Page 67 of Deadly Rival

Oppressive silence wraps meas I stare at my phone. I usually love my office. The quiet, distraction-free space lets me focus on my algorithms for hours at a time—sometimes days—taking breaks only for the necessities.

Now, though, the quiet is a weighted blanket dragging me further and further down into useless rage. What the fuck does that asshole think he knows about Maggie?

I reach for calm, but it’s slippery, and I can’t grasp it. This is probably a trick to force me into doing something stupid. Harrison and Maggie weren’t friends or even acquaintances. There’s nothing he could know about her.

Still, all the what-if’s tumble through my brain as the time slowly ticks down.

Right on the dot, I hit the link.

I’m placed in a waiting room and spend the next five long minutes pacing. Such an obvious, pathetic power play. But it works, and that pisses me off even more. I’m getting more riled up by the second, and that’s not what I need for this call.

Calm. Calm. Calm.

The screen changes, showing Harrison Calder seated on a chair in a bare room. He’s only my age, but time isn’t treating him well. It’s already obvious he’ll look like crap in his thirties.

He has the puffy face of someone who likes booze and cocaine far too much, and he must have gained thirty pounds of flab since high school. So much for the athletic guy who kicked the shit out of me.

He smiles, a wide, shit-eating grin that makes me want to throw the phone. “Sebastian. You’re looking well.”

“Can’t say the same for you. Get to the point, Harrison, I don’t want to keep your sister waiting.”

Childish, but it has the desired effect. His grin slips, revealing a flash of savage rage. “Whatever you’ve done to her, I’m going to do to you. Ten times over.”

I raise a brow. “Really? I didn’t think you swung that way, but I’m not one to judge. Now, did this call have a purpose, or did you just want to chat?”

He smirks, and it sends a shiver down my spine. Whatever this is, he’s looking forward to it, and that can only mean bad news for me.

“Why did you choose Ophelia? Plenty of other girls out there. I know all about your sordid little Brotherhood. Hiding in the woods with your captive sluts. Why her?”

“I’m not here to answer your questions,” I snap back, but of course, I can’t stick to my own rule. “But you know why. Maggie.”

“Hmmm. Revenge, then? I bet it makes you feel better about yourself, doesn’t it? You couldn’t just take a girl because you fucking wanted her, like a man. No, you had to give yourself an excuse. Pretend you’re doing something good. Still the same self-righteous little prick you were in high school.”

Unnervingly accurate. My skin grows clammy, even though the AC is cranked up. There’s a niggle at the edge of my mind, and I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.

“Why I chose her is none of your business. I’m glad I did, though. She’s incredible in bed. So enthusiastic.”

I shouldn’t feel as satisfied as I do when he flinches, but what can I say? I’m an asshole, too. It’s short-lived, though. Harrison shakes his head.

“You really are naive. You think Maggie killed herself over a few childish pranks? You think she slit her wrists in your hot tub because Ophelia shoved her head in the toilet? You might be that weak and pathetic, but Maggie wasn’t.”

“You don’t fucking know her.”

Don’t lose your cool. Don’t.

It’s too late. The night I came home and found Maggie is etched onto the deepest layers of my psyche. It took months before I stopped waking up, heaving my guts out, as I relived it in my dreams. His words brought it all back, and now that image is in the room with me. It’s shredding my self control into nothing.

“Don’t I?” That self-satisfied smirk is back. “I knew her, Sebastian. A lot better than you did.”

“Bullshit.” I force the word out, though my throat is constricting. The edges of my vision waver, blackness edging in.

“It’s true. My dad and I kept Ophelia locked down tight, but you never set rules for Maggie, did you? No one bothered to keep a leash on her. She did what she wanted, and we had plenty of fun for a while.”

“She was fourteen!”

It can’t be true. It can’t. But dice are rolling in my head, probabilities clicking into place, and the picture they’re painting is bleak.

Harrison shrugs. “And I was sixteen. Big deal. I’m pretty sure you were the only sad virgin at that school. Girls that age are hot little sluts if you play them right.” He whistles. “And boy, did I. I still remember the night I broke in her tight virgin—”

---