Page 98 of Hate Mates

Loathing Layla by Bella Faust

ONE

Cub

THIS STORY TAKES PLACE DURING CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE OF MAKING CHOICES, THE SECOND BOOK IN THE DUPLICITY TRILOGY.

She’s trouble.

A viper without a conscience.

Worse than that, she’s a bully.

My bully.

The moment I lay eyes on the familiar woman across the dance floor at Club Mirage, the warnings fly out of my head. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been intrigued by Layla De La Rue. She’s the youngest daughter of the mayor of the small town where we were both raised. Rich. Beautiful. A bitch who is incapable of being happy, no matter how many blessings life tosses her way.

On the surface, she has it all.

Which is why the pain that clouded her russet-brown eyes fascinated me when I was young.

I’m white trash.

A penniless boy from the wrong side of the tracks.

Literally.

The train line that splits Inadale down the middle delineates between the haves and the have-nots. The De La Rue family rules over the haves. My family is ignored by all—wealthy andpoor. My father is a fallen preacher, the scapegoat thrown to the wolves when the child exploitation ring being run out of the local church was revealed. He’s an alcoholic with an iron fist and a desire to dish out hurt in its varied forms to those closest to him.

Mum is his faithful punching bag now that I’m gone.

I’d like to say I cared, but I don’t.

She did nothing to protect me.

Our connection was severed for good after my patching-in with the Black Shamrocks MC when I turned eighteen. My parents dared to show their faces on the right side of the tracks long enough to wish me dead. They meant it. And I did my best to make their dream come true.

The problem I’ve always faced is complex.

With a background like mine, I’m a sucker for flashes of agony like the ones I occasionally glimpsed in Layla’s gaze. Back then, her turmoil was familiar. It awoke a desire to protect within me. A need that confused me thanks to her years of cruelty aimed my way.

It was confusing as hell.

It’sstillconfusing as fuck.

During primary school, we were friends. We attended the same church. Ran in similar circles, by virtue of my dad’s status as a preacher and the legacy attached to my mother’s last name. Although she’s a year and a half older than me, Layla was in my grade. She’d been sick as a pre-schooler and her recovery had delayed the start to her formal education.

I was enthralled by her fragile beauty, forever willing to drown in her kind eyes.

She was the only person who never teased me about my red hair and skinny limbs.

Once we reached high school, even before Dad’s crimes were exposed and her father’s role in them was hidden, it all changed. A switch flipped, and boom, I was the target of ahate campaign. Stolen school supplies. Ruined lunches. Vicious gossip campaigns. The harder I fought back, the more she escalated her efforts.

Slowly, Layla’s weaponisation of her social status morphed into violence.

The wealthier boys on my basketball team undertook the physical aspect of the harassment on her behalf. I knew she was behind my never-ending torment, and so did everyone else. My injuries were many and varied. Never acknowledged by my parents, instead they added their own bruises to the damage I received.

My friends drifted away, unwilling to put themselves in her sights as well.

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