Kings of Anarchy (Brutal Boys of Everlake Prep #3) - Caroline Peckham Page 0,238

and return your name to you. So, I have come up with what I think is a fair offer for reparations, but if you don’t agree then you may of course tell us what it is you think you deserve.”

“Reparations?” Toby asked, staring between the three of us like this was some kind of crazy joke and he couldn’t actually believe a word of it.

Kyan chuckled like this was funny as fuck and I just shrugged. I hadn’t realised that Saint intended to make amends for the shit we’d done to this kid, but I had to say I was impressed by his morals even letting him know that that was the right thing to do. And by the fact that he actually had morals. Fuck, was he just about to prove to me once and for all that he wasn’t a total son of a bitch? Because if he stood up like a man and owned his shit and tried to make amends for it then that told me all I needed to know about his similarities to his father, the man who had lied and cheated and destroyed my family to cover up his own wrongdoing.

“We got it wrong,” I said. “And we’ve been total cocks to you, so that sounds fair to me.”

Toby nodded though I could tell he would be happy if we just left it at giving him his name back and promising not to torture him anymore.

“I think that the mental and physical anguish we caused you was severe enough to equal a financial sum of one hundred thousand dollars,” Saint said calmly and I had to fight not to gape at that ridiculous sum of money, but he wasn’t done there. “Per week that you were subjected to it.”

“A hundred thousand a week?” I asked, because surely I hadn’t heard him right. We’d been hounding Toby for months, that was a fucking fortune.

Saint cut me a scathing look and went on. “Please ignore the pauper in the room. Does that sum seem fair to you? I will round the final six days up to the full weekly sum too as a show of good faith.”

“Err, yeah,” Toby agreed and I could see that he was calculating that amount too. That was a fuck ton of money, why didn’t I just volunteer to be their punching bag for a few months? I’d be set for fucking life.

“Good.” Saint pulled an honest to shit cheque book from his back pocket and wrote out so many zeros that I just stared at the thing before he signed it with a flourish and handed it to Toby. “I will of course make sure your parents understand that those rumours about your drug use and dealing were false as well as reassure them about any other unfortunate rumours which may have reached their notice. Additionally, I happen to know the Dean of admissions at Brown so I can make sure you get that placement you want. I can also arrange several favourable business deals for your father’s company, and I am willing to offer you the hand of friendship for life. This means that, assuming you never try to fuck me over, I will gladly offer you my support in any business dealings that we may have in our futures. Is this acceptable to you? Does it make us even?”

“Yeah,” Toby breathed. “More than even. I’ve already forgotten about all of it.”

Saint quirked a smile then shot me a look that said it was my turn to speak, but I had no idea what I was meant to be saying so I just raised an eyebrow in question.

Saint sighed like I was testing his patience and inclined his head to Toby but I still wasn’t getting it, so he was forced to explain. “Nash has something to offer you in reparations too,” he said firmly.

“I do?” I glanced between him and Toby, but I didn’t have a small fortune to hand over. Hell, I doubted I owned a single thing he wanted. He might have been at the bottom of the pecking order recently, but he was still a trust fund kid with more money than I’d ever be able to lay claim to. But he was looking at me all expectantly and shit, so I had to think of something. Not least because if I allowed Saint to be the better man in this situation, I was going to have to seriously revaluate the way I looked