Page 130 of Brutal Kingdom

“I know that look.” She says, following my gaze.

Nothing has changed. Even though I knew better, I let myself get caught up in another game. This time I’m controlling the ending. “You about to tell me not to do it?”

Shaking her head, she says, “Burn it all down.”

Simon is waiting outside my apartment when I come back from class. I tell him how proud I am that he didn’t hack my lock and let himself in. His smile for acknowledging his cyber skills, gives me my first laugh of the day.

“What brings you into town?” I ask dropping my bag by the front door.

“Some family stuff, but I wanted to stop by and check on you.”

“I’m fine.”

“Really? Because Tabitha says, Logan’s giving you the cold shoulder.”

“It’s not cold. It’s an arctic freeze. He walked by me two days ago with his partner in crime, and didn’t speak. That was after he told me about that fucking video, and ghosted me.”

“I know how things look with Logan and Bella, but you need to hang in there, J.”

This visit will be the shortest in history if he says that shit again. “What I need is to let it go, Simon. He’s made his choice, and I respect it. It’s time for me to move on from Logan. Maybe it’s time for me to move on from everything.”

His face pinches. “That sounds a lot like giving up.”

“I know it does, and I’ve thought a lot about this. Everyone says I’m declaring war on the elite in Kingsley Hollow. Even if I get recognized as Elijah’s heir, the town council won’t accept me, because there’s no way I’m going to fit in with the other families.”

“They’re not all bad.”

“Really, which one isn’t? From what I’ve seen, they all do their dirt in the shadows. If any of them were upstanding citizens, somebody would’ve spoken up on behalf of all the families that were forced to move away over the years. Somebody would’ve said burying Imogen’s identity was a bad idea. Everything I’ve read and heard, says, the founding families fall in line to protect whatever fucked up legacy they were born into.”

“J, I’m telling you, if we stick to the plan, we can change this.”

The plan, his plan. It always comes back to that and I’m beyond giving a shit about it. “It’ll never work, Simon.”

“It’ll work. Ithasto. I’ve spent years planning and preparing for this. I’ve had no life because everything I’ve done has been to help you get this.”

I cross over to him, jabbing my finger in his chest. “Oh, no you don’t. You came to me, remember? And it wasn’t because you wanted to help me. It was because you wanted to get back at Bella.”

“If it weren’t for her, I would have…”

He shuts down like he always does, when the subject of what Bella did to piss him off comes up. I watch him stalk over to my couch and pull his laptop out of his bag. He’s always working on something.

Whatever he’s hiding, it’s his secret to keep. I’ve got enough information to juggle about her misdeeds over the years to fill a book. I don’t expect Simon to share unless it somehow helps his cause.

I finally ask the question I’ve been wrestling with for almost a year. “You and Logan are best friends. And what I did, what I let you talk me into doing, it hurt him.”

“That was never my intention. He just happened to be running with the wrong people.” He looks over at me. “Don’t worry about Logan. He has tough skin. He can handle a little disappointment.”

“You weren’t here. You didn’t see him. Running this school was the most important thing to him.”

“It used to be, but something else started to matter to him more than the school.”

I scrunch my face up trying to think of what that thing could be. Simon shakes his head and says, “It’s you, Jordanna.”

“You sure? Because he told me I cost him everything, and basically swore a blood oath to destroy me.”

“He was hurt and upset, because running the school was a necessary step for what we want to do in the future. We have plans and making alliances at VDU is crucial to those plans. So that’s what he did. I know sometimes his ways of going about it were misguided. That’s why I’m trying to get you to realize this is bigger than you and me. If Logan marries Bella, she’ll have her claws so deeply wound into this town that we’ll never be able to get rid of her.”

I deadpan, “Do you want to remove her from the town or existence?”

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