Page 13 of Pretty Secrets

I drop into the chair opposite him, over this meeting before it’s even officially started. “If it’s about the girl, she’s nothing. Looks like a mouse to me.” My lip curls when I replay her walking from the dress shop in those clothes. And I thought she’d be interesting to play with too, but I should’ve known better. Carnegie girls are all the same.

Franklin Jarvis shakes his head, disappointment darkening his features. “I was hoping I wouldn’t have to do this.” Standing from his seat, he buttons his suit jacket while he walks around the desk. He comes up behind me, and my shoulders instantly straighten as I wait for the ball to drop.

His presence is looming and sinister, like always. I know the things he’s done, and I know how he could just as easily make those things happen to me. When he finally speaks, he’s so close that I have to dig my fingernails into the chair to keep from reacting. “You do know how much I have your balls in a vise, don’t you, Leonardo? You can keep pontificating that you don’t care about this family, but I don’t see you out there doing anything about it. It’s a lot of talk for a small-minded man. I’ll pull the plug on everything you’ve got coming to you, son. You know I will.”

I grit my teeth. When you’re a Jarvis, there are stipulations to your inheritance, and yes, my grandfather does have me by the fucking nuts. I wish I’d stayed gone. But there’s that little piece of me that wants nothing more than to rightfully take my father’s money and do whatever the fuck I want with it. And I can’t do that until I’m twenty-five. Dear old Grandfather knows he has me until then, so he gives me the shittiest jobs ever—nothing he would ever ask of my cousins, that’s for damn sure. “Yes,” I force out.

“Yes, sir,” he corrects.

It kills me to do it, but I repeat his words back to him anyway, retreating inside myself at the helplessness that wafts over me. I was witness to so many instances between my father and grandfather that went the same as this. My father was never his favorite. According to my grandfather, my whole branch of his family line is cursed with defiance.

I just call it not wanting the past to repeat itself.

“There,” he says. “Was that so hard?”

I swallow to keep my response at bay. I’ve thought about just murdering the old prick, but there are consequences to that too. Even if I could get away with it, there are always stipulations upon stipulations for family screw-ups like me. In order for me to receive my father’s inheritance when I turn twenty-five, my grandfather has to be alive and well—or passed fromnaturalcauses beyond any reasonable doubt. So, yes, indulging this man is getting harder by the day, but I do my best not to let it show. “Not at all,” I tell him, forcing myself to calm.

“Excellent.”

He walks back around the side of the desk and slips a shiny object into his pocket. My jaw clenches. In my world, you worry about things like the patriarch of your family taking you out. If I died, he’d take my father’s money and add it to his ever-growing stash. There is no next of kin. Just me. That’s why I fought so hard to get my father on the right track, but it never worked.

The old man killed him.

I force a smile on my face that likely looks about as fake as it feels with the whipping current of trepidation roaring through me. He wanted me to see the gun for the threat it is. If he hadn’t, I never would’ve caught a glimpse. “What can I help with…Sir?”

His answering smile is telling. He loves breaking me down and making me conform. “The Knights are worried about the new class of pledges and the precedent the Astor girl started.”

“The dead girl?” I muse, wondering where this is going. She’s dead. She didn’t achieve anything but prove women shouldn’t be in the Knights.

He rolls his eyes and shakes his head. “We must always look for our weak spots and counteract before a play has been made, Leonardo. Have I taught you nothing?”

My jaw tenses at his reprimand. “What’s the concern, then? The sister’s a waste of time. Trust me.”

He lifts a gray-haired brow before sitting. “Astor is requesting the youngest daughter have the opportunity to pledge.”

I run my hands down my thighs. I despise talking about the Knights. The lot of them can go fuck themselves for all I’m concerned, but it’s about the part I’m playing now. Pacify the old man, that’s it. “She wants to follow in her sister’s footsteps?”

“Or is she attempting to drum up trouble? She’s probably a meddling little bitch, just like her sister.”

“Which is why I’m following her,” I remind him. The older he gets, the more paranoid he becomes. I still think she’s a dead end, but whatever. Arguing with him will get me nowhere.

“The Elders have had to field questions about our membership,” he spits, gaze darkening as he picks up a pen from his desk. “Unfortunately, a brash yet obvious decision has been made to quell the whispers coming from all sides. It pains me greatly, but the Knights are now opening admission to both fine young menandwomen. We’re no longer a fraternal organization. At least on paper.”

My eyes widen. When I heard Delilah Astor was pledging the Knights as a favor to Astor, I thought it was a big joke. One thing the Knights hate more than simplicity is females fucking up their play time. They’re objects, plain and simple. To hold the rank of Knight would’ve been impossible even before she started. The Elders wouldn’t have let her get that far. I was surprised she made it past Pledge to Fledgling even. “I don’t understand. Why?”

“Because the whispers are that Delilah Astor was killedbecauseshe was a girl.”

“Is it true?”

Franklin Jarvis smirks. “Well, that would’ve been too simple.” He sets the pen back down. “Her death was an accident. This, however, is why we don’t let women in our ranks. They only make things more difficult. If they just knew their place...”

“Okay,” I interrupt. Not that I don’t enjoy Grandfather’s tirades when they’re not aimed at me, but I’m confused. “You’re letting females into the Knights, at least to pledge. What does that have to do with me?”

“I’m reinstating your membership to Fledgling.”

My chest constricts. My body locks up in a wash of power that thrums through my veins. There was a lot about the Knights that I didn’t care for, but the advantages far outweighed the boring bits. In the next instant, reality crashes around me. “The Elders won’t agree to this.”

“I’m the Elder,” he growls. “It’s arranged. For now…but I warn you,” he says sharply, “one more fuck up and you’re out again. However, you’ll be far more useful to me on the inside right now.”

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