He’d come if I asked.
But he’s already had his worst night because of that man.
He doesn’t need this one, too.
“I’ve got this. Sleep.”
They don’t stir.
I pull the door, leaving it cracked, before taking one last look at the peace I’d die to protect.
Then, I turn and head back down the stairs.
There’s a war under my house.
There’s a girl in my bed.
There’s two brothers by my side.
I can hold all of it.
I have to.
None ofthemdo.
I’m the one who was raised to hold the knife.
TWELVE
MARA
“Mara.” Milo stands at the top of the stairs of the Psi Theta House, his sleeves rolled askew. His face hardens as he descends, Kade and Valen trailing behind. “You have some fucking nerve. After what you pulled?—”
“What I pulled?” I laugh. “You mean the part where I got kidnapped in front of an audience?”
His jaw clenches as he meets me at the bottom of the stairs in the foyer. “You humiliated this family.”
I shake my head. “No. I’m going to expose it.”
Milo grabs my wrist and pulls me toward the office down the hallway. The four of us enter the room, and Valen closes the door behind all of us before leaning on the edge of a bookshelf. Kade perches to my left on a leather armchair, while Milo falls into the chair behind the desk. Sitting there, as if it’s his throne.
“You shouldn’t have come back.”
“I came to drop something off,” I say, holding the small white box with a red bow in my hands. Slowly, I set the box on the desk and sit in an armchair across from Milo.
Milo peels the paper off and lifts the lid. Inside is a jar, with a single severed finger floating in its brine. My stomach clenches at the site, but outwardly, I’m calm.
Milo’s voice is strangled. “Is that... ?”
I nod. “Chase’s finger.”
His knuckles whiten on the desk. “Chase is missing. We haven’t heard from him in days. Where is he, Mara!?”
“Oh, he’s being dismembered and spread across the entire state of Indiana. He killed Jasper’s sister. He would have killed me if the Syndicate asked for it.”
Milo’s nostrils flare. “You don’t know anything.”
A ragged laugh escapes me as I throw the words at him. “We both know that you’re not that naive. People disappear every day at the hand of the Syndicate. Levi Thompson’s mother, Xana Thompson? She was murdered because she didn’t fit the narrative the Syndicate wanted for Levi’s dad. There’s more stories like that, too.”
