Total pages in book: 177
Estimated words: 178117 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 891(@200wpm)___ 712(@250wpm)___ 594(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 178117 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 891(@200wpm)___ 712(@250wpm)___ 594(@300wpm)
“And you’re sure that baby was Dylan’s?” Felix asks through gritted teeth, still bent over the phone like he’s memorizing every inch of the email and photo.
“It could be … all of us,” Alistair mutters, and our eyes connect in a moment of shared misery.
God.
The one girl who got away … was pregnant.
And one of us lost their baby.
“Yes,” Penelope replies.
Alistair sinks into a chair, hands between his legs, head dropping between his shoulders like he always does when he feels defeated.
Felix places the phone on the table and closes his eyes, rubbing his forehead. The silence in the room is overwhelming. “Let her down.”
“What?” I gasp.
“Release her,” he rasps, his fingers digging into his skin so deeply I’m almost starting to worry he might break his own skull.
“But what about the punishment?” I ask. “The fire?”
“I only set that goddamn fire because your father made her fucking jump to her death!” Penelope screams.
I gaze into her eyes, and my face contorts.
If that’s true … my father is the one person we’ve been looking for all this time.
Her eyes fill with tears. “She didn’t want to break up. He made her.”
My father … responsible for Eve’s death?
“Oh God,” I mutter, my heart aching.
“And you did nothing,” Penelope says, tears rolling down her cheeks. “She pleaded with you with her eyes. Begged you to save her.”
“Why didn’t she tell us?” I mutter.
“You think your father would allow her to create that kind of rift?” Felix interjects, still in his own thoughts.
“She was terrified of him. She didn’t see any other way out,” Penelope says through gritted teeth. “And when she died, your father tried to cover up his involvement by erasing everything … and everyone. Including me.”
“Wait but the note—” Alistair begins.
But Penelope interrupts him. “Nathan worked for Dylan’s father. He burned down Eve’s old room to burn any evidence left.”
Felix’s eyes almost glow with violence. “Nathan was there in the fucking Alpha Psi house?”
Penelope nods. “So was Kai. That’s how I got the torn page.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” His hand forms a fist, and his eyes almost bulge out of his skull with rage. “I would’ve stabbed them both and cut out their fucking hearts.”
“Because I don’t fucking trust you anymore,” she says, tears forming in her eyes. “Eve is dead because of all of you.”
“She jumped because she didn’t want a life without us,” Alistair ruminates. “And we abandoned her. Because he demanded we did.”
The look in Penelope’s eyes kills me.
I immediately march over to her, take my knife from my pocket, and slice through the restraints, releasing her from the cross. She falls down, and I catch her in my arms.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” I mutter, clutching her. “We should’ve listened.”
She cries into my shoulder, wailing like never before, and the sound breaks my heart into a million pieces.
“I said I wouldn’t hurt you again,” Alistair says. “I lied. And I’m sorry.” He sinks off the chair and onto the floor, kneeling in front of her on all fours like he’s begging her for forgiveness.
She pulls away from my embrace and just looks at him, her lips slowly parting as if she doesn’t know how to respond.
Guilt floods my body as I drop to my knees in front of her just as Alistair.
Humiliated.
All by our own doing.
“Get up,” Felix growls.
But I don’t even fucking care to look at him, let alone listen.
All I care about is the girl whose heart we broke by not telling her the truth about Eve and us, by letting things escalate so far she felt she had to burn the entire school down for vengeance.
The kind of revenge I can only dream of.
God, she’s magnificent.
A fiery fucking goddess I want to worship.
“What are you doing?” she murmurs as I grab her foot and kiss it.
“Apologizing.”
“But there’s no use. It won’t undo what happened. It won’t bring Eve back.”
“I know. And no amount of groveling will ever fix that.” I gaze up into her eyes. “But I don’t want to lose you too.”
Her pupils dilate, almost as if she’s shocked I’d admit that.
But I’m not scared to admit she owns my very fucking soul.
“Get. Up.” Felix’s dark, commanding voice makes my skin crawl, but I ignore him.
“No,” Alistair replies. “We made a fucking mistake bringing her here and tying her to that cross.”
Some rummaging goes on in the back, but I pay no attention to it. Felix is always busy, always trying to rid himself of his feelings, but I refuse to run from them.
“Did you forget who told us to punish her?” Felix says.
I know it was my fucking father. But we made the conscious choice to obey.
“Can you forgive me?” I mutter as I look up at Penelope, who’s gawking at us like she’s confused about what to do.
“Don’t beg her for forgiveness,” Felix growls, stepping forward.