Harrison purses his lips, amusement dancing in his eyes as he leans forward. “Please, do tell; what is it we’ve done that has ruffled your feathers, Katherine Falcon?”
“You pretentious, condescending, entitled, little, tight-wearing bitch!” she yells.
Holy shit, I think as I step to her side.
“What the hell did you assholes do now?” I snap at all of them.
“Wasn’t Saturday night enough?” Kiki snaps at me, and I watch as three of the four pricks present lean back and cross their arms in sync, as if they choreographed it.
“No big thing, Kiki. No big thing at all.”
All of them begin pulling their phones out of their pockets and look at their screens.
When they all try not to laugh, Kiki reaches across the table and slaps the phone out of Kai’s hand. It goes flying across the table.
“You crazy bitch!” Kai starts to stand, but I reach across and shove him two-handed, so he’s forced to sit down.
“You think she’s crazy? Try me,” I spit.
Brisa steps beside me. “Try all of us.”
Miles holds his phone up, screen toward me, grip visibly firmer than the others. “You sure about that? Not sure I’m your type. Apparently, you’re all into each other.”
I watch as a montage of pictures and videos, including me on Patrick’s back the other night, to Justice sleeping in my bed, from outside my fucking bedroom window, and farm animals fucking, play on the screen while text rolls across them.
Kissing Cousins. Brotherly Love. Incest is Best.
“You’ve crossed so many lines. So. Fucking. Many.” I point a finger in their faces. “You’re done now.” I turn around and scan the room. “You’re all done now.”
I see Nina giggling. “What’s so funny, bitch? You and half the hoes in this place have swallowed our DNA, so you know this is bullshit.”
“Slander, actually,” Kiki adds then turns around. “Lawyer-up. We’re done here.”
I then hear Justice’s voice boom throughout the room, “What the fuck are you laughing at, Madeline? I’m pretty sure I have a video that you had me take on your phone of you bent over your daddy’s desk.”
“Principal’s office?” Patrick asks him.
Justice lifts his chin in response.
“How was it?” Amias asks.
“Mediocre, at best,” Justice says, looking to the horsemen. He then steps forward. “You want a fight? You’ll get one, and then this is done.”
I snap my head toward him. When his eyes lock on mine, I know he just agreed to something he never wanted to do … for me.
He looks back at them. “Saturday night.”
Chapter Nine
Tobias
No more
“What the fuck is this?” I slam my phone down on the coffee table between the two couches in a place I call home less than fifty percent of the time.
“Chill,” Miles sighs. To him, it’s no big fucking deal when someone with a bottomless purse and a legal team that could rival General Electric could come at you, because his uncle is the COO of that very company and pays his way through life.
“A harmless little prank.” Harrison smirks until he looks at my face. “Relax, my friend, we aren’t behind it, but it works in our favor to retain control over our environment.”
I slap the glass from his hand, and it flies across the room before it smashes against the cabinets. The glass shatters, and whiskey splatters all over.
Kai stands up and looks at me, nostrils flaring. “You jumping ship, Easton?”
“You don’t run the game. I run the fucking game. And in case you forgot, I don’t jump ship. I toss bitches off it. All three of you were already fucking close with ambushing me with a last-minute fight, knowing damn well I’m months from graduation.” I stop just short of mentioning Truth Steel’s name with all the shit that went down this weekend, no doubt putting a bigger target on her back, possibly fucking up my future. “Now you’re toying with the entire Steel crew.”
“We aren’t underclassmen anymore, Easton. We aren’t afraid of the new kid from the other side of the tracks who kicked Whitaker’s ass and overthrew the institution’s hierarchy that had been in place since 1899, or Reeves who had the balls to try to take it back from you,” Kai snaps.
My jaw clenched, fists balled, rage building inside, and seeing red, I nod my head up and down.
“Easy, man,” Harrison says, trying to defuse the situation building at a breakneck speed.
“Fuck that. Fuck you, and fuck you, and fuck you. I’m done. You hear me? I’m fucking done!”
They all look at one another with a recognizable look. They’ve done something, again.
Miles is the first one to look at me and speak up. “You’re done? Then step down and hand over the reins. Your shit’s getting weak.”
Harrison chuckles, and I glare at him.
“I’m not in any hurry, man.”
Fucker has no clue he’s not even a distant blip on the radar now.
They continue looking at each other, and I get a sick feeling in my stomach.
“You better start talking now, because this was the four of us right up until last weekend.”
“Don’t kid yourself. You pulled away right after they moved here,” Miles states.
Kai sits down now. “When you started skipping lunch with us and hitting the gym, we chalked it up to a natural need to get bigger, stronger, to protect what was yours.”
“Protect what was mine?” I huff.
Harrison shakes his head. “Don’t act like you don’t see eight strong and want to ruin it. We all do. Until Katherine’s dirty little secret came to light, I was gonna make that mine.”
Dirty little secret meaning she’s pregnant and having a child with a man she actually married a few months ago. She’s eighteen, not fifteen like my mother was when she had me.
“Truth? I’ll have to endure for longer, and she’ll be a bit more difficult to tame, but with Gabby and her butting heads, I don’t even have to try to get in that. She’ll come willingly.” Harrison smirks, and I want to wipe that fucking smug look off his face.
“You think, with the shit you pulled today, that’s gonna happen? Goats on videos bashing with pictures of her, and texts accusing her of fucking her crew? Really doesn’t shout I want to have a relationship with you.”
“Says the guy fucking Downward Dee, knowing she’s an onto-the-next kind of woman in about—”
“You don’t think that’s why I’m fucking her?”
“Where’s the hunt in that?” Harrison sighs, and I’m ready to snap when he says, “The video was unfortunate; possibly forced my progression from this weekend two steps back. But I’m telling you, it wasn’t us.”
“Then who the fuck was it?”
“More pressing matters to attend to,” Harrison states. “Justice Steel agreed to a fight this weekend.”
“What the fuck do you mean agreed to?” I snap.
“While you’ve been fucking the yoga instructor and stepping away from us, we’ve been looking toward the future,” Miles says.