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“A game,” I explained. “Winner takes all. Winner takes Ava Jade.”
Rook perked up, leaning forward over the table with a gleam in his eyes. I had his attention.
“You want her,” I said, telling Corvus what he wouldn’t admit. “So does Rook.”
I sat back, sighing. “So do I.”
Corvus crossed his arms over his chest, his jaw working behind the wall of his lips. “What are you suggesting?”
“You were right,” I admitted. “She was never going to go for our deal.”
“Thought we weren’t going to give her a choice?” Corvus asked, eyeing Rook before turning his attention back to me.
“She’ll fight us tooth and nail,” I said, shaking my head. We didn’t know her. Not really. But that much I thought we could all agree on.
No one denied it, so I went on. “What if we didn’t use...the usual tactics? What if we tried to reel her in instead? The only way she’s going to be controlled—unless you want to get rid of her...”
I let that thought hang in the air, banking on them not wanting to vote for that option. Their eyes widened before they settled back into mute scowls, trying to play it off like they didn’t give a shit. Liars.
“...is if it’s on her terms. Like, if she were with one of us. We make it a contest, first one to fuck her wins. First one to fuck her gets to keep her.”
Rook liked this idea, I could tell by the way he twisted his lip ring with his teeth, his breathing heavy.
Corvus’ face pinched. He stared at me like that, unmoving, for so long I almost began to squirm in my seat. But letting on that he was getting to me would only boost his already massive ego.
“You want todatethe new girl?” he hissed, studying my face for a reaction.
My stomach twisted, but I kept my cool.
Did I?
Was that what I was suggesting here?
Shit.
“Never mind,” I muttered, snatching up my water bottle for a long pull. This was a stupid fucking idea. What was I even hoping to accomplish? All I’d done was show my cards. Admitted I was a pussy. Right to their faces. Proved to them how weak they already thought I was.
Probably made Corvus even more certain that he needed to make her disappear. Proved to him that she was the threat he thought she was from the start. A thing that could come between us. Distract us. Infiltrate our ranks and destroy us from the inside out.
But I’d win, the thought whispered through my head.And they know it.
It was at that moment Josh Richardson entered the cafeteria, carving a path through the tables toward the one Ava Jade and Becca shared across the room.
“Get your head straight,” Corvus uttered, stealing a thin chicken strip from my plate and tossing it into his mouth. I lifted a brow at him, not over what he said, but over the fact that he had just eaten a fucking strip of breaded, deep-fried chicken.
“What?” he grunted, but dropped it when Josh stopped at Ava Jade and Becca’s table.
Josh flashed Ava Jade a smile, leaning down onto his elbow to put himself closer to her eye-level as they chatted. Becca glanced between them, her interest clearly piqued by the whole encounter. Ava Jade hadn’t told her friend about her little conversation with Josh Richardson in math class today. Was that because she didn’t think it was important?
Because it didn’t matter?
“The fuck is Richardson doing?” Corvus demanded, swiping the back of his hand over his grease-stained lips.
I wondered if it looked the same to my brothers as it did to me: like a fucking golden retriever propositioning a lioness.
Fuckingcringe.
“He was all over her in math today,” I told my brother. “I think they exchanged numbers.”
