“No.” Orion’s voice is full of anger. “Parker brought you here.”
“Also not a whore,” Hadrian murmurs, but I’m not listening.
Parker whistles a curse, and the same understanding dawns on him. Sure, he wanted me here. He asked for me, but why would they accept the request?
“The four families never do anything we want,” Soren fills the silence. “They do whatever will get them control. Bringing Sable here was the perfect move to finish off the Briarwicks and to have something over Parker’s head. They only brought her here because they wanted to. Because they wanted their hands on the last of you.”
My knees buckle, and I sway. They all step forward as if rehearsed to take me in their arms, but I raise a finger, stopping them in their tracks.
“No,” I say. They can’t always sweep everything away for me. I need to do some things for myself.
“Sable,” Lex says.
I shake my head, and Nina comes closer, blocking my view for a moment.
“I’m leaving Bellthorn. This place is not safe anymore.” Her blue eyes pierce mine, and some deep conversation passes between us that I can’t hope to understand. Maybe it will make sense back in the journalism department.
“Was it ever safe?” I ask sincerely.
“Not for girls like us.” She laughs.
“Thank you for everything you’ve done for me.” That’s all I can say at this point, and I mean it. She didn’t need to help the guys find me or point me in the right direction, or give me the key to the room. She put herself on the line a lot of times for her money train.
“Damn, stop being nice.” She shakes her head like I disappoint her. “And don’t trust anyone. Not the four families and especially not Cillian.”
“What does he have to do with this whole thing?” I shake my head. “You said you didn’t know him.” Sure, the TA is creepy as fuck, and I definitely don’t trust him, but the warning has all the hairs of my arms up.
“I lied. I thought you were supposed to stop trusting everyone so damn much?”
I shake my head, sure I’m going to fail this test again. “Point taken.”
“He has a lot to do with everything. He’s a vermin, Sable. He knows as much as I do, but he’s even worse. He has better reasons than anyone for wanting you gone.” I swallow hard, my mind running as I try to make sense of how that could be true. He’s Lex’s errand boy, so none of this makes sense.
She steps away, already wanting to back out. “How do you know about my dad?” I ask, feeling this will be my last chance for a very long while. Her entire claim sounds too good to be true. How could my dad be innocent after everything I saw? Nina looks at me like she’s seeing me for the first time. Her mouth closes, and her lips tighten into a line. She steps back once again, her disappointment all around her.
“Please, I get that you’re smarter than me, just throw me a bone.”
Nina curses and looks up before setting her gaze back on me. “If my dad was accused of being a pedo with a massive sex trafficking operation and all the evidence lined up a little too neatly,Idon’t think I’d believe that so easily.” She arches her brow. “You spent a lot of time with Dad. Do the dates even line up?”
She turns and jogs away, out of reach while my head still screeches over what she just said. What does she mean by “I spent a lot of time withDad”? She’s gone an instant later, somehow knowing the tunnels even better than the guys do because they all act surprised about the point she disappeared from. I stand still, trying my best to process what that could have meant. Was it a purposeful slip designed to torture me, or was she naturally calling my father Dad?
We don’t say anything for a long while until Orion comes to me, taking my hand in his, and waking me up.
“Come on, Sable.” Orion tugs me away from where Nina disappeared. I want to follow her and ask her everything she knows. Who the hell is she really to me? But I know her enough to understand she said all she’s going to say, and now it’s up to me to ask the dumb questions she’s been pressing me about for a long time.
“Lex, wait up!” Hadrian calls. “I need to tell Sable something, please.”
Hadrian grabs me, pulling me toward him and staring deeply into my eyes. There’s shame there and a type of guilt I don’t expect. “There’s something I forgot to tell you.” He sighs. “Then when I remembered, I didn’t want to,” he tacks on a little more honesty at the end.
“What happened?” I ask.
“Well, you heard what she just said…”
“Obviously,” I answer, my heart hammering. It takes everything in me to pretend I have some patience while I wait for him to gather his thoughts.
“When we went to her house and her mom pulled a gun on us?—”
“HER MOM PULLED A GUN ON YOU?” I shout the words, and he quickly covers my mouth before looking back and forth in fear.
