Bass. This is his chance to tell me what he’s hiding.”
“One minute,” Victoria reminds us.
“And if he doesn’t?” Bass lifts his brow, mockingly.
I push forward, tugging the door open and stepping into the hall.
“Make sure the area is empty.” They nod and make quick work of disappearing behind the boy’s and girl’s locker room doors.
I slide into the concave that holds a water fountain and wait.
Not five seconds later, Chloe’s voice is within range.
“My concern is the article doesn’t depict the proper tone we strive for.” The door opens.
“What would you have me do, Ms. Carpo?”
Chloe’s heels clink against the flooring until she stops right where I’m hidden. She doesn’t look for me, doesn’t blink, but spins to face him, dropping her binder in front of her, standing as straight as a statue. “I’d have you castrated for abandoning a Brayshaw, trying to hurt one, and helping hide another. In my home, there is no room for dishonesty. You lie, you pay. You hurt ours, we crush yours. You should know this already though, Connor. It was your world once, too.”
“What the hell is this?” He speaks slowly.
I step out, my eyes hitting his before I turn my body to face him completely.
“Raven,” he edges, subconsciously taking a step backward, his eyes flying to the door behind me when Chloe lets it slam with her exit. “What is this?” He takes in my fresh bruising. “What happened? Why are you here alone? Where are the boys? Did—”
“Are you done?” I ask and his shoulders fall some. He closes his mouth. “Good.” I nod. “I have questions.”
“I can’t—”
“But you will because you’re smart enough to recognize a give and get when you see one.”
“You’ve already married him, Raven.”
“I’m not looking for a way out of this.”
“Then what?”
“My mom had me raped when I was twelve,” I tell him, not blinking when he stumbles back a step. “By a man you used to know.”
His brows knit at the center.
“She paid this man. It makes no sense.” I shake my head. “People, her people, from our neighborhood would have done it gladly and free. Men have asked for me over the years, but she’d act jealous and make them leave. I think she used the man she did, a man who had ties to this world, hoping it would get back to Donley. Why would she do that if he didn’t know I existed?”
“I...” Perkins shakes his head, looking off. “I don’t know.”
“What do you know, Connor?” I ask him.
He looks to the floor. “What she told me. That she was leaving him, that she didn’t need the money or the town. That her and I could go somewhere and be together, away from it all. I believed her. She wanted to be with me, I know it.”
“What happened?”
“She was supposed to meet me but didn’t show, so I went to the Graven Estate, ready to go in and get her, but my brother met me at the gates instead. He was smiling in a way I’d never seen, and I knew the woman we both loved gave him what she promised to keep for me.”
“Her virginity.”
He gives a curt nod, looking away. “I went out, preyed on someone who was hurting more than I was that night.”
“Captain’s mom.”
“She was crying, devastated. She had no family, was a foster kid who found someone to love. All she wanted was to have a child and show them a love she never knew, and she knew the life she was about to marry into meant no children of her own.”
“There are plenty of ways to be a parent that doesn’t include a fertile fucking husband.”
He gives a small nod before continuing. “I comforted her, knowing she’d break.” His sad eyes hit mine. “She was in my arms and then my bed within an hour, but she couldn’t stay long. She was getting married that night.”
Jesus Christ.
“Ravina was gone four months later but not before she got a note to me. She said she was sorry, and she had a secret she couldn’t hide if she were here.”
“A belly,” I croak.
He nods. “That was my first thought. I never understood why she’d take off. If she chose him, fine. I stayed out of her face, never stepped foot in that house again after he told me she gave him her. Her leaving made no sense to me. It really made no sense when Felix broke down months later.” Perkins eyes me.
My chest muscles constrict.
“Ravina seduced Felix