Page 243 of The Villain We Tempt

Nacho grins, seeing the look on my face.

“Oh, there it is. There’s the question burning in your head,” he growls. “You want to know how I know your dirty little secret, don’t you?” he taunts me.

I grit my teeth.

“How does it feel, Lochlan?” he snarls quietly. “To be the onewithoutfor a change? Helpless, with no control. No good looks and charm, no strength or muscles, no campus celebrity status?” His eyes narrow. “How does it feel to be aloserfor once in your perfect, privileged life?”

Fuck.

This isn't really about Galina.

It’s about Nacho beinghim, and me beingme.

I’m the one with the unfair genetics. The golden academic record. The star status in both the Privateers and Para Bellum. The girls. The guys who look up to me. The friends I surround myself with.

How must all that look from Nacho’s perspective? Nacho, who doesn’t have any friends and who I doubt has ever kissed a girl. Nacho, without a lick of athletic ability, a B grade average, glasses, too-big ears, and a fuckingretainer.

To someone like Nacho, I’m a kick in the teeth when he’s already down, just by waking up every morning and existing.

“Nacho,” I say softly, holding my hands up in appeal. “This doesnothave to go any further. You and I are friends, man?—”

“Friends?!” He barks a cold, mirthless laugh. “I looked up to you!”

“Nacho—”

“Iidolizedyou!! I went to you for advice abouther, for fuck's sake!”

My heart lurches into my throat as he swings the gun toward Galina.

“Nacho!” I roar. “Put the fucking gundown!”

“You were my hero, Lochlan!” he yells. “I wanted to fuckingbe you! But this?”

He abruptly pulls his phone out of his pocket and waves it high as he shakes his head. “Nooo no no no no, Lochlan.This, I can’t abide.”

His nostrils flare as he glares at Galina, then me. Then he opens the phone, taps a button, and turns it to us as a video begins to play. It takes me a second, because it’s not easy to see or hear from this far away. But then it clicks.

Horribly.

And when I see Galina’s face turn ashen and her mouth falls open, I know she's just realized the significance of what we’re looking at.

It’sus, the day in the library when I snuck up on her.

The video looks like it must have been shot from a stationary camera partially hidden between books high up on a shelf. I watch in horror as I slide Galina’s Velvet Villainess mask off, completely exposing her face, before I wrap that blindfold around her eyes. Then I take my own mask off, exposing my identity as well.

Nacho jabs a finger on the screen, pausing the video before he shoves the phone back into his pocket, a cold expression etched over his face.

“I can’t watch the next part,” he chokes. “Forgive me, my love. I know he made you. But don’t worry. Soon, it will just be us. Soon, you’ll forget what this motherfucker did to you when I spend the rest of our lives together worshipping you like the queen you are.”

Galina looks like she’s going to throw up. Her face is pale, and her throat bobs up and down as her breath comes in rapid little bursts.

The Garrison falls totally silent.

“I wasn’t trying to spy on you, my queen,” Nacho finally says. “I’m a statistics major, andsomeonefrom my class kept going into the records wing in Ravencroft and removing old agricultural records books that are part of an ongoing assignment, just to screw with everyone else in the class. I wanted to know who was doing it so I could teach them a lesson.” His face darkens as he shakes his head. “The camera’s motion activated. I hadn’t checked it in a couple of weeks…until yesterday.”

His eyes blaze angrily as they fly to me.

“You,” he spits. “You’ve lived like a fuckinggodat this school. But you put your fucking hands on what’smine. You crossed me, Lochlan.” He shakes his head. “Andno onecrosses me or my family.”