Page 36 of Mayhem

“You already know what happened. He betrayed me.”

“I know the sentence.” Hunter’s gaze moved over my face. “I don’t know what he betrayed. I don’t know what was in that ledger, who wanted it, or why handing it over nearly got you killed. I don’t know why someone with your background decided murder was the proper way to settle it. Those are the pieces I’d start with.”

He continued before I could answer. “If you decide my rules don’t apply to you, I’ll find out who you really are. I’ll start with the men who raised you and keep pulling until I understand what they were hiding, what they taught you, and why there’s so little left behind them. Then I’ll move through everything attached to you. Your enrollment. Your friends. Every place you’ve worked. Every person who helped you get here. Whatever piece of your life you think is protected because nobody at Aldrich knows where to look, I’ll find it.”

Priya’s face flashed through my head for half a second, followed by Devon and Maren. Then my fathers. That was probably the reaction Hunter had been looking for, because his expression sharpened when I didn’t immediately dismiss him.

“I’ll tear it apart at the core,” he said. “By the time I’m finished, every place you thought was safe will have my name sitting between you and the door. You’ll have nowhere left to run that I can’t reach, and eventually the safest place available to you will be beneath my feet. When that happens, you’ll beg me for a place there.”

Malakai had gone very quiet beside me as Hunter leaned closer until the distance across the table felt deliberately small. “Behave.”

I looked at him for a second before smiling. The expression on his face changed by the smallest amount as I reached across the table. I touched one finger lightly against his lips, held it there just long enough to make his eyes narrow, then pushed his face back an inch.

“If all of that was supposed to scare me, it didn’t.” I withdrew my hand and reached for my water. “You said it yourself. I’m not part of your world. I don’t understand your terror. You can threaten me with names, money, access, whatever invisible structure keeps everyone else here obedient, but I have no reason to wake up frightened of something I’ve never needed.”

Hunter’s jaw tightened. “You should.”

“Maybe I’ll learn.”

Malakai made a low sound beside me that could have been a laugh if he had been stupid enough to let it become one. Ronan rubbed a hand over his mouth, watching me with an expression I couldn’t quite place.

I finished the water, set the glass down, and pushed my chair back. “Great breakfast. Excuse me. I have an ex to kill.”

Hunter caught my wrist before I had fully stood. His grip was firm, his expression already back under control. “No public bloodshed.”

I looked down at his hand. “You’re going to have to define public.”

“Anywhere another student can reasonably walk in and find you standing over him.” Ronan’s voice came from my other side, calm enough to make the rule sound even more irritating. “And before you start looking for loopholes, yes, we mean it.”

I pulled my wrist free and stood. “Fuck. You sound like Father Three.”

I picked up my bag from the empty chair beside me before any of them could ask. “Don’t,” I said, pointing toward Malakai when his mouth opened. “You’ve already used up your questions for breakfast.”

I turned away from the table and headed toward the doors, hearing Ronan say something low behind me and Malakai answer. I didn’t bother trying to catch either one.

They wanted rules.

Fine.

I could work with rules.

Especially once I knew where they ended.

echo

By the time I made it to Criminal Studies, half the building had apparently decided I was interesting. Yesterday, I could walk into a lecture five minutes late and nobody looked up unless I blocked the projector. Today, a guy I’d shared exactly one seminar with held the door for me and said, “Morning, Echo,” like we’d been introduced properly instead of ignoring each other since I arrived.

Two girls near the front stopped talking when I passed them, then immediately started again once I sat down three rows behind them. I caught Hunter’s name once, Malakai’s twice, and something about the cafeteria that made Priya lean across the aisle toward me with the expression of someone sitting on gossip she was physically incapable of keeping inside her body.

I dropped my notebook onto the desk and pulled out a pen. “Whatever you’re about to say, I already hate it.”

Priya ignored that with the ease of practice. “There are currently four versions of what happened at breakfast. In one, Hunter summoned you because you’re secretly working for him. In another, you threatened him and somehow survived. Maren heard you’re sleeping with all three Kings, which feels ambitious considering you’ve been here for five minutes, and Devon heard you’re related to somebody important enough that Hunter had to publicly acknowledge you.”

“I like that nobody landed on breakfast.”

“You didn’t have breakfast with them. You got dressed in clothes somebody clearly picked for you, walked into the cafeteria, and sat at a table people here have been trained not to breathe near.” Priya flipped open her laptop but kept her attention on me. “Then Malakai spent the entire time looking like he wanted to climb into your chair with you.”

That part was probably true enough that I didn’t bother correcting it. “He has boundary issues.”