Broken Trust A Dark High School Romance - Tate James Page 0,37

I knew it was true. They did care, despite their betrayal. I’d been so mad about it all, about how they tricked me into trusting them and then forced me into shooting a man, that I hadn’t wanted to see things from their point of view. But deep down, I knew they did care. It hadn’t all been bullshit.

“Too bad,” Evan huffed, reaching over and grabbing the TV remote to click the screen on. “We won’t play their games if it puts you in any real danger, and today was way over that line. Way over. They could have...” He trailed off with a pained sound, staring straight at the TV and not meeting my gaze. “Spare, they weren’t going to stop.”

A deep shudder ran through me, thinking what would have happened if Beck and Evan hadn’t intervened. “I know.” My voice was quiet and thick with fear.

“No, you don’t know,” Evan replied with a shake of his head. “That guy, Todd, he has a bit of a history. Only reason he isn’t locked up somewhere is that the girls who report him all mysteriously retract their statements and inevitably change schools not long after the fact.”

This made me sit up straighter and stare at Evan in shock. “A ‘history?’ What, you mean he’s raped other girls at Ducis?”

Evan shrugged and started surfing Netflix. “We think so. He’s also suspected of slipping drugs into girl’s drinks at parties. There were also rumors that he physically abused his ex-girlfriend. She disappeared at the beginning of the school year and no one seems to know what happened to her.”

“What?” I squeaked, placing my hand against his chest as I went rigid with shock. “Do you think he did something to her? Like... did he kill her?”

Finally, Evan turned away from the TV and met my eyes with a heavy sigh. “One thing I’ve learned, growing up in a Delta family, is that people are capable of much worse than you’d ever expect. All they need is the means to get away with it and all bets are off.”

“That’s...” I shook my head in stunned disbelief. Then again, given what had just happened to me at school of all places, I could understand where he was coming from. “That’s so fucked up,” I whispered, sagging back into the couch and letting Evan tug me close. “This whole world you live in, it’s totally fucked up.”

“We,” he corrected. “As shit as it is, you’re a part of this world now too.”

He was right, and for the first time in a long time, that thought didn’t make me want to grab those fake IDs in Richard’s office and run for my damn life. Katelyn’s orchestrated attack had shown me the stark reality of human nature. Blackmail, bribery, violence, death... These things weren’t exclusive to Delta and Huntley. They were everywhere, and maybe Delta was my best chance of surviving it all.

Or maybe it would see me killed.

I decided to drop the subject. I’d done enough falling to pieces with Beck, and now I just wanted Evan to distract me and comfort me. Reaching over, I grabbed the remote from his hand and took over the movie search.

“Taken?” he suggested when I flicked past the Liam Neeson classic. I turned a horrified look at him, and he grinned sheepishly. “Kidding,” he offered weakly. “You choose.”

Giving him a side-eye, like he was fucking insane, I quickly selected a cheesy comedy. The absolute last thing I wanted to watch was a goddamn action film about sex trafficking.

13

Beck

It took all my years on years of practice in self-control to keep from punching my fist through a wall as I left the Delta office in Jefferson. My dad had been too busy to even call in and participate, and Langham had been in New York so I’d been left to face Dylan and Evan’s asshole fathers, and Catherine.

And to think, I’d just agreed to owe them a favor. That promise sat uncomfortably across my shoulders, making my skin itch and crawl with sick premonition.

Fuck, I hated that bitch.

How the hell she’d managed to pull the wool over Richard’s eyes all those years ago, I had no idea. In my eyes, she was a snake just waiting to strike. But for what end game? For all accounts she seemed to despise her family more than anything. Was she trying to use Delta’s power to take Huntley down? If so, she should be more up front. We’d happily help, especially if it