Page 143 of Unwritten Rules

Reaper wasn’t the type you doubted if you wanted to stay alive.

“So this girl has been living with the Montgomery heir and no one thought to prod into her life or background?” His anger was growing again and maybe he’d find something to beat us both with at this rate.

“You told me to stayawayfrom her until you assigned us together.”

Yeah, that did it. He chucked his glass at me and it hit me in the face.

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Icouldn’t wait tobe out of this fucking school. Proudly displaying my new cut up face and developing bruised eye, I sat at the bar at the latest stupid fucking party I got dragged into. Most of the parties weren’t for fun—working for The Dictator never ended and I was on the clock twenty-four-seven.

“Hey baby, what happened to your face?”Not this girl again. She wouldn’t take the hint to leave me the fuck alone. There was an angle with her and there always would be one where she was involved.Lucky me.

Knocking the drink back, I looked over at her. No minions around meant she had something up her sleeve. “Haven’t looked in a mirror so I wouldn’t know.”

”Let me guess...you were defending my honor?” Her finger swirled around on my forearm and trailed up to my shoulder. “So sweet of you. I can give you a massage as a thank you upstairs if you’d like.”

”Nah.” I shrugged her off and signaled for another round.

She sat on the stool next to me and played with her hair. It wasn’t anything like Fallon’s hair—it was brunette that she highlighted to get as close to blonde as she could while still maintaining her brunette status. “You can’t keep telling me no, Brent. Bad things will happen if you do that.”

”Can you cut to the chase already? I’m tired of your games.”

Ever since she had a hinting suspicion that I was on my way out, she decided to get dirty and mean. The threats did nothing to me, but she decided to drag Fallon into the mix, and that’s where I drew the line. She could throw whatever she wanted at me because I knew nothing would happen outside of her temper tantrums. If it was Fallon she was after, there was a good chance she knew she could get me to bend the knee if she tried hard enough.

“You and I are meant to end up together. You know, the power couple of the century.” She fiddled with the straw in her drink, batting her eyelashes at me.

How many times would I have to tell her that wasn’t cute? It was annoying.

“If I were meant to end up with someone, it's not you.”

“I could kill her, you know.” Such a casual tone for such a serious threat.

My patience wore thin. “Pray tell, how would you do that?”

She could kill Fallon, in theory. It would be harder to pull off than just killing some random kid or someone without a high profile name or company. Fallon was a target for more than one person; adding Sloane didn’t make a huge difference. I had my suspicions she would try to take out her romantic competition, but to do it for that sole purpose? No way. There was a larger carrot dangling in front of her if she wanted to kill what’s mine.

Playing with a stemmed cherry, she let out a laugh. “She’s so fragile that the shorter list would be what wouldn’t kill her. Plus,” she brushed her hand across mine, “half the fun is watching you unable to do anything about it. You’ll come running back to me in every scenario, begging me to take you back.” That was the Sloane I knew. The evil, conniving one.

Everyone saw her as the bubbly socialite, meeting everyone and shaking hands. She got to know everyone and it was for a reason. Underneath the pink was a dark and twisted core that knew the secrets of a lot of the students around. She played the big sister role well and got people to spill their guts in the form of the biggest secrets, then turned those secrets over in exchange for something else—her place at the table.

If you wanted to remain in our world, you needed to abide by the rules and make yourself irreplaceable.

“You’re playing on thin ice right now. You think because you haven’t been touched thus far that you’re untouchable. Let’s see how far you get throwing stones in your glass house.”

Leaving the bar, I pulled out my phone and dialed everyone. We were all hands on deck if the world was coming for what wasmine.

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