I rather hope I broke his fucking foot. “Oh, did I hurt him terribly? I was so frightened by that horrific spectacle that I must have jumped.”
My father exhales a low growl and I bare my neck, hoping for, but not expecting, him to believe my lie. “You’ll do better, Juniper. Or you’ll be removed from Fairhaven Academy. There’s already enough pressure for the academy to expel its omega students. You remain there only because I wish to show the world that the Rose family aren’t cowards, that we will not be cowed by vigilantes and terrorists.”
Won’t we?
Even now, my mind reels at just what my father could be working on with Radcliffe Industries.
At what Project Halcyon might be.
CHAPTER36
I’m woken by a text from an unknown number early the next morning. No text accompanies the photograph, but none is needed. A manilla envelope sits just outside my cottage door, words I can’t quite make out scrawled across it in black marker.
Rad.
I hear the shower start down in Marcus’ quarters and sneak down the stairs and look out the peephole. There’s no one there, but I didn’t expect there to be. I get exactly what I expect: the lingering scent of anise and oranges on the spring breeze and a warning across the front of the envelope.
You will never topple this domino.You will not bring me down.
I swallow hard and grab the envelope, shut the door and lock it behind me, and dash up to my nest.
I hold the envelope in my shaking hands for a long, tense moment before I rip it open and… and saints, I wish I hadn’t opened it at all.
It’s stuffed with dozens of photos, each with a message written across the back in that same black marker.
A photo of me kissing Luca in the rain at the Feast of Marmora.Behavior unbecoming of your status.
Luca standing between my legs on our bridge, tattooed hands wrapped around my thighs.You were supposed to remain pure for me.
Jaime Brentwood kneeling at my feet, anguish on his face.Traitors must be punished.
Simon almost kissing me in the old temple ruins.You will not consort with bastard betas.
Me, in my nest, Luca between my thighs through the distorted glass of my window.You will be brought to heel.
Me, stealing into Quill & Clover just yesterday.I’ll hurt the ones you love, if that’s what it takes.
Graeme Miller, slipping into Quill & Clover behind me.I told you to obey.
Me and Marcus, ducking back into my cottage after sneaking out.Tell no one.
Like it always has with my father, so it goes with Andrew Radcliffe.
The “or else” goes unspoken, unwritten.
A text message pings through on my phone, another photograph of me through the window, in my nest, holding the envelope in my shaking hands.
I dash to the window and draw the shade.
Saints, of all places, I should be safe in my own nest on the cottage’s second story, behind the most powerful wards on campus.
Another text follows.>
I shove the photographs back into the envelope and bury them beneath the mattress of my nest. I pace the length of my room, my phone in my hands.
I tap out a shaky>and hit send, my world crashing down around me.
* * *
