Broken Trust: A Dark High School Romance(3)

My shaking fingers flipped the six deadbolts closed and I stepped back into Dante’s warm embrace. I didn’t know how long he’d been there, but the second his arms closed around me it was like the floodgates opened. My whole body shook with sobs as I buried my face in his bandaged chest, and he just stood there stroking my hair. Exactly the pillar of strength I needed when my whole world was crumbling around me.





2





Every day, one of the guys showed up outside Dante’s apartment building. It started the morning after they’d shown up to “apologize” and I’d slammed the door in their lying faces. Dylan appeared in the doorway of the walk up across the road. I spotted him from the window as I brushed my teeth and flipped him off. He’d just folded his arms, leaned on the wall, and grinned at me.

The next day was Evan. The next was Jasper.

The whole time I stayed at Dante’s they maintained this routine. Watching me… Like I was a flight risk. They weren’t wrong. Not a day passed that I didn’t think about the fake IDs in Richard Deboise’s office. But if I fled … what would happen to Dante? To Eddy? Not to mention the worry that those IDs wouldn’t work now that they had video footage of me murdering someone? My face wasn’t going to change.

I was fucking trapped.

“Who’s on guard duty today?” Dante asked as I stood at the living room window, staring out absentmindedly while my fingers tangled in the dirty, off-white net curtain. His words startled me, and I jumped slightly as I turned to face him.

He was holding out a mug of coffee and I took it from him with a grateful smile. “Um, Dylan, again.”

Dante quirked a brow and leaned past me to peer out the window. He would see exactly what I’d just been staring down at. Dylan, in his usual spot, sitting on the steps of the old, abandoned laundromat across the road.

Dante gave a sarcastic little finger wave, and I didn’t bother looking to see what Dylan’s reaction was. As if Delta taking Dante, beating him half to death, then holding a gun to his head wasn’t bad enough, now they were stalking us.

“Still no Beckett, huh?” My best friend said the words lightly, but I didn’t miss the intense way he watched me when we made our way over to the couch.

I shrugged, like it didn’t tear me up inside that Dylan, Evan, and Jasper had been outside—watching me—every damn day, but not once had Beck showed up. “Why should he do his own dirty work?” I murmured with a scathing edge.

Dante’s jaw clenched, and his knuckles turned white on his mug, but I was too exhausted to press him for what he was thinking. Probably about how Beck had personally broken three of his ribs and he’d like to return the favor. I wouldn’t mind lending a hand.

“Riles,” he started, but stopped when his phone buzzed loudly on the coffee table. Mine had run out of battery days ago and I just hadn’t bothered to charge it. What was the point?

Dante picked up his device and scowled at the screen before answering the call.

“Catherine,” he drawled, making eye contact with me as he spoke, “How lovely to hear from you. We wondered how long it would take.”

I gave him frantic what the fuck are you doing faces, but he shrugged and clicked the call to speaker phone just in time for me to catch my birth-mother’s chilling response.

“Tell my daughter that she’s expected to return to school tomorrow morning, or we will take action. I have been more than lenient, but enough is enough. This little temper tantrum has gone on long enough.”

I scoffed a humorless laugh. “Or fucking what, bitch? You’ll turn in that little snuff film to the police? All because I won’t go to school? Fuck off.”

Catherine laughed then, and it was one of the coldest sounds I’d ever heard. “You think that’s our only card to play? Your stupidity astounds me, girl.”

I met Dante’s eyes over the phone he held between us, and ice formed in my belly. They’d already beaten him, and threatened to shoot him… Was there more? Maybe I was underestimating Delta.

“Here’s what will happen,” Catherine continued, her tone icy and uncaring. “You’ll attend Ducis Academy, just like the good little Deboise heir that you are. You’ll excel in classes, you’ll keep your head down, and you’ll stay out of trouble. When we require you to act in Delta’s interests, you’ll do so without question or argument. In return, I’ll allow you to live outside the Delta compound. Stewart will source a suitable apartment for you, because frankly I’m sick of having you under foot.”

I spluttered in confusion. “And if I don’t?”

“Then I will personally break one of Edith Langham’s fingers every day until you comply. It’s your choice.” She hung up then, and I scrambled off the couch. I just barely made it to the bathroom before the contents of my stomach began emptying into the porcelain bowl, hot tears stinging my eyes and streaming down my face as I sobbed and vomited.

Dante crouched beside me, his gentle hand stroking my hair out of my face and just being there for me. He always had been, but since Beck—and the guys—betrayed me, I was appreciating just how much Dante cared for me.

“They’re fucking twisted,” I croaked, after wiping my mouth on the wet washcloth he handed me. My whole body was trembling, and Dante just gathered me up in his arms, pulling me into his lap despite his own injuries.