Page 4 of Betray Me
“She’s not my friend,” I say automatically, the denial bitter on my tongue. Luna and I were never friends, not really. We were rivals, enemies, two daughters of powerful families playing our assigned roles. Yet somewhere beneath the hatred and competition, there was understanding. Recognition—at least from my side. She had no idea we were both prisoners of the same system, just with different cells.
“Listen carefully.” My father crouches before me, his cologne—expensive, subtle, the scent of old money and older power—suffocating me. “You’re going back to Shark Bay tomorrow.”
“What? But the holidays don’t finish for another week and—”
“This isn’t about school,” he cuts me off. “This is about damage control. There are… materials in my office that need to be destroyed before the feds get a warrant.”
My mother’s manicured hand closes around my wrist, her grip painfully tight. “Files, photographs, correspondence. Everything related to the Queens, to our business dealings, to the gatherings.”
The gatherings. Such a benign word for what they really were. Exclusive parties where the elite indulged their darkest impulses behind closed doors. Where girls like Luna were paraded like prized livestock. Where I…
No. I push the memories away, lock them behind the mental walls I’ve carefully constructed over years of practice.
“Why me?” I ask, hating the tremor in my voice. “Why not have yourassistanthandle it?”
My father’s laugh is cold. “Because everyone who works for me is currently being watched. You, on the other hand, are just my innocent daughter, returning to school early to prepare for the spring semester. No one will question it.”
The trap closes around me, invisible bars snapping into place. I’ve spent my entire life being the perfect daughter, the obedient pawn, the willing spy. Now, they want me to be their accomplice in destroying evidence. To protect them, even as they offer me up as a sacrifice.
“And if I refuse?” The question slips out before I can stop it.
The silence that follows is deafening. My father straightens, his expression shifting from anger to something colder, more calculated.
“Then you’ll face the consequences alongside us,” he says quietly. “Every file you don’t destroy will be one more nail in your coffin, Belle. Think carefully about what you want your future to look like. Prison orange isn’t your color.”
He leaves without another word, his footsteps echoing down the hallway. My mother releases my wrist, standing to follow him.
“Do as your father says, darling,” she murmurs, touching my hair with practiced affection. “Family protects family. It’s the Gallagher way.”
When I’m finally alone, I allow my perfect posture to crumble, collapsing back against the sofa. My hands shake as I reach for the remote, turning the television back on in time to catch the end of Luna’s testimony.
“I’m not here for revenge,” she’s saying, her voice steady despite the tears glistening in her eyes. “I’m here because what they did—what they’re still doing—has to stop. No one else should suffer like I did. Like we all did.”
The camera pans to the gallery, where Erik Stone sits watching her with a mixture of pride and pain. Beside him, his older brother David—the DA who’s built this case piece by painstaking piece. And there, in the back row, is Professor Austin, whose book on power structures and exploitation is already causing waves in academic circles.
Luna has allies. Protectors. People willing to stand with her against the monsters.
I have no one.
***
The following morning, I board my father’s private jet for the short flight to the port, where I’ll take the small ferry to the island where Shark Bay University is located. The pilot doesn’t question my early return, doesn’t comment on the tension radiating from my every movement. He’s paid not to notice such things.
The campus is nearly deserted when I arrive, most students are still enjoying their winter break. The somber Gothic buildings loom against the gray February sky, their shadows stretching across the snowy grounds like reaching fingers. I make my way to my father’s office in the administration building—a “donation” to secure his position on the university’s board of trustees.
The key slides into the lock with a soft click. Inside, everything is immaculate, controlled, perfect. Just like him. I move to the hidden panel behind his desk, pressing the sequence that reveals the wall safe. The combination—my birthday, because he’s never bothered to be original—opens it with ease.
Inside are stacks of folders, USB drives, and photographs. The evidence of decades of corruption, manipulation, and abuse. The secrets that could destroy not just my family, but dozens of powerful figures across finance, politics, and entertainment.
I should burn it all, as instructed. Instead, I find myself flipping through the files, my heart pounding as I readnames, dates, descriptions of “services rendered.” Each page is more damning than the last, a meticulous record of depravity disguised as business.
A particular folder catches my eye—labeled simply “SB Assets.” Inside are surveillance photographs of Luna and me at Shark Bay, along with reports detailing our movements, conversations, interactions. There are private text messages I sent to friends, emails I thought were secure, phone calls I believed were private.
They were watching us. Both of us. All the time.
I set that folder aside, my fingers now trembling as I reach for another—this one unlabeled, sealed with red tape. Inside are photographs that make bile rise in my throat.
Me, at a party I don’t remember attending. Luna, beside me on a velvet couch, her eyes glazed and unfocused. Both of us, clearly drugged, posed like dolls next to a young woman I recognize from news reports—Janet Wilson, the missing daughter of Senator Robert Wilson. Her disappearance a few years ago sparked a nationwide search that eventually went cold.
