Page 168 of Claiming Pretty

Her hand moved quickly, slipping into the folds of her robe, and I tensed, half expecting a weapon. But instead, shepulled out her phone, the movement quick and precise, and dialed.

Pressing the phone to her ear, she barked the command with the cold authority of a queen. “Kill Tynan Donahue. Now. And make it hurt.”

I stood unmoving, watching her, waiting. Waiting for her to realize what we had just done.

Her brows furrowed, confusion flickering across her face as muffled voices filled her ear.

“What do you mean, it’s all over?” she snapped, her voice rising with every word. She pressed the phone tighter against her ear, leaning forward in her chair, her tone spiraling from anger to desperation.

“I demand to—put on—no, I—I’ll have you shot for—” Her voice faltered, and her face twisted with fury and disbelief. “I am your High Lord!”

The title hung in the air, brittle and meaningless. It didn’t matter anymore, and for the first time, Ebony seemed to realize it. Her hand, still clutching the phone, trembled, and the firelight caught the faint sheen of sweat forming on her brow.

Her eyes snapped to mine, fury flashing across her face. “What did you do?”

“Ty figured it out, actually,” I said, my tone maddeningly casual, as though we were discussing the weather.

Her face reddened, blotches of anger blooming on her pale cheeks. “Figured out what?”

I smiled faintly, letting the silence stretch before I answered. “He figured out that the camera in the tomb was digital. Which means you had to store your little initiation blackmail films somewhere virtual.”

I went on. “Ty isn’t great with computers. He would tell you as much, if you ever see him again. But he knows someone who happens to be excellent with them.”

“No,” Ebony scoffed. “My servers are impenetrable.”

Ciaran stepped to my side and into the light, his expression sharp, mocking.

“I barely broke a sweat hacking in.” he said lazily, as if he were discussing breaking into a child’s toy box.

Ebony’s mask cracked. Her lips parted, her breath coming in shallow gasps. “No. You’re bluffing.”

“What better way to blackmail all your members to stay in line than to record their twisted initiation. Sickening, but clever,” I said, my voice calm as ever. “But you know what else it makes?”

I picked up the remote from the edge of her father’s mahogany desk, its surface still damp with spilled whiskey, and pointed it at the sleek television mounted on the far wall.

“Great evidence,” I said as I switched it on.

The screen lit up with a familiar news anchor, her voice calm but firm as she delivered the story of the decade.

“A secret society, known as the Sochai, has been exposed for decades of illegal activities, including blackmail, assault, and corruption at the highest levels of society.”

The anchor’s voice faded as the faces of high-ranking members flashed on the screen—the dean, Cormac Foley Senior, the police commissioner—one after another, their names and titles displayed like a grotesque gallery of shame.

Ebony let out a choke, and her grip on the phone faltered, her knuckles blanching as she stared at the screen.For a moment, the weight of what she was seeing seemed to crush her.

But then she rallied, her lips twisting into a defiant sneer.

“Impressive,” she said, her voice shaking with a false bravado. “But you don’t have anything onme. I certainly never raped anyone as part of my initiation.”

I met her gaze evenly, my tone calm, almost conversational. “You think so?”

Her sneer faltered, her composure cracking as her cell phone chimed with an incoming message. The sound cut through the tension like a knife, her eyes darting to the glowing screen as unease flickered across her face.

“You should open that,” I said, my voice calm but edged with steel.

I folded my arms, grounding myself as I watched her wrestling with the hesitation that gripped her. Each breath I took felt deliberate, steady, in stark contrast to the erratic rise and fall of her chest.

Her pale finger, tipped with a bloodred nail, hovered above the screen as the firelight glinted off its polished surface.

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