Page 243 of Heartless Legacy

The kitchen and bathrooms were remodeled, there’s a new roof and paint on the walls and the barren patch of dirt around the house has been re-sodded with grass. A stone cobbled footpath with recessed lighting leads from the driveway to the front door. The landscaper is still working on the flower beds and borders, and was instructed to just haul away the trash from the backyard. That space is for Holden’s garden and he gets to set it up however he wants.

“There’s mail on the kitchen counter for you.” Wolfe says, popping his head into the office.

“Probably more stuff from league affiliated lawyers.” Those dudes are the worst. They don’t seem to understand why they’re the last people I want advising me on shit.

“It’s from the University of Colorado.”

“Thick or thin?”

“That doesn’t really matter in the digital age.”

He’s right, it doesn’t. A copy of whatever it is, is probably already in my email inbox and I haven’t read it yet. I’ve also got unopened mail from Yale, Boston University, and schools in France, the UK, and Spain. I’m still not sold on staying in Canyon Falls long term, but I’m also not sure where I’d like to go when I finally graduate. I have a year to figure that out.

The League is going through a major upheaval. Three other families are fighting to reclaim their status as the primary bloodline, and half a dozen council members, in addition to Malcolm, Burke, Grant and Sherman, were relieved from their positions for their involvement in the fraud and trafficking cases.

The missing league family members weren’t chosen at random. They all posed some kind of threat to a prominent legacy family. They either had potential claims to a family line or were in Romeo and Juliet type relationships. I was shocked to hear just how many higher ranked legacy heirs were secretly dating people from lower legacy families, or who didn’t come from legacy families at all.

The heads of those families ruined lives just for optics. Formal charges are pending for all of them, and even though the FBI is working the case, I feel better knowing Alexz has people looking for the victims. That includes my mother. I brush my hand over the picture of her I have hanging on the wall. None of the men in custody have admitted to locking her away in Rock Mountain, and we still have no leads to where she is now, but I trust Alexz will get me answers, even if it’s not the outcome I’m hoping for.

Things on campus haven’t changed. I get just as much hate and vitriol as I ever have and Eloise is still at the head of it all, only now it reallyispersonal. With Delta Team’s tech guy’s help, Holden found a company to bankrupt, with direct ties to the parents of a Zeta Nu. The family had watched how things were playing out last semester, so once their finances were impacted, they were all too happy to convince their daughter to turn over the video evidence she had from Mayhem Night.

I couldn’t bring myself to watch it, but according to the guys, Eloise is in the video telling the group that I’d been spotted in the cemetery. When one brave soul asked if they were just gonna throw me in the pool or shave my head, she reminded them that if they caught me, they could do whatever they wanted. Michael was standing right next to her when he said if he caught me, he’d teach me I wasn’t as tough as I thought I was.

They said the video skips to her getting a call that I’d been caught in the tunnel, and her gleefully saying it was time tohave some fun, and to make sure they crushed me so badly, that I’d never show my face on campus again. The next segment of videos is the attack. Afterwards, Eloise made a phone call, then told everyone to leave, with the exception of Mikey and his buddies.

According to the guys, the final stretch of video was taken from quite a distance away, as if the person was hiding and secretly recording. The video starts with Mikey and his buddies dragging me to the cemetery. There are two people already standing near the empty coffin when they drop me into. One of the guys enters the video frame and says, “Ya’ll really fucked her up.”

To which Mikey says, “She deserved it.”

The person they think was in charge said, told themnobodycould ever know about what happened and that they needed to make the problem go away, permanently. The problem being me. He doused the coffin in lighter fluid and struck the match while Mikey and Eloise watched.

They showed me a picture of the men. One of them was Liam Charles. The one who set the coffin on fire was Slim, the guy with Mikey the day they caught me in Skullz’ territory. I knew Saint had disloyal asshats in his organization, but I didn’t think they’d lead back to The League.

Even with all the evidence, Eloise somehow wiggled her way out of taking responsibility for her part in what happened to me. She says she and her father were victims too. High councilman Sherman gave the orders, including who to befriend on campus, and her father told her she had no choice but to carry them out. She did it, without question or reservation, because she’s agood legacy daughter.

She’s also a legacy daughter without a Truim companion to protect her. The first thing Pax did after we confronted thecouncil was to withdraw his petition to marry and end his designation as Eloise’s companion.

I’m still not eligible to be a companion, or even interested in being assigned as one, but that hasn’t stopped Pax, Finn, and Holden from acting like we’ve been matched.

Eloise thinks she’s untouchable, but she’ll get what’s coming to her. She’s got a temporary reprieve, because right now, I’m focused on the people much higher on my revenge list.

Chapter 130

Thea

Ifold the last box and stack it by the door leading to the garage before heading into the living room. There are pizza boxes and beer scattered around from dinner. Austin and Connor left a little while ago, and Pax, Finn and Holden are running a last-minute errand that they were pretty vague about.

We’ve had a lot of downtime. No one’s advanced on the leaderboard, and all challenges are on hold until the committees are realigned. A century of lies and betrayal takes a lot of work to undo.

I drop onto the couch with a groan. “My feet have never hurt so much.” Wolfe chuckles, pulling my feet into his lap. He removes my shoes and starts massaging my poor feet. “Yes, don’t stop. Just like that.” I moan.

My eyes snap open when his fingers stall. “Why are you stopping when I literally said,don’t stop?”

“It’s the way you said it.”

“As if I didn’t mean it?”

“You said it the way you tell me not to stop, feeding my dick into your pussy.” He eyes my shirt and says, “Take off your clothes.”

---