“That was his impression,” Prince admits, stiffly.
“That’s a fact,” I repeat. “I’ve got hundreds of witnesses.”
“You could have hired someone to do it.”
“Who?” I’m almost laughing. “The whole school was there.”
Dieter is silent for a minute, considering.
I notice that he hasn’t rushed to Kingmakers to retrieve his son’s body.
And the money’s still piling up in the joint account. He’s just about to receive his first infusion of American dollars from the Malina. He wants it. I know he does.
“So our arrangement continues as agreed?” He says, after a long pause.
“I certainly hope so.”
“So be it,” he says briskly, ending the call.
Zoe’s in a daze the week after Rocco’s death.
I know she’s deeply relieved. But at the same time, she seems unable to celebrate.
“I just can’t believe it,” she says, shaking her head. “I almost wish I’d seen the body. It seems impossible . . .”
“He’s definitely dead,” I assure her. “The Chancellor wouldn’t be giving me so much shit otherwise.”
“Fuck Rocco, I’m thrilled,” Chay says ferociously, spearing a fried potato with her fork as we sit eating breakfast in the dining hall. “Wish we had time to throw a party to celebrate before school lets out.”
Cat is quiet, picking at her food.
“You gonna come to Chicago with us?” I ask her.
She hesitates. “Oh . . . I don’t know. I’m sure you two would rather be alone . . .”
“No we wouldn’t,” I say. “Zoe needs company so she’s not too scared to meet my family. They’re pretty intense, I’m not gonna lie—but they’re going to love you girls. I’ll warn you, Caleb will hit on you, he won’t be able to help himself.”
Cat blushes, squirming in her seat.
Zoe smiles at me encouragingly. I know she really wants Cat to come.
“We can go see a Cubs game . . . and there’s this bakery with a purple coconut cake . . .”
“I like coconut,” Cat says, perking up a little.
Cat has seemed even more shaken by Rocco’s death than Zoe herself.
I understand that for these girls Rocco was a boogeyman, a terror almost as powerful in his absence as in his presence. He was a huge fucking source of stress in my life, too.
But I can’t help thinking . . .
Only a very few people were out of my sight when Rocco was killed.
One of those people was Cat.
She had all the reason in the world to want Rocco dead. Like me, she must have harbored a suspicion that Rocco was still dangerous to Zoe. That he wouldn’t give up so easily.
I’d broken Zoe’s marriage contract, but I never thought for a second that Rocco had ceased to be a threat. He was an unsolved problem that continued to hang over my head. I knew I’d have to deal with him eventually.
Now he’s gone. Wiped off the face of the earth.
And I’m glad, so fucking glad.
But I can’t help wondering who I have to thank for that.
Cat was in the infirmary with Dr. Cross. Hedeon walked her over there, and Dean Yenin followed her back. So technically, she was never alone. Her alibi is almost as solid as mine.
Still, I wonder . . .
I look at her sitting there, small and shy and about as physically imposing as a newborn lamb.
Even though Cat has come a long way this year, the idea that she could murder Rocco Prince is laughable. I feel ridiculous even considering it.
At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter who did it.
He’s fuckin’ dead. And he’s not coming back.
27
Cat
The week after Rocco’s death is a fog of constant paranoia, where I’m certain that any moment I’ll feel hands closing around my arms and I’ll be jerked out of my seat, dragged off to the Prison Tower by the Chancellor’s minions.
Even when I’m lying sleepless in my narrow bed down in the sunless cave of the Undercroft, I expect to hear the door broken down at any moment.
But it never happens.
No one comes to arrest me.
No one even speaks to me.
Miles is interrogated by the Chancellor. That, too, sets my guts churning all over again, terrified that they’ll chain him up and I’ll have to admit that it was me, not him, who murdered Rocco Prince.
But after a week of incessant gossip and rumor, where students and teachers alike seem to talk of nothing else, the storm fades away as quickly as it blew in. The Princes send a lieutenant to retrieve the body. And everyone else seems to forget that Rocco ever existed.
Dax and Jasper attend class as usual, faces impassive, as if they didn’t just lose two of their supposed best friends.
There’s no consequence or punishment for anyone.
“They don’t want to admit that they can’t find the murderer,” Chay says, over lunch. “They just want the whole thing to disappear.”
“Maybe Rocco really did kill himself,” Ares says.
“I doubt it,” Zoe shakes her head.
“It’s only blowing over because the Princes don’t care,” Miles says. “He’s their Heir—but they didn’t love him. How could they?”
“Still . . .” Zoe says. “Their only child . . .”
“They might have made a bigger fuss a year ago,” Miles says. “Dieter Prince is distracted.”
“He’s a sociopath like Rocco,” Zoe says, coldly. “He doesn’t feel anything.”
“That’s a good thing,” Miles tells her, gently. “Otherwise this might have been a bigger problem. As it stands . . . we’re lucky.”
He casts a quick glance in my direction.
Twice now I’ve seen Miles looking at me as if he might suspect my secret.
In the past, I would have given the truth away immediately.
But now I have the ultimate poker face.
I’m numb inside, hollow and emotionless.
I killed someone.
I’m a murderer.
I know Rocco was awful. I know he wanted to hurt my sister. I know he had to die.
And yet . . . I feel so fucking guilty.
I can’t crush it down.
I can’t make it stop.
For all the things that terrified me about my plan—the possibility that Rocco would torture or kill me, the chance that I’d be caught and executed, or just the fact that it might not work at all, that I’d fail and Rocco would still be walking around free to seek revenge upon my sister . . .
The one thing I never considered is how awful I might feel afterward.
I’ve done something irrevocable.
Whatever happens for the rest of my life . . . I’m different now. I’m no longer innocent. No longer good.
I can never take this back.
And I wouldn’t take it back—that’s the maddest part of all. I don’t regret it. My sister is safe and happy. It’s what I wanted.
But even that fact only serves to prove that I truly am an evil person.
I know myself in a way I never did before.
I killed without hesitation. And I’d do it again.