Broken Trust: A Dark High School Romance(31)
“It was nothing to do with her,” I barked, cutting off his disgusting reminiscing. “She was just a pawn that Katelyn Huntley chose to get at me.”
There was a long pause, then my father made a thoughtful sound. “Huntley, eh? You’re sure this was one of their stunts?”
I hesitated in my answer just a second. Riley had been confident this was Katelyn’s doing, and I agreed. “Yes, without doubt.”
“That still begs the question how they knew you’d react so violently at this little attack on that Deboise slut.” His insult of Riley made me want to throttle him, but I settled for strangling my steering wheel instead. “You’ve clearly got something going on there, Son.”
Threats underscored his seemingly innocent words, and I knew Riley’s fate hung on how I reacted … but I couldn’t do it. Ignoring her at school the past week had damn near killed me and then to find those fuckers all over her, trying to defile her … nope. No more.
“You listen carefully, old man,” I told my father in a deathly quiet voice. “You lay one finger on Riley, you make one more thinly veiled threat against her, and I will personally see to you getting skinned alive. After all, you know I have that skill, don’t you, Dad?”
Tension lay thick in the long silence after I delivered my threat, and I scarcely dared to breathe. I had never, never threatened my father.
Fuck. I’ve just signed Riley’s death certificate. I need to get her to run… hide…
The explosive laughter down the phone shocked me back to reality, and I pulled the phone away from my ear for a second, double checking it was still Rome Beckett on the other end.
Eventually, my father stopped laughing long enough to speak. “I see how it is, Son,” he chuckled, sounding like he hadn’t laughed that hard in a long time. Hell, I’d never heard him laugh like that. “Sounds like this little girl has more under the surface than we saw from the pathetic creature who cried while shooting that Huntley scum. I’ll be keeping an eye on this interesting development.”
The line clicked and went dead before I could respond, and I smashed my fist into the steering wheel.
“Fuck!” I yelled, thankful for the privacy of my heavily tinted windows so passersby couldn’t see my loss of control. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
I threw my phone onto the passenger’s seat—Riley’s seat—and it bounced onto the floor.
Shit.
My reckless threat had an even worse result than I’d first feared. My father no longer wanted to kill Riley … he was curious about her. This was much worse.
I drummed my fingertips on the leather of my steering wheel, staring out the windscreen and debating my next moves. Take Riley and run? I knew Richard had fake IDs made up for her, I’d found them when snooping his office one night. Knowing Richard, they’d be immaculate forgeries … but he was still Delta. And Delta—right now—was firmly under Rome Beckett’s thumb.
Not for long, though.
My father was becoming less and less interested in Delta day to day, to the point where he was already handing over part of his responsibilities to me. I wasn’t dumb enough to think he was just prepping me to take my seat in a few months when I turned twenty-one. He was up to something.
A flash of blonde hair grabbed my attention, and anger boiled inside me.
I slammed my car door open, stepping out onto the sidewalk and grabbing the arrogant Huntley bitch by the throat. Ignoring her strangled squeals of protest, and the shocked gasps of her friends, I hauled her into an alleyway and slammed her into the dirty brick wall. An overflowing dumpster sat just feet away, and its pungent smell reflected the human trash in front of me.
“Sebastian,” Katelyn purred, a suggestive smile curving her lips despite the firm grip I had around her throat. “I wondered when you’d come to your senses.”
Her body curved into mine like a cat in heat, her hands snaking around my waist like a lover’s embrace. Was she totally oblivious to the danger here? Or just reckless as shit?
“Katelyn, I swear to fucking God,” I growled, barely containing my fury, “it is only through the grace of our family feud that you’re not getting your neck snapped right now. Fuck it, maybe I should do it anyway and just deal with the consequences later. It might be worth it to rid the world of you.”
Her smile widened, totally ignoring the choke hold I had on her as she smirked. “So what are you waiting for, Sebastian? Kill me now. Or are you scared what my daddy will do to you?”
My temper flared and my hand tightened, causing a strangled sound of protest from the Huntley bitch. “Don’t fucking call me that, Katelyn.”
She stared back at me for a long moment, and finally I found a flash of fear in her gaze. Finally, she seemed to be getting it.
“You make one more move against Riley, and even Graeme Huntley won’t be able to keep you safe. Understood?”
“What’s your fascination with her anyway?” she demanded, her face twisting in ugly anger. “She’s a dirty, slutty tramp who probably would have had a good time this morning if you hadn’t interrupted. She’s not one of us.”
This time, instead of being driven into a wild rage at Katelyn’s hateful words, I started laughing. She was so painfully insecure, so threatened by Riley … I almost felt sorry for her.