Page 9 of Those Heartless Boys

Afterward, no matter how much I try to concentrate on my coursework, a gnawing feeling eats at me. My intuition tells me I just awakened a beast. I was afraid this might happen now that I’m alone. The assholes are going to come out thinking I’m weak and susceptible.

Just fucking let them. We’ll see what happens.

5

Turns out I wasn’t wrong.

Within an hour, the guys are back. This time, they don’t knock on the door.

The stomping on the outside balcony alerts me first. I try to peer through the lacy curtains in the front room to see who the hell is making so much noise when my door flies open, catching on the chain lock that I put in place as soon as they left the last time.

From the crack between the frame and the door, a boot lands back on the ground with a hard thud.

My heart flies into my throat.What the fuck?I snicker outwardly though. Ha. They thought they were just going to come right in this time. Nope. Not going to—

A pair of bolt cutters sneaks into the gap, and the chain falls apart with a snip.

Fuck!I back up into the couch, my second-hand laptop falling to the floor. In steps Lance Jacobs. He’s a well-dressed man my father’s age, wearing a polo shirt and khakis in soft colors, almost like he just got off the golf course after playing eighteen holes. The look on his face, though, is thunderous. I’ve never met Lance Jacobs in person, but dollars to doughnuts, this is him. I recognize him from TV. Plus, he and Stone share the same blond hair, along with some of the other darker elements of their personalities.

“Miss Wilder, I presume?” He gazes around the room with distaste before settling his attention back on me.

I swallow. There’s a solid ball of ice in my stomach about the same size that took out the Titanic. I lick my lips, my tongue darting out as I assess the situation. The boys have all entered the room, too. Lucas, looking bored as fuck, as usual. Wyatt, with his dark gaze on me. And Stone? He stands just to the left of his father, but a little back, his gray-blue eyes penetrating like liquid mercury. So fucking dangerous. I can feel it in the air, a tension thick around me, alerting me that we’re not playing a normal game now.

These guys are serious.

All those thoughts I had earlier? The ones swimming to the surface that made my thighs weak? Yeah, they’re definitely gone. These guys aren’t the type to get mixed up with.

“I hear you won’t look at my offer.”

I scowl at him. “You have nothing I want,” I tell him, shoving my fist into the air internally when my voice doesn’t waver.

I shouldn’t get too cocky though.

He tilts his head to the side, clearly telling me I’m about as full of shit as they come. “Don’t think we’re blind to your financial situation. You need us. Not just to find the treasure but to…I don’t know, continue eating. You do want to continue eating, don’t you, Miss Wilder?”

The nerve of him to break my door down and assume I’ll give up my family’s secrets to him of all people. That I can be bought out. I ball my hands to fists, praying I look as threatening as I feel on the inside. “I already told your son, I’m not fucking interested. Breaking down my door like you’re some sort of badass—which is truly funny when I think about how much time you sit behind your desk—isn’t going to win me over either.”

His eyes flare, zeroing in on me. “I think you’re about to become really interested when you realize what we can do to you. Boys.”

Just this one word, and my room erupts. Wyatt and Lucas spread out. Everything they touch gets smashed or ripped or broken under their heel. “Hey,” I call out when Wyatt grabs my laptop off the floor. Stone’s arms surround me, yanking me back to his solid chest. My half-written English paper is on that laptop. Wyatt throws it at Lance who catches it out of the air, nodding at the boy who continues to wreck my apartment.

I struggle to free myself from Stone’s grip, but he’s strong as fuck. I slam my foot down on his toes, and he growls in my ear, fingers digging into me. “Know your place.”

Fury rises in me, making my neck and cheeks flush with an angry red hot heat. I watch a little longer as Lucas and Wyatt systematically go through my apartment. I narrow my gaze at them. They’re not just trashing it for trashing sake, they’re searching for something too. I laugh, the sound ruthless and harsh to my own ears. “What you’re looking for isn’t here.”

There was a period when my grandfather was alive that everyone tried to “steal” what we knew. He had a number of break-ins and scary run-ins with people who meant him harm. I guess we’re in that part of the treasure hunting process again. When no one found what they were looking for, that’s when the town turned against us, calling us all kooks. Suddenly, we weren’t these adventurers who were going to find a piece of missing American history, we were just crazies. Because they couldn’t find it, they thought the whole treasure had been made up and followed by a bunch of ignorant nobody’s.

“Your father had all the maps. The lore. He had everything he needed to find what’s hidden. Now that he’s dead, you have it.”

I swallow, my throat about as prickly as a hundred cacti. “That’s right, I do. And you’re never going to get your hands on it.”

“Give it to me!” Lance yells, his face akin to a devil mask on Halloween. He’s furious, yes, but there’s something else there, too. He’s desperate. If he wasn’t, he would’ve already pulled this shit on us

My fingers clench. “Fuck. Off.”

Lance raises his hand, bringing it back to his ear like he’s going to whip it forward to bitch slap me. My stomach bottoms out, but Stone swings me to the side, taking me just out of his father’s reach. “Dad,” he warns.

My heart catapults around in my chest. Dread slithers in with an icy fear. He was going to hit me. This isn’t just some fear tactic, he was going to take this to a whole different level until Stone called him to his senses.

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