Page 22 of Vicious Desire (Fallen Royals 4)

He’s back, and apparently he’s going to be in my life. He sent that message crystal clear this morning.

Loathing crawls up my spine.

He can’t just walk in without an invitation—that was the whole point of even giving the stupid file to my father in the first place. I can’t play dumb: I knew what I was doing.

I read it.

Eli was untouchable—except for this. He wanted to be a lawyer, to follow in his dad’s footsteps. Ruin that, I’d ruin the boy.

That was my goal.

I close my eyes.

It was my goal, but it took a while to actually work. I didn’t ask questions after I gave it to Dad. I watched the defense crumble, I heard about it in the news. For that trial to get the sort of coverage it did… It’s exactly the sort of high-profile client Mr. Black had a reputation of procuring not guilty verdicts for—the bad people who make up New York City’s underbelly. And I don’t mean the gangs or lowlifes who deal drugs from the street corners. I mean the rich ones who sit in comfortable penthouses, who create chaos just because they like it.

Isn’t that what I did? Create chaos?

Maybe.

Voices seep in from the courtyard, and I silently curse. I like to get out of here before students show up, if only to keep my reputation as a quiet nobody intact. Otherwise, they’ll start to question how I got in. If they can get in, too.

Too late, the door cracks open and a girl slips in.

“Riley?” she asks.

I tilt my head. She’s immediately familiar, and I want to kick myself for not being able to bring up a related memory.

“Are you okay?” Her voice comes from a long way off, shouting down a train tunnel.

I blink, then hoist myself up. I don’t like sitting when other people are standing. It puts me beneath them, and it never fails to illicit a skin-crawling feeling.

“I…”

Short dark hair, pale skin. A heavy smudge of eyeliner all the way around her eyes, glossed lips. Even with the school uniform—white shirt and black skirt—she manages to seem edgy. Maybe it’s the choker necklace with spikes wrapped around her neck, or the million braided and beaded bracelets on her arm. The shit-stomping boots. Those remind me of Margo, for some reason.

And still, nothing.

Her face falls just a bit.

“Parker,” she offers.

I’ve only met one Parker, and I’m pretty sure she died.

“From the hospital,” she adds.

Or maybe not. I stare at her. “Are you a ghost?”

She laughs, but even then—I might be imagining it. It cuts off abruptly when I don’t laugh along with her, and her frown returns. “Seriously?”

“You…” I rub the space between my eyebrows. A sudden headache has begun to form.

Parker Avery was a patient alongside my mother in the oncology department at Beacon Hill Hospital. That hospital—a place I would prefer to never see again—was the reason we moved to Rose Hill in the first place. Close to the hospital, a good school district.

She caught me in the middle of a panic attack once. Rather, I stumbled into the meditation room where she was reading. I was a mess back then—my whole life was disintegrating.

And it isn’t right now?

I shove that dark thought away.

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