Page 5 of The Vipers and Their Vendetta

Saint nods. “Let’s do this.”

We leave his room, and Saint closes his door behind us. I know that under his cocky act, Saint is worried. When he gets scared, he gets doubly obnoxious. It’s like he can’t keep up the charm and nice guy act when he’s stressed, and the dark underbelly that is the real him shows. Whereas I don’t perform for others the way he does in the first place …except in the bedroom. Chalk and cheese, yin and yang, or maybe one another’s mirror image, who knows?

I think back to being with Vani and how, so far, she’s accepted our weird dynamic without judgement. It took her a little time to understand that Saint’s degradation doesn’t mean what she thinks—that just because Saint calls her depraved names, it doesn’t actually make her those things. She only plays at being our whore, our little slut—just for us, just for a while—and then she likes me to make her whole again.

She loves Zane for his size and strength. It gets her wet; I can tell. This woman might be someone we want to taunt and torment, but in a way, she’s the only person to truly accept the three of us as we are, and now she thinks we’re fucking involved in Reagan’s death.

She was perfect for us, and now she might be gone, all because of a fucking rumor.

“We should have done more to stop that rumor about us,” I say to the other two.

“If we’d fought it, we’d have only looked more guilty,” Saint points out. “Getting defensive is the worst thing we could have done. The dean knows it wasn’t us. We didn’t have all that much to do with her. It’s only because we were doing that stupid fucking play that I even spent much time with her.”

Dean Rossi made it go away. He used his money and power to cover it up, but it was to help the reputation of the college, not us. He never did a damn thing to put the rumors to rest.

Saint had been cast in a play with Reagan, and she’d hung with him, and by extension me, and sometimes Zane too, the odd time. It hadn’t been many, though. Reagan was too insipid for any of us to be interested in. But a rumor started about us and her being a thing, a depraved and filthy thing. Three on one, the way we are for real with Vani, but never were with Reagan.

Then she died, but we had nothing to do with it.

I think those shitheads, the Devils, started the lie because, at the time, we had a serious rivalry. Now, they’re whipped and far too busy playing house to be pains in our asses.

“We should have told Vani the truth,” I say.

Zane sighs and shakes his head.

Saint rolls his eyes. “Again, would have made us look guilty rather than innocent. Can you imagine? ‘By the way, Vani, the girl whose folder you’ve stolen, the rumors are we killed her, but we didn’t. Scout’s honor. Now, do you want to fuck us all?’”

I flip him the bird.

She didn’t ask, so we didn’t lie outright, but we did by omission, all so we could screw her.

I press my lips together and draw a breath. “So why the fuck is she even here? She was clearly investigating the girl. Why else take her folder? If she wasn’t looking into her death, what is going on? At first, I thought maybe Reagan’s father had sent her—you know what a fucking psychopath Jarl Olsen is—but it doesn’t make sense. If Jarl Olsen was behind Vani being here, wouldn’t he have told her Reagan was dead?”

We walk and talk at the same time, throwing out theories.

“Unless he’s fucking with her for some reason,” Saint offers as an explanation.

“Or he’s fucking with Rossi. If Rossi paid him off, maybe Jarl Olsen took the money and figured he’d get back at Rossi another way.”

Zane signs,Get back at Rossi, or get back at the three men who everyone is saying are behind Reagan’s death?

The three of us exchange glances, and I’m sure the same thread of unease has wound through us all. Could Vani be some kind of plant to screw with us? Was it always part of the plan to get under our skin, to make us care about her?

I shake my head. “But what about the MC she’s a part of? How the fuck are they connected to Jarl Olsen?”

“Business, perhaps,” Saint says. He frowns. “But, if she’s here to fuck with us, or Rossi, why the hell would she drive off in the dark, seemingly upset, or at least freaked out, because now she knows Reagan is dead? That makes no sense to me. Like, even if she didn’t know, if Jarl Olsen put her here, her finding out wouldn’t make her tear out of here at night, right? So we’re back to not knowing why the fuck she reacted that way.”

I scrub my hands over my face and let out a growl. “We’re missing something, and I haven’t got a fucking clue what.”

One thing I do know is that while we might have withheld information from Vani, she’s done exactly the same to us. That girl is a mystery we need to crack in more ways than one.

I guess that won’t matter if she’s run back to her father…or Jarl Olsen.

We arrive at the main doors to the college and step out into the dark. The cool air whips around my face, and there’s a hint of smoke on the breeze. That strange scent of fall that lingers even when there are no homes within miles to be burning fires. She’s out here in the cold and dark, and she’s alone. There must be miles of road between Verona Falls and her home, and she’s traversing it by herself. A girl on a bike. That’s asking for trouble.

As we walk farther away, I glance back at the college and notice how, for once, it doesn’t appear to be glowering at me. Instead, with the lights in the hallways, and the patterned glass on the top floors, it looks inviting compared to the dank, cold outdoors.

Without speaking, we all break into a jog, moving through the dark as one until we reach the parking lot.

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