Page 61 of Merciless Prince
It was unnerving as hell, knowing that I was always being watched in my own space, but there was nothing I could do about it. Even if I asked the university to let me switch dorms, Killian would probably find a way to get into the new one and wire the place up again.
The back of my neck suddenly prickled. I looked up and around to see one of the silver-ringed douchebags staring over at me and mouthing something to me. A threat, no doubt.
My jaw clenched as my body ignited with hatred. I looked back at the lined paper in front of me and tried to concentrate on taking notes from my textbook, but I was so tense and edgy that I pressed down hard enough to snap my pencil.
“Check out Miss Hulk over here,” Leah said, looking at me with raised brows. “You okay?”
I swallowed thickly and forced a smile. “Yeah. It’s just a cheap pencil. They break all the time.”
The Hellfire assholes were snickering over at their table now. I rolled my eyes and returned my gaze to my paper. Their day would come.
They thought they were so powerful and untouchable with their creepy gang and wicked threats, but in the end, they were nothing but pathetic bullies. All of them would be brought to their knees sooner or later. Preferably sooner.
They had no idea how far they’d pushed me the other night when they showed me those videos and threatened to release them if I went public with everything I knew about them. It was too far; enough to break something inside me. My rage and sense of injustice had eclipsed my fear and humiliation, and now I was close to boiling over and taking them down.So fucking close.
I knew I’d go down with them, but I was just going to have to live with that.
I’d considered it all over the last twenty-four hours and figured out the different ways it might happen. If I reported what I knew about the Hellfire Club to the police, or made a viral post about it on TikTok or some other social media platform, they would respond by releasing those videos and photos of me at the bonfire, just like they’d promised.
It would be mortifying, but I’d know exactly what to expect, because I’d already gone through a public roasting when I screwed up my SNS appearance. It was awful and damn near made me want to throw in the towel career-wise, but it didn’t kill me.
If I could survivethatextremely public humiliation, then I could do it again.
After the videos were out, I could make a statement claiming that I was never even at the bonfire and that the recordings were carefully-crafted deep fakes. Or I could take a bolder route and simply own it. Lots of celebrities did that these days. In fact, some people’s entertainment careers had actually benefited from the release of a sex tape. Like Paris Hilton. Or Kim Kardashian. She’d spun the hype from her tape into a reality show and then a billion-dollar entertainment empire.
It wasn’t exactly the direction I’d pictured my career heading in, but if I was going to take down Killian and the other psychopathic assholes in the Hellfire Club, I’d simply have to grit my teeth and deal with it.
Last night, I’d come up with a tentative plan to report the society without them knowing about it immediately. I figured I could write a letter detailing everything I knew and quietly ask a friend to mail it to the police. That way no one from the Hellfire Club’s stalker committee would see or hear me visiting or contacting anyone from the authorities. They wouldn’t see me mail the letter, either, so they wouldn’t have a clue about what I’d done until the cops were up their asses. That would give me enough time to find a safe place to stay while I waited for it all to blow over.
I knew how dangerous it could be for me to mess with this stuff, but I also knew I hadto do it. I couldn’t live the rest of my life knowing I’d witnessed a murder and done nothing about it while the perpetrators walked around free and happy, so as soon as I’d had the idea to turn them in, it quickly took root and grew. The creeping vines twisted around my every thought, squeezing out all other brain activity until I knew I didn’t have a choice.
I knew the man from the grotto’s full name now, too. I already knew it was Joe or Joseph, so yesterday, fueled by my powerful new resolve and anger, I spent two hours searching all over the web on a library computer until I found a recent article about a missing man from Brooklyn. As soon as I read his full name—Joseph Regan Cafferty—and saw his photo, it all flooded back to me. It was definitely him. His family had reported him missing a couple of months ago, and the police had no leads.
They’d damn well have one soon.
There was just one problem with my plan to expose the Hellfire Club and get some justice for Joseph Cafferty’s family. In order to give my wild story some credibility, so the police didn’t think I was crazy or an attention-seeker, I’d have to get Cori, Rumer, Ashleigh, and Dionne to come forward with me and admit that they’d seen everything in the Beaumont grotto too.
That would paint a huge target on all of their backs.
I didn’t mind subjecting myself to the fear that would arise once the Hellfire Club discovered what I’d done, but I drew the line at forcing that same fear onto my friends. So, even though I desperately needed them to back me up, I wasn’t sure I could ask them to do it, because I couldn’t stand the thought of them getting hurt.
It was a real conundrum.
I sighed and rubbed my temples. Leah looked up from her side of the table. “You sure you’re okay?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I’m just sick of this stupid textbook. I never should’ve picked history for my broadening elective.”
She let out a snort of dry laughter. “Tell me about it. I’m so over studying.” She glanced over at the clock on the wall, and her eyes widened. “Shit, speaking of studying, my next lecture is in ten minutes. I should go.”
I walked out of the library with her, not wanting to be alone in the stacks with the guys from the Hellfire crew.
Once I returned to my dorm, I decided to text Cori. She was always good at giving advice, so she’d probably know exactly what to do with my crazy situation. I just had to get her somewhere alone with no phones so we could talk about it properly without being overheard.
Hey,I wrote to her.I need to talk to you. Are you free to meet up somewhere? We could go for another hike if you have time. Let me know xoxo
She didn’t respond right away, so I tried to put the Hellfire situation out of my mind and focus on practicing for an upcoming show I’d been cast in.
That was the one silver lining on my currently-cloudy existence—my budding acting career was already recovering despite the SNS incident and Killian’s attempted blacklisting.
