“Everything I touch turns to ash,” she murmurs, and I place a kiss to her forehead.
“Not anymore. The worst of it is behind you, and you’ll get through it, baby. You’re not alone. You have me, the guys, this school, and an entire future ahead of you.”
“How are you so sure? How do I know you won’t leave, too?”
I snort. “I’m not going anywhere, little menace. You’re stuck with me.”
FIFTY-TWO
LANA
TWO WEEKS LATER
Ihaven’t left the guys’ cottage in two weeks. They’ve been hovering over me constantly, each of them like little mother hens. Even Logan has been a shadow around me when no one else is around. It’s freaking weird.
We’ve developed a sort of… friendship?
He’ll chill with me when the other guys are all busy and drop in with coffee during the day when Cole can’t because of class or some other reason.
I’ve spent the time healing, not wanting to show my face on campus and have people questioning why I look like I got hit by a Mack truck once again.
Things are different between Cole and I, too. He hasn’t been distant exactly—more like he’s been trying to give me time and space to get my head around everything.
Not like that’s going well at all.
A few days after everything happened, I started looking into my family, trying to find answers.
It was no use.
The most I could find was an article about their deaths. According to that, my father, mother, and all three of my brothers died in a fire. There was no mention of me anywhere, which is probably my dad’s doing, making sure my existence was completely erased to anyone who went looking.
I also tried to move back into the dorms, but the guys sat me down for some sort of intervention and politely told me that if I move my things back into my old room, they’ll kidnap me and move it all back. Even Noah and Harley were on board with the plan. It’s weird to be a part of their group when I’ve spent the last few months watching them.
The school has hired a new dean, a woman in her fifties with an impressive background when it comes to education, unlike Dare’s work experience.
Pain hammers in my chest every time I think about him, but I know he wouldn’t want me to sit and wallow. He’d want me to move on with my life, just like my dad would.
They’ll always be my family, and even though I’m devastated they’re both gone, I’m grateful for everything they did for me.
I throw on one of Cole’s hoodies, since I’ve noticed he likes to see me wearing his clothes—possessive asshole that he is—and grab my bag before heading out.
I received an email this morning from the administration. I guess now that Dare’s gone, it’s been flagged that I haven’t actually been paying to go here, and now that I know for sure that I’ll be staying, I need to set up a payment plan if I intend to stay. I have more than enough money from the inheritance I got from Dad, and even though I do have the money I inherited at eighteen from my birth family, I refuse to touch it. It’s a good thing Dare had the foresight to fuck with my admittancedocuments, making it so that I have a full background history, because I certainly wouldn’t qualify for a place here otherwise.
It feels like I don’t deserve the money when I can’t even figure out what happened to them.
I ignore the curious stares I get from other students and take out my phone when it vibrates in my pocket.
Reed
All done, A. Let me know if you need anything.
I smile to myself. I may have not been in my right mind when I woke up at the Richardson property, but Iwaslucid enough to look for Reed. I had honestly expected to be carrying his body out with Dare’s, only I found him stitching himself up after removing a bullet from his shoulder.
We exchanged numbers and I told him to call me if he ever needed anything. It was the least I could do for him after everything he did to help me, but he was already shaking his head as the words left my mouth, telling me that my dad was one of the best men he’d ever known.
A few days after getting home, he’d called to tell me what wasreallygoing on with the Virtus company. Apparently, after my dad died and they struggled to rebuild, they started taking on any and all work they could get their hands on, something my dad would have never allowed. He would roll over in his grave if he knew what they had turned his organization into. I had told Reed to give me a few weeks of recovery and I’d take them all out, but he refused, telling me he already had a plan in place, and I guess his plan worked, if the text means what I think it does.
All of them?
