Fuck.
“Take a breath.” Julio drops a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t think up worst-case scenarios just yet. Let’s hear what Felix has to say.”
“You heard what he said.” I look up at my best friend, an ache blooming in my chest. “Three of them, Julio. Three!” I hold up three fingers.
A muscle ticks in his jaw. “I know. We’ll take care of it.”
The room gets quiet and I look over my shoulder to see Rion’s left the room, leaving just Julio, Felix, and I. ”Tell me,” I demand.
He nods once and claims the bench across from me. “How much do you want to know?”
“All of it.”
Felix winces. “I don’t think?— “
“All of it, Felix. I’m dead serious. I need to know what those fuckers did to my girl.”
“Aren’t you meeting up with her?” Julio asks.
We all turn to the clock above the door. “I’ve got ten minutes. Give me the quick version. You can tell me the rest back at the house.”
Taking a deep breath, Felix fills the two of us in on what he’s discovered. A fresh stab of pain arrows into me with every word he says. “They didn’t believe her?”
Julio was right. She tried to get help, but the school turned their fucking backs on her.
“I think they did,” Felix says. “I spoke with this chick who works in the title nine building. She felt for Cecilia. Acted like she cared.”
“Then what happened?”
He shrugs. “Money. Politics. Power. Take your pick. The Holts leveraged all three. They came in on their high horses, threw enough money and threats around to scare the school into backing off.”
“What about the police?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t think it ever came to that.”
I frown. “Why the hell not?”
“Look,” he levels me with a look, one that says shut the hell up and let him talk, “I only know what I know. Okay. Do you have any idea how hard this shit was to figure out?”
Running a hand over my jaw, I wait.
“Thank you,” he says. “Like I was saying, I don’t think she went to the police. I talked to her old roommate—that girl is a spineless waste of space. Let me tell you.”
Nostrils flaring, I’m seconds away from snapping at him to get to the point. I don’t give a shit about her roommate or any of her former friends. None of them stuck around after what happened to her. I haven’t heard a single word about anyone since we’ve been seeing each other. She’s always with me and my boys or riding solo. Whatever their deal is, it’s irrelevant.
“Felix—“ Julio warns, waving for him to speed this up.
“Right. Sorry.” He huffs out a breath. “So, according to the roommate. Cecilia said she was raped. Holt and those two ass wipes of his drugged her and…” His Adam’s apple bobs. “Well, you can figure it out.”
I nod. I don’t need those details right now. They’re for Cecilia to tell me whenever she’s ready. What I need to know is why Benson, Chambers, and Holt are still walking around like fucking peacocks on campus after raping a girl. No way should they have gotten away with this. How the hell did we never hear about it? Guys gossip as much, if not more, than women, especially in the locker room. Something like this shouldn’t have stayed under wraps for this long.
“What else?” Julio asks.
“I guess the roommate convinced her to go to the school first. She said something about Cecilia’s dad being in politics.”
“Yeah. I’ve met him. Nice guy. He’s our mayor.”
“No shit?” Felix asks.
