“It’s a bad idea,” I say flatly. “ThePavones won’t stand for it.”
My father sighs loudly. “Did I stutter the first time? Send a message. If you’re too cowardly to do so?—”
Coward.
“I’m not!” I snap back, my hands gripping the phone tightly. “I’m not afraid. I just think we can be smarter about it.”
“And let them believe that they can get away with this? No. Either you do it, or I send somebody else to take care of it. And I might decide there’s no reason for you to stay at Dyschord. I don’t need everyone knowing my son is a cowardly little pissant.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. After a breath, I growl, “I’ll do it. Pandora is my responsibility."
“That’s what I thought.” He hangs up on me, and I stare at the phone.
I’m tempted to throw it against the wall, but it’s Asch’s phone and it’d be a pain to replace it when my own phone is probably destroyed in the fire.
I rest against the wall and go through it in my mind.
Pandora used me. She seduced me to get into the house; she practically begged me to go to sleep with her. She set the firewhile I was inside.
She could have killed me. She could have killed Asch.
Her brother attacked us.
She stabbed Declan.
She hurt Asch. She hurt River.
I take a deep breath and steel myself.
She deserves it.
The gym door opens. Asch and River both come out looking grim.
“It’s going to be hard to talk them down,” Asch says. “But if you get Zayden removed…”
“No,” I say. “We’re doing it. We need to teach Pandora a lesson.”
Asch purses his lips. “Blaze…”
“What?” I snap at him. “All of this is her fault. Everything that happened is because of her.”
“She’s a Pavone,” Asch replies, sounding more cautious. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”
“She burned all your stuff, Asch,” I say. “Everything you painfully collected, all the money you invested in it. Down the drain.”
Asch’s expression darkens. He takes so much pride in having built so many things for himself, all on next to nothing.
“And she didn’t give a shit that we were both in the building. My door waslocked, Asch. If you hadn’t woken me up…”
If Asch hadn’t noticed the fire, or if he’d been in the back where the flames were strongest. I imagine Asch suffocating in the smoke, crying out for help that nobody brings, and my anger burns brighter.
Asch’s breathing is coming more erratically, and his hands fist at his sides. “What’s the plan?”
River looks between the two of us, his expression incredulous. “What do you mean, what’s the plan? We don’t even know that she did it.”
Asch stares at him. “If you really think she’s innocent, I have a bridge to sell you,” he says. “You know she’s guilty. Whatever you told her…”
“I didn’t tell her anything,” River says through gritted teeth.
