Tiny Dark Deeds: A Dark High School Bully Romance (Court Legacy Book 3)

Dorian

“So, you going to tell me what’s going on?” I studied Sloane in the passenger seat, her feet up, her arms on her knees. We’d been driving for over an hour, and she’d said little more than two words to me.

She tugged her hood up, her hoodie under her coat. “I told you I’d tell you when we get there.”

She’d said that my family’s cabin was the destination. She wouldn’t let me go to the one in Maywood Heights, though. She said she wanted to get out of town, and I was only doing this shit because I was trying to restore some trust with us.

I dampened my lips. “I can’t keep whatever this is from my parents.” My gaze hit the road, my focus hard. I already wasn’t happy I hadn’t called them yet, but again, I was trying to restore some trust here. If I called them, I knew they’d tell me to turn right back, and I had to in order to keep their trust. I’d fucked up a lot of things lately, and I wasn’t trying to disappoint any of the people I cared about. I faced her. “I’m calling them when we get there.”

She said nothing, never did. Instead, she chose to hide her face inside her hood. Her cheek touched the door, and the way she curled up on that thing, it was like she was trying to get away from me, and that shit didn’t sit right.

I decided to keep driving.

I’d needed gas before this drive so I had to stop once we hit state lines. Sloane said she had to use the bathroom so that worked out. After I finished, I waited by the bathrooms for her. She was acting weird, and I didn’t want to risk her running.

I heard her voice on the inside.

Muted, I pressed my ear to the door, but it was definitely her voice.

“Yeah, we’re still on the way to his family’s cabin, and I don’t need to hear it from you, okay?” Sloane breathed out, her voice low. “I’m sorry.”

I angled off the door but didn’t leave when I heard her flush the toilet. I wanted her to see I’d been listening, and when she came out, she walked right into my chest.

“Shit. Fuck.” Her head shot up, a gasp to her lips.

But then she realized it was me.

Almost instantly, her body fucking sagged, my presence relief. I preferred that over anything, but I didn’t get why she was so jumpy. I focused on her. “Who were you talking to?”

As if she remembered, she gripped her phone. “Bruno. Before we left the city, I texted him I was leaving with you. Told him I needed time. Needed space. Anyway, I called him just now to let him know I was fine.” Her gaze averted, her lip lodged in her mouth. “Can we go please?”

I didn’t want to do anymore of this, and since when the fuck did she leave her brother behind in any type of capacity? I pressed a hand to the wall above her, cutting her off. “Since when do you leave your brother anyway?”

“Since I do need space, and if you fail to remember, he got it once.” Flustered, she weaved her fingers through her hair. “And when he needed it, everyone gave that to him.”

This was different, and she knew that.

“Let me through. You said you’d take me to the cabin.”

I got her wrist, angling a look down. “It’s not a good idea for us to just up and leave and not tell everyone. I told you. I’m not keeping this shit from my parents and definitely not yours.”

By the grace of God, none of them had realized we were gone yet. Me, probably because I was supposed to be in fucking school. As far as Sloane herself, she was supposed to be sick up in her room.

Her jaw shifted. “You also said you’d take me to the cabin first and let me talk to you about things when I was ready.”

Because there were things. There was something going on, and I was only waiting on the details due to fear. Things were shit between us, but I felt like I was making things almost worse by supporting her. Enabling her and whatever this was.

Easing her arm away, she adjusted her bag on her arm. “Now if you can’t do that, I will find another way. I will, so either honor what you told me or let me go.”

She was pleading with her eyes as she spoke, her voice the same. Like she wanted me to leave but didn’t necessarily mean it. The dare was evident for me to take a step back, but definitely not for the one up on her end.

I knew she would go. She’d walk her little stubborn ass out into the winter and say to hell with me. Even if it killed her, she would. She was that stubborn, but I was too. I folded a hand behind her neck. “You’re going to tell me everything when we get there. You hear me?”

I had my own dare in my voice. I dared her to go back on her word. She was using my own fear against me right now, fear I’d lose her if I didn’t do what she said, and that was there completely between us. She was making me choose between her and my instincts, and that I wouldn’t put up with for much longer.

It didn’t matter how much I loved her.

*

The rest of the drive to the cabin was silent and only partially because Sloane wasn’t talking to me. The weather got pretty bad during the drive, a snowstorm folding around us. It actually got pretty scary there for a bit, but we managed to beat it in the remaining hours of our drive.

I checked my phone inside, no missed calls or texts. I thought this was good that no one knew we were missing yet, but then I realized the drive through the hills made for some pretty shoddy reception. It was damn near impossible to get any type of contact on these backroads.

There were spots in the cabin that were good, though, and as I looked for them, Sloane stayed by the door.

“I’m going to look for a room,” she said, her bag on her shoulder. She’d find plenty of them in this place. This cabin was meant for all the Legacy families to stay at, and most recently, we’d all been here after everything with Charlie.

I lowered my phone. “We’re talking when you come back down.” And we’d stay here a night, tops. We really didn’t have much of a choice, as the storm had followed us here, and I hoped with maybe a night she’d come to her senses. She’d come back with me, back home and where she belonged.

Once again, my little fighter’s eyes averted from me. She headed upstairs, and the paranoid fucker I was, I stayed by them. She was acting really weird, and I needed to keep an eye on her.

My phone rang.

It seemed I got a little reception by the stairs, and I answered, Wolf’s name on the front of my screen. “Hey.”

“Hey, man.” His voice drifted off, nervous sounding. I could assume by now he knew I was missing. We shared a lot of the same classes, and maybe he had reached out, but I wasn’t getting much reception out here.

I folded my fingers into my hair. “I did something stupid, bro.” I dropped my hand. “I let Sloane convince me to take off and out of town. She said she needed some space. We’re at my family’s cabin out of state and—”

“I know.”

I closed my lips, my eyes narrowed. “What?”

“I know you guys are gone. I talked to her. You guys were at a gas station or something.”

What the fuck? She’d said she’d been talking to Bru then.

My back up, I shook my head. “Okay, so why aren’t you more pissed at me?” He sounded calm, rational. “Does everyone else know we’re gone?”

“Yeah.” Voices prattled on in the background. Wells and Thatcher. I heard him tell them both it was me on the phone. Wolf blew out a breath. “And I am pissed, but my hands are fucking tied right now. First off, did you make it to the cabin okay?”

I didn’t understand what was going on, my eyes shifting. “Yeah, barely missed the snowstorm coming up, but yeah.”

More talking, more fucking chatting in the background. I heard Wolf tell one of the guys to relay this information to the parents, my parents. He said he was texting his own that Sloane and I were okay, but I was the only one who wasn’t getting fucking talked to.

“What’s happening?” I sat on the stairs, waiting. “Why does it sound like you already know what the fuck’s coming out of my mouth but I’m missing something?”

“Because you are, but it’s not your fault.” His voice lowered, a growled whisper into the line. “Our parents wouldn’t let us call you.”

“Call me about what—” My phone beeped, and I lowered it to see my mom’s name. I pressed my phone to my ear. “My mom’s calling me.”

“Good. Then she can explain things.”

“Explain what?”

“What you need to know and don’t get mad at Sloane. They wouldn’t let her tell you either after they realized you both left together.”

A buzzing rang behind my ears. “What?”

“Answer your mom, bro. She’ll explain everything because if I do…” He paused, growling again. “It’s best she tell you, and I need to call my parents. Let them know you both got up there okay.”

I didn’t know what to say, but it sounded like he wasn’t going to be telling me anything anyway. I said bye, then clicked over to my mom. “Mom?”

There was silence for a second, but then a sigh. “Baby, are you okay? Did you make it to the cabin?”

I held onto the wall. “Why do you know I left?” And most importantly, why wasn’t she pissed I left? She sounded just as calm as my buddy, and I didn’t get that.

“Because Sloane let us know once we all realized she was gone this morning.” There was some chatter in the background. I didn’t know who she was with, but I made out the voices of some of my buddies’ moms. I didn’t hear Brielle or any of my god dads, though. “Your dad and I were over at her house this morning with Ramses and Brielle. Once we realized she left, we tried to call her. She didn’t answer, but not long after that she texted where she was going. That she was with you, and we let you both because we thought it was best. You’re safer away from this situation until we have it contained.”

My throat worked. “Safer?”

“Yes, now, honey, I need you to listen to me very carefully. First, make sure the doors are locked and the security system is on. We’re sending people out to you, but with the storm coming in, they might not be able to meet you until morning. LJ and Billie will be with them. LJ was already working in the area when this all happened.”

“When what happened?”

I got my mother’s silence then, too much silence. She swallowed into the line. “Your grandfather threatened Sloane late yesterday afternoon. She told her parents this morning, which is why your dad and I were over there. We were all talking about it.”

I scanned the room, the floor. “Threatened her how?”

“I won’t go over the particulars with you. They’re both deranged and disturbing, and I need you completely with me right now as I go over the next steps with you.”

Socked in the gut, fucking ill when I craned forward.

“You are to make sure you two stay there, all right?” she continued, the words swirling in my brain. “It’s better for you both that you’re there, and that you and the other kids stay out of this. We pulled everyone out of school earlier today, including Sloane’s brother Bruno. She mentioned your grandfather threatened him too.”

“How did he—” I closed my eyes. “Mom, what did he do?”

“Unspeakable things,” she stated, the words sharp, cracked. “But you don’t need to worry about any of it because the adults are. I want you to let Sloane know that Bru is safe. Him, Ares, and everyone are fine. We have the boys and Bow barred down with a security team outside of the city. The location is remote, and as far as we know, unknown to your grandfather. Myself and the other mothers are meeting with them now. We’ve been with your dad and the rest of the fathers. They’re working on trying to find your grandpa. We believe he’s still in the city, but he’s making it difficult to find him at the present.”

My hand caged my mouth, my heart fucking slamming against my chest. “Mom, I know you don’t want me in whatever this is, but I need to know what’s going on. I’ll stay here. Just please fucking tell me.”

I was… shaking, my teeth biting down on my knuckles. If my grandfather threatened Sloane, I need to know how.

“He tried to blackmail her,” she said, finally, and I waited for the details.

They came slowly.

Careful, my mom told me things I couldn’t even envision, a nightmare and with Sloane in the middle of it. Parts got quiet too, real quiet when I assumed my mom really didn’t want to talk about those particular things. Things like how it sounded like my grandpa had killed Wolf’s and how he’d orchestrated a kidnapping over revenge…

And what he tried to do to my girl after.

Mom’s voice lowered real soft then, and mine did do. I said not one fucking word while she spoke, and I didn’t breathe during any of it. I merely bit my hand.

I drew blood.

It dripped down my knuckles before I realized I was doing it, but the pain headed into the far off reaches of my mind.

“Now, I know you’re going to want to do something,” she said, finished, but my ears were ringing, my chest tight. “I do because I know you, but you can’t. You won’t.”

I won’t…

“You have one job right now, and that is to be there with Sloane,” she said. “She needs you right now, and you both need all of us—your parents—to do our jobs too. The adults will take care of this, and we will protect you.”

She didn’t say how, and probably wouldn’t even if I asked her. Instead, she told me she loved me and sent my father’s love too. LJ and Billie would be there in their absence, and I was to do my job.

She came from the shadows.

Sloane, her hand on the wall, lingered in the stairwell. She sat, as if she’d been there for a while.

As if she’d been listening the whole time.

My phone was still lit. My mom had hung up, but I hadn’t done anything after. Sloane got up slow. “I was going to tell you.” She chose this as her first thing to say, as if I hadn’t caught her running from me. She took a step down the stairs. “Your parents thought it’d be best we come here, though. Texted me that in the car after I responded to them.”

Because they’d all been in on it, tricked me. My gaze sliced away from Sloane to the floor, and when she eased beside me, I recoiled.

She cringed. “Dorian, I wanted to tell you.”

“That’s the thing. You didn’t.” I put my hands together, my laughter dry, rough. I faced her. “Because if you did, you would have, and long before I caught you climbing down that tree.”

She wouldn’t have run, which was something she’d said she wasn’t going to do to me ever again. She’d told me she was going to trust me, and if she did, I wouldn’t have found her trying to leave.

“I didn’t want to be a liability,” she gasped, her eyes red, wet. She put her hands out. “He was using me for so long, and I didn’t want him to even have the option of hurting anyone else.”

“So, you run again,” I said, nodding. “And when you got caught, you helped my parents manipulate me to keep me out of the situation.”

It sounded worse out there, the betrayal worse. In all honesty, I got why the people I loved banded together to do such a thing. They were just trying to protect me, protect her.

It was Sloane’s lack of faith that got to me the most, and she didn’t trust that I could have taken care of her. I got up, and when she started to follow me, I raised my hands.

She played with hers. “I didn’t want you to get hurt.” There was so much irony in what she just said. By trying not to hurt me, she had. She blinked down a tear. “Please say something.”

She didn’t want me to say something.

So, I didn’t.

Instead, I left her standing there, then proceeded to lock down the house. I was going to keep her safe tonight and do whatever I had to.

Even if she didn’t believe in my capability.