’t let anyone stand in her way.
I just need something on Gloria. That shouldn’t be hard either. She’s living with a gangster. I’m sure she’s doing something illegal, selling drugs or turning tricks. I just have to get her arrested for something scandalous, and then bring it up to the admin, and she’ll be gone from Willow Heights within minutes. Hell, I wouldn’t even need to get her arrested. They hold their students to the highest standards, especially the scholarship students. They accept only the most upstanding candidates for those positions, those who are above reproach morally and behaviorally.
I just need proof that Gloria’s none of those things. Pics or it didn’t happen, after all. Maybe a video, like the one that made me famous.
