Page 46 of The Pretty Savage

"Fine," Dante huffed, rolling his eyes. "I liked you more when you kept your mouth shut."

"Trust me, I have no desire to make any small talk, not after today's fiasco," I retorted, placing the glass on top of the table.

Jax's eyes kept volleying back and forth between Dante and me, and while I loved both of them, I had no desire to be here. The headache that’d been brewing since I left Vega behind in that bathroom was at an all-time high, pounding in my head, and I knew I would need to either get some drugs to go to sleep or do something more drastic.

My lip still throbbed from when she bit me, surprising the hell out of me with that one move, and I couldn't decipher whether I wanted to strangle her or fuck her right there and then. So I did the next best thing—I fucking ran.

The words I let slip in her presence bothered me, and for whatever reason I wanted her to believe that she meant nothing to me. I wanted her to hate me, because maybe then she wouldn't be looking at me with those big eyes, showing me how much she wanted me. Not just my body, but my soul.

And I was afraid she was slowly conquering it, piece by piece.

"Andries wasn't happy about that note," Jax said, moving us away from the tension that was starting to brew. "Not even a little bit."

"Did you see it?" Dante asked, looking anywhere but at me. My friend, one of my brothers, was obviously wary of me, and I blamed Vega for my sudden mood swings and the fact that I couldn't sit still, bouncing my knee as the two of them talked.

Andries shared some bullshit story during the assembly, telling the students that they were investigating what had happened to Rebecca and ignoring the million questions that popped up the moment he stopped speaking. He reassured them they were safe—what a bunch of fucking bullshit.

No one was safe in that place. My brother wasn't safe when he attended that hell and neither were countless others that simply disappeared, never to be found again. The town's people always said the Academy was cursed, and maybe they were right.

Nothing ever seemed to go right.

The moment Andries finished with the general assembly, welcoming the newcomers and greeting those that were renewing their year at the Academy because they failed to pass last time, he rushed to his office, summoning the three of us and sharing the note we found with Rebecca’s body, trembling in his fucking seat. I still had no idea what my father saw in that spineless little shit, but the more he sat there, discussing all the ways he wanted to interrogate Vega about the note, the more I wanted to strangle him, consequences be damned.

But the last thing I wanted was for my father to be alerted about Vega. He didn't know I couldn't stop thinking about her. He couldn't know I hacked the cameras around the campus, following her every step, or that something warm settled in my chest when she finally retreated to her room just before we left for town. I didn't like this, this little obsession of mine, but I wasn't strong enough to fight it no matter how much I despised admitting that.

Jax knew something wasn't right, apart from the whole sleep deprivation thing, but I didn't want to talk about her with him. I didn't want him to know.

I trusted Jax with my life. Hell, I trusted the others too, but telling them anything about Vega was bound to bring up some questions, and I wasn't ready to answer anything yet until I myself could figure out what was happening to me.

"We need to keep Vega far away from Andries," Dante said seriously, ignoring the glare I was sending his way. Even the sound of her name coming from his lips was enough to tip me over into the dark abyss I was trying to escape from, and that wasn't good. It wasn't good at all. "I want her on our team."

"No," I simply said, pulling out my phone. "She can't be part of The Brotherhood. We can't risk it."

"Why the fuck not?" He frowned, looking at Jax for help. "You saw what I saw last night. She is lethal. Hell, if I had to choose, she'd be the one I would call to defend me from the fucking Devil himself, not to mention regular people."

"I said no, Dante. Don't fucking push it."

"Well, fuck you, Adrian," he bit out, his eyes blazing when I looked at him. "Unless you're going to tell me the reason behind that little no of yours, I say we send her an invite. She was better than any of the other candidates we've had over the years. She's fast, lethal, and knows her way around the ring. She took down men twice her size, while she was already battered and bruised, might I add."

He shouldn't have added that, because all I could think about now was an unstable-looking Vega standing in that ring, bleeding on the fucking floor, while the others pummeled into her. My heart thundered, reminding me of the insane thoughts that fucked with my mind as I watched her up there. I wanted to protect her, to hide her from them, and then I wanted to spank her for daring to get hurt like that.

"She's not who she says she is," Jax answered instead of me, because we both knew that if I even tried to formulate a response, I would end up truly throwing this drink at Dante. "Her records show that she's Russian, with a living father and no mother, but that's a lie. Arseniy dug deep and found out that while the man that was listed as her father has a daughter, that's definitely not Vega. So we have no idea who she is."

"Then that's even better," Dante grinned. "We can keep an eye on her and figure out who she is and who sent her."

"No!" I thundered, slamming my hand on top of the table, earning a few fearful glances from a table not too far from ours.

"Adrian," Jax warned. "Calm down."

He had a point, and I knew I shouldn't be causing a scene now, but I couldn't stop thinking about her movements, about the fact that she was lying to everyone and about that damn girl we found hanging from the top of the main building.

"She moved like a professional killer, Dante," I grunted, slowly lifting my head to look at him. "She knew what she was doing with every single one of those people, and the last time I saw a person move like that was when The Schatten tried to assassinate me. They sent that kid after me, thinking he could get the job done."

"A kid?" Dante frowned.

"The Schatten snatches unwanted children from orphanages, training them from a very young age to become professional assassins. They brainwash them, turning them into mindless little soldiers."

"And you think Vega is part of The Schatten?" He frowned. "Why the fuck would they send her to the Academy? They have nothing to gain here."

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