Jace looks down at the gavel as he adjusts his grip on the wooden handle, and I scan everyone seated at the round table. Blake looks at me for all of three seconds before glancing away and muttering, “Sorry, bro.”
“The fuck is happening?” I rush to my feet, slamming my palms down on the table. “Someone better say something, or?—”
“It’s not a salaried position, Kai.” Jace sets the gavel down, but then immediately picks it up again. “And Ezra didn’t set it up for you. It’s an automatic benefit for anyone who remains in the frat until graduation. It makes NEX more enticing during rush and provides free labor to ACE Enterprises every year.”
Despite the chilled air blasted into the windowless War Room by the AC, my skin is suddenly clammy with sweat.
“Ezra told me it was a paid job,” I mutter through clenched teeth, my hands balling into fists. “He said?—”
“He’s full of shit,” Blake says, throwing a hand out toward Jace when he makes an angry sound. “Seriously, guys,enough. Kai deserves the truth.”
He looks back at me, mouth downturned as he crosses his arms over his chest. “Ezra made us all swear not to tell you. It started as a prank, and…I guess it just got easier to keep playing along.”
My brother’s been lying to me since I pledged.
Allof them have.
I step back, the ground feeling more like a trampoline than solid earth. I can’t speak, because it feels like there’s a belt tied around my chest.
Fuck this War Room.
Fuck this fraternity.
And fuck the chair that catches my ankle and sends me sprawling onto my back as I try to retreat before I murder themall with Jace’s gavel. I shove it aside so hard it breaks the glass in the display cabinet it crashes into.
Blake is at my side in an instant.
The shock of the fall must have rattled something loose in my head.
For a fucked-up second in my warped brain, Blake looks exactly like Rooke. And he doesn’t look concerned. He looks smug.
…he liked it rough…
The words I’ve been suppressing for weeks, that I thought I’d locked away for good, light up like a neon sign. And then it all comes rushing back, a fucking wrecking ball to the walls I’d so carefully bricked up.
…it fucked him up so bad, he begged for more…
And out pours all the disgust, the confusion, the fuckingshame.
My fist slams into the side of Blake—Rooke’s—jaw. Pain jolts down my arm, making me hiss as I scramble to my feet.
Blake goes down, knocked the fuck out.
The rage boiling inside me won’t let me pause even a second to see if he’s okay. It propels me out of the door, down the stairs, and into the road.
Rain pummels my face as I storm down the sidewalk. There’s an inch-thick carpet of water pouring down the paving, splashing up under my bare feet as I pound my way over to the GAZ house.
Everything’s a stuttering blur, and it not just from the rain hitting my eyes. It’s like I’m sprinting through a game, and the frame rate on my screen can’t process the graphics fast enough.
I’m drenched. I should be cold, because it’s freezing out, but all I feel is a numb impact every time my feet strike the wet concrete.
I try the front door, but it’s locked. I slip around the side of the house, scaling the gate on my second try, and wriggle through the laundry window.
I halt for a second in the foyer, listening to make sure I’m alone.
But it’s Friday night, and if the girls aren’t ripping it up here, then they’re somewhere else, ripping it up there.
It’s so fucking convenient, it feels illegal.
