Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 130512 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 653(@200wpm)___ 522(@250wpm)___ 435(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130512 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 653(@200wpm)___ 522(@250wpm)___ 435(@300wpm)
The new secret society was added to my list.
PEOPLE, PLACES, OR THINGS FOR DESTRUCTION:
Traine’s a-hole dad
HBOTC (new leader) Brinna
New secret society
That’d keep me busy the rest of high school, but they were still talking.
Aaannnddd, my fingers hit the bottom of the popcorn bag. I ran out of my snack. I might need to grab some more—
“Maddy.”
Err. Screech. Say what?
All thoughts of going for more popcorn was abandoned because the HBOTC just said my name.
I turned around so I could press my ear to the vent to make sure I didn’t miss anything. She was bringing me into this.
As far as I was concerned, that gave me permission to do anything and everything I was planning.
Thank you, HBOTC.
50
SAMANTHA
Icouldn’t process what this person was saying.
My sister.
My God. My brother.
They were both here.
I… How could I process this? But Sabrina wasn’t mine. He’d gotten to her. He took her away from me. He turned her against me. I stood here and listened as Sabrina talked about this new secret society. How great it was. How powerful. How elite.
The punchline was her.
Park Sebastian wanted to hurt us and he won in the end. He was a part of the new secret society, even from prison. He orchestrated everything.
Jesus Christ. Did Garrett know how much in contact Sabrina had been with Park? I couldn’t imagine he’d be okay with it. He knew what Park tried to do me, and my sister was telling me that Park wasn’t a serial rapist. That we set him up.
She believed it. Everything he said. She believed every damn word.
No.
I made up my mind.
He didn’t get to have her. I didn’t care how long he spent grooming her, making her believe his bullshit. I wouldn’t allow it.
“Where is he?”
My sister shut up. I tuned her out because everything she was saying was on repeat. There was nothing new. It was crazy rhetoric. Half was about how amazing the new secret society was, and the other half was how enraged she was on Uncle Seb’s behalf for what the old secret society did to him. Round and fucking round.
“Who?”
“Park.”
Her eyes got wide before more glee beamed from her. “He’s still in prison. They got him convicted for being a serial rapist, remember? Such bullshit charges, but he has a new lawyer and there’s a new judge in the secret society. They’re going to get him out. It’s a matter of time now. I can’t wait.” She rubbed her hands together.
Bullshit charges. I shook my head. They weren’t bullshit charges. I looked over her head to Mason, saw the concern he had for me. He knew what Park tried to do to me.
But Garrett left, seemingly to protect me, and what? He left his daughter behind? How the hell had Sabrina been in contact with Park all her life? Why wasn’t she in Europe with her parents?
I needed to talk to Garrett. I needed Sabrina to shut the fuck up. She was spouting nonsense. And I needed to talk to Steele. He’d been quiet since her arrival.
“You need—I need to talk to your father.”
She stopped talking again, but then a wicked smile stretched over her face. “But you haven’t asked me the best part. The big reveal, sister. Don’t you want to know the real reason I’m here? Why I sent Steele to go to school here ahead of me? It’s really good. I promise.”
God.
I didn’t want to know.
I didn’t know if I could stomach it, whether it was real or bullshit.
I started to tell her just that, but she tilted her head to the side, softening her grin. “It has to do with Maddy.”
I went still, hearing that.
My daughter.
What did my daughter have to do with whatever dark plans my sister had concocted? Steele too. I sent him a scathing look, but he was watching his sister with confusion.
“They changed the recruiting rule. You remember how it worked the last time, right?”
I did, remembering when Park himself explained it all to me.
The families were legacies. My grandfather. My father. It made sense why they tapped Sabrina to join the new one. Park’s family started it all. They initiated my mother, except she was blacklisted. They tried to initiate me. They wanted Mason, Logan. They really wanted James Kade, though he was considered a special exception. The recruiting happened in college. They pulled people in through friendships and bonding, finding out their secrets and using that to keep them inside the society. It was a cult. If you left, all of your secrets were released and your life was ruined.
The power of The Network had been terrifying. If this new one was worse, that gave me chills.
My mouth was dry, feeling like I was scraping over bark as I asked, “How did they change it?”
“We can recruit in high school now.”
Oh, God.
She sent Steele here. He was in the same school as Maddy.