Page 1 of Ruthless Legacy

Chapter1

Finn

Iknew it. In my gut, I knew Eloise had something to do with what happened to my girl, and I ignored it. Why did I let Pax convince me I was trying to pin the blame on her, because I was looking for an excuse to get out of our match?

I don’t need to fabricate an excuse now. I have all the ammunition I need to justify why I don’t want to be with her, and as soon as I loop my father in, he can start the process of voiding our contract. But before I deal with that, I have to deal withthis. With finding out my best friend,my brotherhad a hand in hurting her too.

I’m waiting for him to answer my questions. Giving him a chance to come clean. “Finn, man…”

I scowl at him.Daringhim to pretend he’s innocent. He lowers the weight he’s holding and climbs to his feet.

“We shouldn’t talk about this here.”

I release my grip on Eloise. She makes a wet, gasping sound as she sucks in air. Fuck her and her tears. “Fine, Holden’s room. Now!”

He nods stiffly, following me to the elevator. It feels wrong that I have the urge to walk behind him, because I’m suddenly unsure if I can trust him with my back turned. When we reach our floor, I let him enter the hallway first, then wave my fob over Holden’s door and turn the handle, flinging it open with more force than I need to. It’s not Holden I’m mad at, but I need to do something physical before I do serious damage to the third member of our group.

Before today, if anyone would have asked me if I’d ever turn on one of them, the answer would have been no. Now I won’t even flinch at the idea of turning the streets red with Pax’s blood. He’d better have a good goddamn reason for what he did to my pet.

Holden’s on his couch. The television mirrors his laptop, and multiple browser windows are floating around the screen. He lifts his head when we enter. There’s no way he doesn’t notice the tension rolling off of me. Or miss that I’ve drawn my knife.

“There are a lot of videos here. First question is, who am I looking for?”

“Pax.”

His gaze snaps to our friend. “He’s in quite a few. Care to be more specific?”

“Pax and Eloise plotting to assassinate my girlfriend. Is that specific enough for you?”

I know Pax wasn’t physically there on Mayhem Night -because he was with me- but that doesn’t mean he didn’t know it was happening. Eloise is just the type of sneaky bitch to record their conversation without him knowing it.

“I have three conversations she recorded with Pax.”

Pax’s head snaps up. “What?”

I snicker. “You didn’t think you could trust her, did you?”

The first one is meaningless. As if whoever’s recording it is too far away to pick up what they’re saying. The second one, Eloise, must’ve done the recording herself.

I flick my knife towards the wall when she says, “I take care of your Thea problem and you make Finn fall in line with me. No more women, no more distractions. The three of you better start treating me like your queen.”

Holden glowers at him. “You agreed to make her ours?”

“No!” Pax says with a vigorous shake of his head. “That’s not how that conversation went.”

“No?” Holden holds his gaze, letting him know that answer won’t cut it. It’s hard to misinterpret what we’ve just heard.

“No. Not entirely. I agreed to push her and Finn together. But-”

I’m gonna lose it. I’m gonna gut him like a pig. “You agreed to push us together? As in force me to be with her? Is that what all the pairing up and letting her hang out with us has been about? So that I’ll fall in line?”

“She’s your-”

“Nothing! She means nothing to me!” I barely bite back the words that he doesn’t mean shit to me, either. Just barely. To Holden I say, “I want to see the video of that night.”

“It was buried under an encrypted folder, but I got in.” He looks up and says, “Are you sure we want to watch this?”

“Yes. I need to see everything.” To myformerbest friend, I say, “Pax, you can leave.”

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