Page 8 of Chaos Crown

“You said you’re not Rainey,” Legend spoke up. “In fact, you claimed to be her dead sister. What does that mean?”

She showed her first emotion. Jaw clenching, she turned away—gripping the sheet. “It means what I said. Rainey... died. Blake and the others came that night,” she rasped. “They killed her, and when I found her... all I could do was run. I ran so far away, I left Ivy behind.”

“You had a mental breakdown,” Jacques said like all of this made fucking sense. “You convinced yourself that you were in fact your sister, and to explain where Ivy had gone, your mind invented a story.”

“Got it all figured out, don’t you, Stone?”

Jacques raised a brow. That deadened reply was nothing like the sarcastic snap we expected from Rainey. “Not quite,” he said. “Why don’t you fill in the rest? Who is the real Zoey Mariner/Blake Jensen? What were the both of you a part of?”

“Zoey is exactly what she told you. Or she was,” the stranger corrected. “She was recruited by Scott Cavendish. We all were. But most of us didn’t know his true goal.”

I slowed my pacing, eyes narrowing.

“Scott was smart,” she whispered. “He went after the broken, the bullied, and the powerless. People who had nowhere else to turn. I knew Gran was murdered for our land, but no one would listen to me. Her killers were going to get away with ruining our lives.

“Then one day, Scott showed up, saying he believed me. He was her accountant. She told him she was getting the farm’s financial affairs in order, so R-Rainey and I wouldn’t be saddled with debt and struggles. He knew she made a will.

“Once he was in my ear, I was lost. All I could see was someone who wanted to help me. To get me justice. Scott explained that we weren’t the first family this was done to. There’d been others who were forced to sell through threats, bribes, and even other murders made to look like accidents. There’d be no justice for me like there wasn’t for the others, so I had to get it myself.”

“He convinced you killing Andrew Clein was your only choice,” Jacques dropped.

She slowly shook her head. “He never used that word.Kill. It was always sacrifice. Sacrificed for justice. Sacrificed for an end to corruption. Sacrificed so that no other family would suffer as we were,” she said. “It was around then he introduced me to Zoey. Her bullying escalated way past her name like she said. She was getting it constantly from a couple guys on the football team.”

My brows snapped up.

“She was walking home one day and they drove up on her, forced her into the trunk, and drove her out into the woods.” She gave me a hard stare. “I don’t have to tell you what they did to her.”

“You don’t have to tell us what she did to them either,” I replied. “Hudson Olsen, Dylan Meyer, and Thomas Lawson. Years above us, but we all heard about the three footballers who never made it to graduation. They were all found dead in an upstairs room after a party. Everyone said they overdosed.”

She nodded. “That’s how it was supposed to look. I think there was still a part of me that knew taking the law into your own hands was wrong, but that part died after Zoey. After hearing how she stumbled bleeding and crying into the police station, and they didn’t bother to bring them in for questioning. The officer said it would always be her word against theirs, and it wasn’t worth the hassle of putting her through a trial that would end in not guilty.

“It wasn’t right that those guys got away with what they did to her. It wasn’t right that Clein wouldn’t be punished for Gran. It just wasn’t right, so... how could I be wrong for making him pay?”

“But it wasn’t just about Clein and your farm, or giving a bunch of rapists what they deserve,” I gritted. “Mariner was a fucking psychopath who took money to kill us. She said you were supposed to kill me.”

“That’s how it all changed, Cairo. They were about righting wrongs, but I didn’t know until it was too late what that meant to Scott and the others. I didn’t know that meant all collateral damage was acceptable because they were beingsacrificedfor a greater purpose.”

“What purpose?” Legend snapped.

“Stop acting like you don’t know! I remembereverything,” she cried. “Including what you and your parents and their parents have been trying to stop since Crystal Canyon became Bedlam. They want it back! Decades ago, this town wrestled away the wealth, power, and lives of the Men of Honor, and they. Want. It. Back.”

I whipped to Legend and Jacques, eyes as wide as theirs. “Are you fucking trying to say Scott and all your old friends were—?”

“Are,” she sliced. “They are the descendants and recruits to the Men of Honor. They know about the diamonds. They know they once owned the lands filled with them, and by their reckoning, they’re reclaiming what was stolen from them. Likemy farm,” she stressed. “Taken over by my great-great-great-grandmother after she joined the riot against her uncle, Jonathan de Souza. He was a bastard that beat his wife and daughters black and blue, until one after the other, they died by his hand—while the sheriff looked the other way.

“My three times great-grandmother didn’t lift a finger to stop the crowd when they stormed his home and killed him.” Her gaze pinned us through. “But I don’t have to tell you this. You all know the story. The townspeople took up arms and wiped out every trace of the Men of Honor and their families. My ancestor was spared because she hated them just like the rest. The next morning, they woke up with wealth and land that didn’t belong to them.

“Distant male heirs would inherit the properties and a hell of a grudge to go with it. They were destined to take over and make their lives hell once again. So they said no.” Her eyes found me. “You know the history of how they took up arms and violently defended Bedlam from militias and the government. And you three in particular know that after the battle was won, certain people in town banded together to form the Society of Sisters.

“They forged documents and deeds naming themselves heirs and family, so they could keep the town they stole. There had been so much chaos and so many dead, the government couldn’t sort out the truth from the lies. In the end, they accepted what they were told—thankful the bloodshed was over.

“Ever since then, they kept the secret of Crystal Canyon. Preventing anyone from digging and building here, and leaving the vast fortune beneath our feet alone.” She shook her head. “What’s the point of digging it up when it’ll just be seized. No one cares about our little speck on the map, but they will if they ever find out we’ve got millions under our shoes.

“Bedlam would be leveled. The phony papers that gave us our land will be ripped to shreds in court. Either it’ll be in the hands of the government, or men like Steven Ellis.”

“Ellis?” Jacques repeated. “What’s he got to do with this?”

She shot out of the sheets. “He started this. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Steven Ellis isn’t moving in on this town for no reason. You know that, but you don’t know that he always had his sights on Bedlam. His great-great-grandfather was one of the Men of Honor. Their family name was Eliason then.

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