Page 56 of Brutal King

Find Kobe, I finally decided.

I marched out of my room to find Layla enjoying the oyster omelet.

“Did you say that Kobe made this?” she said, pointing at her plate with her fork.

“Yeah,” I muttered.

“He’s more talented than I thought.”

“Yeah.”

“You okay? Did your talk with your dad shed any light on this?”

“You wouldn’t happen to know where Kobe is, would you?” I said, side-stepping her question.

“Axel said he wanted to throw the football around, but Kobe was working on his project. Now that the project fell through, maybe they’re both out on the field...”

“Thanks,” I said before she could finish. I hurried out, eager to confront him.

I marched across campus, rehearsing in my head what I would say to him. As I neared the football field, all my muscles tensed up. What would he say? How would he explain what had happened?

Reaching the edge of the field I saw them. The football flew through the air, spinning as it reached Axel who quickly threw it back.

“Kobe!” I called out.

The distraction was enough for him to miss the oncoming football that landed on his left shoulder. He ignored the football and rushed over to see me.

“Kat,” he said with a tentative smile. “I didn’t expect to see you.”

“How long have you known about this supposed feud between your father and mine?”

“Wait a minute. What?”

“You know damn well what I’m talking about Kobe. Is that the reason you ghosted me? Is that why you’ve treated me like dirt these past years?”

“Kat,” he said as he reached for my elbow. “Let’s go sit down and talk about this.”

I pulled away from his touch. “There’s no need to sit down. Just answer me. Is this silly feud the reason you welcomed me to this academy – your father’s academy – with a plateful of food on my head?”

He huffed, looked around, then met my gaze. “My father can be quite forceful when...”

“Bastard!” I shouted. “That’s why you were so nasty when we were teamed up. But then what had you going soft, Kobe? Was it all part of the trap? All part of your sick game? Yeah. Let’s reel Kat in. Make her fall for a King, just to play her like a fool? Let’s ruin her chances of a good grade at Dad’s school. And then let’s humiliate her in front of the entire school. Was that it? Was that your plan all along?”

Gaping, he stared at me.

“Well, you can go on with your little game, Kobe. You can try to humiliate me by letting the school know how gullible and naïve I was to trust you. To think I almost fell for you.” I poked his chest with my finger. “But I won’t be here to be humiliated, Kobe. I’m quitting this shitty little academy. You and the rest of the Kings can just shove this crappy school up your ass!”

Fists clenched, I turned and walked away.

Chapter 17

Kat

WITH NO PROJECT TO work on, I decided to go out to Ginger to see what I could do. After all, it was still my father’s project and that alone was enough to make me work even harder to get Ginger up and running. Because of me trusting the Academy and Kobe King, Ginger was vandalized by them. I felt bad about letting my father down, and I felt bad about putting Trent in such a bad position. Imagine his big break in opening a new concept restaurant for the Lee Enterprises, just to have it sabotaged and destroyed even before it could open. I have to do my best to help fix this.

I arrived to find Trent sweeping up the broken glass. The broken chairs were stacked in one corner while the few that were still intact were lined up against the far wall, as were the intact tables.

“Hi,” I said.

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