Page 140 of Brutal Kingdom

Blew up in my face is more like it. Just like it’s doing now.

“Then the news came out that the ethics committee was voting to expel you from school. Pepper stepped in to keep you enrolled, but we didn’t know how we’d convince you to stay in school. Especially since you had already received a scholarship offer from Worthless U.”

“I’m guessing whatever your original plan was didn’t include you being on that bus.”

“I wasn’t even supposed to be in town, and I didn’t tell Pepper what I planned until after I approached you. She was livid, of course, until I told her you were in.”

Gripping my phone, I say through clenched teeth, “I really hate that the two of you think it’s okay to manipulate my life. Pushing me wherever you want me to go.”

“We’re trying to help you.”

“Helping would’ve been being upfront with me from the beginning. Not orchestrating a situation where you arranged for your roommate to date my friend, just so we’d meet. Helping isn’t spoofing an email to my mother with an application to apply for a scholarship at a school I’d never even heard of.”

He chuckles dryly over the phone. “You sound just like him, you know.”

“Who?”

“Logan, when he went off on me about the same things. He said keeping him in the dark wasn’t helpful either and that I should’ve told him about you from the beginning. Pussy whipped motherfucker was hot that night.”

Was that the night Logan saw us at the high school? “Why didn’t you?”

“Because as much as I’ve had a hand in getting you to this point. It wasn’t my secret to tell. Besides, I love Logan like a brother. I know he’s smarter than Bella, but she’s conniving and always seems to find a way to change a situation in her favor. Him knowing was too risky. It meant she might find out and then we’d have lost before ever getting you in the game.”

“I have lost, Simon.” Another layer of ice coats my heart when I say, “Tabitha already told me Logan and Bella are officially announcing their engagement.”

“He’s doing it to protect you because of that leaked video.”

That damned video of us in the park circulating around the news outlets and still photos in rag magazines on every magazine shelf across the country. As much of my tits and ass that’s on film these days, maybe I’m in the wrong business and should start charging people to see it. “What kind of fucking computer whiz are you, anyway? You couldn’t hack the internet and delete it?”

“I found out about the video at the same time the rest of the world did. It works in our favor that the video is grainy. That’s why they’ll be able to make people believe Bella’s the one in it.”

“Isn’t that ironic? She’s probably the one who filmed it and leaked it to the media in the first place.”

His voice hardens. “I know. This puts Logan exactly where she and her father want him. Publicly professing his relationship with her.”

“Like I said. It’s over. I lost him and once they announce their union, it’ll make my fight for the inheritance that much harder. So while I appreciate the history lesson, we need something more relevant to now.”

“It sounds like you’re ready to give up.”

“Maybe I am. I have no new evidence of Imogen’s relationship to Elijah. I’m losing friends left and right because they’re siding with their parents. I’m looking at the board, Simon, and it’s looking like I’m out of moves.”

“There’s one you haven’t tried. We have new information about Johnathan, and might get answers if-”

“Don’t say it.”

He says it anyway. “You go see Penn.”

FIFTY-FIVE

JORDANNA

“You came.”

Penn sits, with glass between us in his prison issued jumpsuit, with a smug smile on his face as if he knew I’d come.

“How’s your mother?”

“Let’s set some ground rules. I’m not here to talk about my mother. You asked to see me. Here I am. There are only two topics I care to discuss. The location of the missing moneyandthe location of the missing money.”

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