My head fucking hurts when I come to. But my arms … what the fuck is happening to my arms? They’re above my head and painful like hell as though someone’s tugging at them.
When my eyes briefly open, smoke and flashes are everywhere.
What’s going on?
Weren’t we … fighting?
My eyes burst open.
Penelope’s father. His henchmen flooded the building.
My head flicks up to the two guys dragging me across the pavement to the right side of the frat house.
“What the …?” I murmur, my voice croaky. I flail back and forth to try to shake them off.
“Hold him tighter,” one of the guys says, and squeezes my wrists so harshly it feels like my hands might fall off.
They lift me from the ground, and a car door behind me opens up.
Fuck, I need to get out of here, fast.
“Get your fucking hands off me!” I yell, thrashing around as they hoist me into the back seat. My brain is still screwed because of the harsh blunt hit it endured, and I can’t even move my legs right. Still, I kick around as best I can. The guys shove both my feet inside and shut the door on me. It instantly locks.
Fuck.
“Stop destroying my car, Dylan.”
My eyes widen at the sound of that voice. I freeze halfway through kicking in the window, and I look up.
My father’s sitting right there in the front, next to his driver.
He glances at me through the rearview mirror. “You hurt?”
“What?” My jaw drops. “What are you doing here?”
His eyes stay fixated on mine. “Saving your ass.”
I frown, confused. “How did you—”
“Her nice friend Crystal told me she saw you boys chasing after Penelope, so I knew you’d take her back here, and she’d inevitably convince you of all those damn lies.”
Wait, what?
He suddenly grips my arm. “But don’t you worry, son. I took care of it.”
My frown turns into a face filled with disgust. “Wait a minute … Those men out there …”
“Her father’s,” he says. “I knew he was coming, so I came to pull you out of there before he torched the place.”
I sit up straight even though my head fucking hurts, and I reach into my pocket to find my phone and I press a button. “How did you know he was coming?” In his eyes, I see the truth, and my pupils dilate. “You told him she was there …”
“You think I had any other choice? After you caught her, I knew she’d fill your head with nonsense. I had to put a stop to it.”
My jaw tightens, and I jerk away from his grip. “So you let her father know so he could kill us all?”
“Not you,” he barks. “Your fucking friends. They ruined everything for you. And I’m pretty sure they’ll fuck up until all of them are dead including her.” He pulls back and seethes through gritted teeth, “Good riddance.”
Rage slowly boils to the surface.
My father knew she would tell me the truth.
So instead of owning up to his mistake, he went ahead and let his enemies know exactly where we were so all his problems would be taken care of without having to lift a single finger.
“You … you did this…” I mutter. “All because of Eve?”
“Doesn’t matter,” he retorts.
“So you’re not denying it?”
“I’ve taken care of things. Be happy,” he adds.
“Happy?” I parrot, snorting, before my face turns dead serious. “Did you know Eve was pregnant?”
He just looks at me with a stern gaze.
Grinding my teeth, I bark, “Answer me!”
“Yes.”
Good God.
Now I understand how Felix must feel all the time.
So much rage.
“All this time, you knew Eve was carrying a baby, maybe even my baby, and you didn’t care to tell me.”
“She didn’t even know which one of your friends she fucked, and then she tried to rope you in to her mistake for life,” he barks back. “I did what I had to do. I took care of it. As a father does for his son.”
I’m livid. Completely off my rocks enraged. “Penelope was right.”
“Forget about her, Dylan,” my father says as he focuses on me through the rearview mirror. “Those Ricci girls are dangerous. Twice they almost ruined your life. I protected you.”
“No,” I say through gritted teeth, making a fist. “You killed Eve and her kid!”
In a fit of rage, I jump at him and stab him with my knife, straight into the shoulder. If I wasn’t so dazed from the attack, I would’ve stabbed him in the neck instead.
My father grunts in pain but still manages to raise the window between the back seat and the front, sealing me in. I slam the window with my fists until my skin cracks and my knuckles turn bloody.
I won’t give up.
I won’t fucking stop.
Not now … not ever.
Not until I’ve chased him to the ends of the earth.
Felix
I throw a knife at a dude punching away at one of my pledges, and it knocks him to the ground.
“Thanks,” the pledge mumbles.
“Consider this your hazing,” I reply, and he nods with a smirk before he continues fighting off the men who are pouring in from two sides. It’s a relentless assault, and it doesn’t seem to be coordinated at all. Almost as if someone other than her father is also sending people to attack us.
My eyes land on Penelope, who’s fighting off some dudes near the side entrance, thrusting her knives into their throats. Smoke bombs fill the area, clouding everything, and she runs, coughing her lungs out.
More men swarm in from the front, but I still make the choice to rush to Penelope’s aid instead, cutting my way through people like they’re made of butter.
“Pen!” I grasp her hand and pull her to me.
“Dylan,” she says between heavy breaths. “He’s gone.”
“What do you mean gone?” I ask.
“They smashed his head in,” she says. “I looked everywhere, but I can’t find him.”
Fuck. Did they take him somewhere to kill him in cold blood?
I turn around for a moment to pull one of my knives from the flesh of one of these fuckers, ready to chase after whoever took Dylan. Because I don’t leave any of my boys behind.
CLICK!
I pause.
“Don’t move.”
As my eyes rise to meet the face of the man in the trench coat, his gun is pointed right at me.
His jaw barely unclenches when he speaks. “Give me my fucking daughter.”
I push Penelope behind me, despite the fact that he could pull the trigger at any moment. I refuse to move. I don’t care who he is. No one points a gun at my girl.
BANG!
A shot enters my shoulder, and I grind my teeth together in pain.
“Move,” he growls. “Next shot will enter your brain.”
Instinct makes me flick my knife open, and I push the tip against his belly.
“Do it then. Cut me if you dare,” the guy taunts.
And it takes every fucking ounce of self-control not to because I can feel the bullet moving in my muscles.
But he’s her father.
And I’ve already hurt her enough.
“After all the fucking shit you did to my daughters … You’ve got balls, I have to give you that,” the guy grits, pushing the metal farther into my forehead. “But your reign of terror over this fucking campus ends today.”
Suddenly, Penelope lunges out from behind me and grabs her father’s wrist.
BANG!
The gun goes off, a bullet burying itself into the wall behind me. My skin sizzles from the shot grazing past my cheek as I jerk away from the pungent smell of burnt steel. A drop of warm blood rolls down my face, and I pick it up with my index finger.
“Stop,” Penelope says, and her voice echoes through the halls.
Her father immediately grabs her arm and tugs at her. “Come.”
“Dad, wait,” she says, and she jerks free from his grip. “He’s not the enemy.”
“Like hell he isn’t,” her father grits. “He’s the one responsible for my daughter’s death together with that Caruso family.” The gun clicks again, ready to fire.
She grabs his arm and forces it to lower. “Eve was pregnant.”
His eyes widen and immediately home in on me again. “Yours?”
“We don’t know,” I reply.
His nostrils flare. “We?”
“It’s … complicated.”
“Eve was in a relationship with Felix, Dylan, and Alistair,” Penelope explains. “They didn’t kill her.”
“A relationship?” he parrots, looking leery.
“It’s true,” I say.
“Yet she never once thought of dying until she met you.”
My face tightens as I stare into the barrel of his gun, unafraid. “And I take full responsibility.”
Penelope clutches her father’s face, forcing him to look at her. “Eve jumped because the dean made her choose between leaving campus and keeping the baby.”
His fingers twist around the trigger, lips twitching.
“That is the Caruso I was talking about,” she says, still holding his gaze. “Not Dylan.”
“But this asshole—”
“Is not the person you want to kill,” she says.
His jaw clenches, and he looks around for a second before lowering his gun. With two fingers in his mouth, he makes a distinct, unique whistle, and the gunfire and knife throwing suddenly cease.
“Retreat,” he calls, and his men stop fighting and walk back to the front entrance.
The frat boys get up on their feet again and brush off their clothes, but they remain vigilant and on edge. No fucking wonder, with these shoot-crazy mobsters coming in to swoop Penelope out of my arms.
Her dad almost killed me for it.
And I would’ve died if it wasn’t for her intervention.
BANG!
Shots are fired from the side entrance, and all three of us duck for cover behind a pillar.
“More buddies of yours?” I ask.
“No, my men listen to my call,” her father retorts. “These are rogues.”
“That’s where Dylan was dragged through.” She clutches my shirt. “What if they work for his father?”
Fuck.
“They tried to kill us all, including you,” I reply, and I look at the entrance.
“Then that’s our enemy now,” her father rasps, and he reloads his magazine.
More bullets rain down on us, and I hide again.
“Wait a minute …” Penelope’s eyes widen. “Where’s Alistair?”
