He’s going to take me away.
He’s going to lock me away in their ivory tower.
I swallow, summoning every ounce of nicety left inside of me. “There was a party on Saturday. The entire campus was there.”
He lets out a soft, derisive snort. “Don’t play coy with me, Mara. You were seen with Omega Chi.”
My heart does a little flip, but I force a mild expression. “So?” I say lightly.
Across the room, Milo makes a disgusted sound. “So? Are you serious?” he snaps, pushing off from the door. He steps into the light, and I can see just how tightly he’s wound, his cheeks mottled red with barely-restrained anger. “You were on Talon Reed’s lap, Mara. In public. After, mind you, Dredyn Steele forced you to chug beers.”
“I am twenty-one, just like you. I can drink. Plus, it was just a dare, nothing more.”
My father’s lip curls in disgust. “Those boys are dangerous,” he hisses. “You think I don’t know who Dredyn’s father is? Terrifyingly efficient man at what he does for the Syndicate. One wrong move and Dredyn Steele would use you as a pawn for his own benefit.”
There are three factions in AGU, each with their own roles to play. Omega Chi is just typically the muscle of everything. Dredyn Steele’s father pretends to be a financial advisor for Hughes Enterprises. But he is, in fact, the guy who comes after you when dues aren’t paid. A hitman, some would say.
“The Syndicate made this university a stronghold for our future. We don’t fuck it up with teenage rebellion.”
I flinch internally at that.Stronghold. Yes, that’s what AGU is to him—a breeding ground for the next generation of power brokers under the Syndicate’s thumb. A safe haven for our kind.
Milo’s eyes flash at Father’s words. He’s always been eager to prove his loyalty to the cause. “Do you know how this makes me look?” Milo growls at me. “You think PTO is going to respect me when my twin sister is fucking around with the Omega Chi trash?”
Ah, there it is, Milo’s real concern. Not my well-being, notwhy I might have been with Omega Chi, but how it reflects on him. On his precious standing in PTO and the Syndicate. I swallow the bitter taste in my mouth.
“I told you,” I say quietly. “It was nothing.”
Milo isn’t entirely wrong. The sight of me on an Omega Chi lap is salacious gossip. It will undermine him, maybe even my father. That was the whole fucking point. So why is guilt pricking at me for hurting my brother’s feelings?
“I don’t believe you,” my father snaps.
A prickle of panic stirs in my chest. If he doesn’t believe me, there will be consequences. They might pull me out of school, lock me away—who knows? My mind scrambles. If he even suspected this thing with Talon was anything more… But it wasn’t. It truly wasn’t. My humiliation, that flicker of illicit excitement at Dredyn’s eyes on me—none of it was supposed to happen. It was a dumb game.
I was so fucking stupid.
“You’re going to pull me out of school over a party?”
“Mara,” Milo warns. I ignore him.
I meet my father’s icy stare head-on. “You’d really rip me out of AGU and throw away an entire semester of carefully-staged headlines and curated photo ops? We both know I’m more useful here, at school, under Milo’s thumb, than locked away at home.”
He takes a single step forward, his presence looming. I have to force myself not to shrink back into the giant leather chair. “You are not indispensable, Mara. Don’t confuse your proximity to power with power itself.”
Of course. I’m a pawn. I’ve always known it, but hearing him say it so plainly still slices through me. All my life I’ve been dressed up, paraded around, and used as the perfect political daughter when convenient—shaking hands, smiling for donors, playing the role of the bright, virtuous young woman who reflects well on her father. I’m useful to him, but never essential. Never with real power of my own.
I mask the hurt with a cool, practiced expression. Blankness. I’m a porcelain doll, just like he likes me to be.
Milo shifts, clearing his throat. He looks between our father and me, sensing the silent battle of wills. “Chase is coming to the rally next week,” he announces, as if dropping a grenade between us. “He already heard rumors about… this. He’s pissed, Mara.”
A wave of revulsion and anxiety wash over me and I tighten my throat, fighting not to show it. I keep my eyes trained forward, on some indeterminate spot above my father’s shoulder. But I can feel Milo watching me. Being twins gives him an annoying window into my cracks.
Our father has resumed pacing behind the desk, hands clasped behind his back. His voice is deceptively calm now. “You’re promised to him.”
I picture Chase’s oily smile, the way his pale eyes slid over me the last time we met, as if undressing me in his mind. He’s handsome in that privileged, all-American way—tall, athletic, a former Ivy League golden boy—but none of that matters.
I force myself to respond. “Nothing happened.”
Father stops pacing. He fixes me with a long, hard look, as if trying to extract the truth from my soul by glare alone. “It better not have,” he says coldly.
