Finale: A Dark Gang Romance (Academy of Stardom Book 4)

“Madame Tuillard, can I have a word?” I ask, knocking on her office door and stepping inside without waiting for a response.

She looks up from behind her desk and smiles warmly. “Pen, shouldn’t you be in class?”

“I snuck out a little early. I needed to speak with you.”

“Sounds ominous. Please don’t tell me that you’re leaving the Academy too?”

“No, it’s nothing like that.”

“Okay…”

Biting on my lip, I wonder for the thousandth time this morning whether I’m making the right decision coming here and speaking with her. Then I think about what Beast is going to do to D-Neath today, and I get this sinking feeling in my stomach that somehow they’ve got it all wrong. I don’t particularly like D-Neath, not in the slightest, but something’s been bugging me all night and I need to figure out whether my hunch is right or if I’m barking up the wrong tree. Either way, the outcome for D-Neath won’t be good.

“There’s something I wanted to ask you.”

Noticing the seriousness of my expression, she places her pen on the table before her, and nods. “I guess you’d better come in then.”

Closing the door behind me, I take a seat. I’m due to meet the guys for lunch in ten minutes and if I don’t turn up, they’ll come looking for me. This isn’t a conversation I want Madame Tuillard to endure in front of an audience, so I need to make it quick. “When we spoke before, you said that you trusted D-Neath? Do you… still trust him, I mean?”

“Why are you asking me this?” Something close to concern flitters across her face, but she shuts it down.

“It’s important.”

“It’s private.”

“You said that he hurt you before, but that you trust him now,” I push on. “Is that still true?”

“Yes,” she blurts out, but despite the certainty of her answer, her body language is telling a different story.

“You don’t seem certain. Has he done something to break your trust recently?” I press.

For long moments she just stares at me, but then eventually she nods. “I don’t know…”

“You don’t know?”

She heaves out a sigh, clearly debating whether she wants to talk to me about this very personal matter. “I want to believe he’s changed. I think he wants to be a better man. I love him, but lately I’ve begun to worry that I’ve made the wrong decision putting my trust in him.”

“Why?”

“Over the past few weeks he’s been different, distant. I put it down to what’s going on and the stress he must be under, but my gut is telling me it’s more than that…” She clasps her trembling hands together on the table and meets my gaze. “Are you saying that I’ve made the wrong decision trusting him? Is there something going on that I should know about?”

I chew on my lip, wondering how much I should be telling her. She knows about Santiago and the drugs, but has no idea about my brother or the fact that he murdered my mum. She doesn’t know that there’s a traitor and that everyone thinks it’s D-Neath. Honestly, I’m not even sure why I’m here trying to find a reason why he’s not the snake. I don’t even like him all that much.

“Pen. Tell me.”

“When you said before that D-Neath hurt you emotionally, what did you mean exactly?”

“That isn’t something you need to know, Pen.”

“Like I said, I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”

She crosses her arms over her chest in an almost self-comforting way then meets my gaze. “Do you remember when I said that the attraction between Duncan and I was immediate and explosive…?

“Yes.”

“Well, it happened to be the same for several other girls, not just me.”

“So he did cheat on you?”

“You make it sound like you knew that all along…”

“People talk. I’m sorry.”

“Well those people were right. Duncan and I were together for several years before he went to prison, and in that time I lost count of the amount of times he slept with other women.”

“And you stayed with him?” I ask, shaking my head in disbelief. For me, cheating is the ultimate sin. How could someone so successful, so put together, be such a walkover? It makes no sense.

“I did. Back then I believed it when he told me those women meant nothing, that he loved me. After all, he came back to me every time.”

“But he screwed other women.”

“I was young. Foolishly in love. In some ways, Duncan going to prison saved our relationship. You can’t cheat when you’re stuck behind bars with a load of men. Granted, he likes sex, I would even suggest that he has an addiction to it, but he’s very much into girls.” She laughs at that, but the sound is hollow.

“And now…?”

“And now what?”

“Do you have any reason to believe he’s gone back to his old ways?” I ask, remembering how he’d looked at me that day the filming crew had been at the Academy. Back then I’d thought he was a creep, that he was probably cheating on Madame Tuillard. Now that seems even more likely especially after what Clancy mentioned when she’d overheard them arguing. In which case, D-Neath’s not necessarily the snake, but maybe whoever he’s been sleeping with is, and I have a hunch who that might be.

“I guess the question really should be, do you have a reason to believe Duncan is cheating on me?” Madame Tuillard counters.

“For his sake I hope he is…” I mutter.

“What did you just say?” Madame Tuillard asks, her voice laced with hurt.

“I know how much you love him, and that’s partly why I’m here. You deserve to know what’s going on.”

“What is going on, Pen?”

I don’t answer her question, instead I ask one of my own. “Do you believe that D-Neath is having an affair?

Her eyes fill with tears and when one tips over her lashes and slides down her cheek, I don’t need to hear her answer to know that he is. Eventually she nods. “Yes. I think he is. In fact, I’m almost positive.” Her voice cracks and she looks away, opening up a drawer in her desk. Pulling out a piece of paper, she lays it on the table. On it is a mobile phone number. “Like I said, he’s been acting off for a little while now. Initially I put it down to the fact that he was involved with the whole Santiago, drugs thing. But he’s become more and more withdrawn… Intimately. That’s when I knew. I recognised the signs. So, when he was in the shower last week, I looked at his phone. He’s been making calls to this number regularly for the past few weeks. The calls are mainly made after I’ve gone to sleep.”

“Any text messages?”

“No. Just phone calls. I’ve not been brave enough yet to call the number. I’m not sure I want to confirm that he’s having an affair even though not knowing for certain is killing me.”

“I can understand that…” Pausing I chew on my lip.

“What?”

“There’s something else.”

“Could that something be why you’re so keen on finding out if D-Neath is having an affair?”

“Yes… Shit, I don’t know how to say this.”

“I’m a big girl, Pen. Spit it out.”

“D-Neath is currently being questioned,” I say, not wanting to actually tell her that he’s most likely being tortured by Beast as we speak.

“What do you mean questioned?”

“The guys believe D-Neath has been feeding information to my brother.”

“Your brother? I didn’t know you had a brother…” She gives me a confused look. “But why would Duncan be giving information to your brother? Who is he exactly?”

“My brother works for Santiago Garcia. They think D-Neath has betrayed them.”

“What kind of information?”

“The dangerous kind.” I don’t tell her about my mum, about the truth surrounding her death. It wouldn’t change anything if I did.

“But that makes no sense. Duncan doesn’t want to go back to jail, that much I do know,” she replies.

“They believe that Santiago has offered D-Neath something he can’t refuse, and I believed that too until…”

“Until?”

“Until I was reminded of something Tiffany said to me the other day.”

“Tiffany?” Madame Tuillard stiffens, her gaze darkening. “What did she have to say exactly?”

“She confronted me the day I returned to the Academy. Amongst spouting off about the fact she thinks I’m a shit dancer and not deserving of my place here at the Academy, she also said a couple of things that I didn’t question at the time.”

“Like what?”

“She said that I was clueless, but more specifically she said that ‘he’ll tire of me eventually.’”

“Clueless about what? Who will tire of you eventually?”

“I thought she was just being a bitch and trying to insinuate she was sleeping with one of my men, that she meant Xeno or Dax would tire of me, maybe even York or Zayn, but that isn’t who she meant…” Swallowing the bile I feel rising up my throat, I lock eyes with Madame Tuillard.

“You think she was talking about D-Neath, that he has a thing for you?”

“No,” I shake my head. “I think she was talking about my brother, David.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I believe she’s been sleeping with D-Neath, using him to gather information to pass onto my brother in the hope to gain his affections. I think Tiffany is the snake. It makes sense. She hates me, she hates the men I love, and my brother is very manipulative. He can turn on the charm when he wants to.”

Madame Tuillard’s mouth pops open as she allows that information to settle. It can’t be easy to hear that the man she loves has been fucking a student, an ex-student, let alone that he’s been careless enough to let information slip about what’s been going on, but here we are.

“I’m sorry, it’s a lot to take in. This can’t be easy to hear, but I needed to be certain.”

“There’s really only one way to be certain that your suspicions about Tiffany are true,” she says, pointing at the piece of paper with the mobile number written across it. “Though, I’m not sure she’ll answer the line if she sees the call has been made from my office at the Academy.”

“Good point. But she’ll answer the phone if D-Neath calls, right?”

“If what you’re saying is true, then yes. I imagine she would,” Madame Tuillard agrees with a tight nod of her head.

“I should go,” I say, picking up the slip of paper and pocketing it. “I need to tell the guys what I’ve discovered. I really am sorry to be the bearer of bad news.”

“Don’t be. You’ve only confirmed what my heart has known for some time,” she sighs, forcing herself to smile. “I will ask one favour though.”

“What’s that?”

“When you see D-Neath, can you pass on a message?”

“Sure I can…”

“Will you tell him that he has 24 hours to remove his stuff from my home and that he no longer has a job at my Academy.”

“Of course,” I say, reaching for the door handle.

“Oh, and could you also tell him to go fuck himself.”

I meet Madame Tuillard’s gaze and smile. “That I’d happily do.”