I add another few sentences.

I was having sex with my half-brother, James Barrasso. A teacher at the lodge caught us together in one of the rooms.

This time, when I show her, she finally seems to get how goddamn serious I am about this. Sure, it’s a possibility that she could whine to Samuel and get him to believe that I stole her phone and tied her up just to fabricate these lies, but … well, the stark look of fear on Trinity’s face tells me her rich daddy is of a different persuasion.

“All I did was admit to Ophelia that the annulment and marriage were a lie. That’s it.”

I grab her by the hair and yank so hard that tears prick at the edges of the bitch’s eyes.

“What. Else.” I don’t even phrase it as a question; it’s a command. Because I know there’s more. A quick glance up at Victor reconfirms my suspicions. He gives a slight nod and I turn back to Trinity, giving her hair another harsh tug. She whimpers and sniffles before answering, her dignity stripped completely away.

“She asked about a little girl, showed me a picture. I agreed that I’d seen that girl before. Once, I thought I saw you staring at her through the fence.” Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck! I slam Trinity’s face into the floor once and then stand up as she wails helplessly.

“We have to find Ophelia,” I say, my jaw clenching tight as Vic checks his phone for messages from the other boys. There’s nothing, not just yet. He re-presses the emergency stop button and then sends us back down to the first floor.

“We do,” he agrees, his dark eyes hard and businesslike. Just behind that careful façade however, I can see something else, that blinding rage of his, the temper that he almost lost on the first day of school spilling out to taint the earth.

We hit the first floor as Trinity begs and begs for us to let her go. All Victor does, however, is kneel down beside her and give a tight, cocky smile.

“You are so awful, Trinity Jade,” he says mildly, his voice so placid that it can only be the menacing calm before a great storm. “So awful that even with the billions you might’ve inherited from Samuel Jade, you are not worth my time. Even with your money, you are nothing. You are so small that you are not even a fraction of the woman that my wife is.”

Victor stands up as I hit send on the text message to Samuel, showing it to Trinity before I drop the phone on the floor near her face and she screams and screams and screams. On our way out of the elevator, I push the button for the topmost floor. Before we leave, I take my diploma from my pocket, unroll it, and use the spare tube of red lipstick I brought with me to the amphitheater to write Out of Order, Use Stairs on the back of it. Sliding a piece of chewing gum between my lips, I smack it a few times and then use it to stick my makeshift sign over the elevator’s call button.

“Fuck you, bitch,” I snarl before turning on my heel with my husband right beside me. “Let’s go find your mother.”

“Oh yes,” Vic purrs, reaching up to rub at his chin. “Let’s.”

Hael calls us as we’re leaving the girls’ dorm; Victor picks up on the first ring.

“What’s up?” he asks, and then nods at whatever Hael says on the other end of the line. “Yep, we’re on our way to the Student Parking Area.” He glances over at me as he hangs up. “We need to run.” And so we do. We pound across campus together as I shrug out of my graduation gown and chuck it into the bushes; Victor does the same.

Once we hit the gravel area at the back of the school, we see Aaron using the Bronco to push cars out of the way, just so he can get to the exit without having the time to properly move the other vehicles.

Hael drives behind him in the Camaro with Oscar and Callum in the Eldorado.

As soon as Aaron gets free of the lot, he takes off while Hael pauses beside me and Vic.

“They’re heading for the back gate,” Hael calls out as Victor opens the door and we both climb in together. I’m practically sprawled on Vic’s lap as Hael hits the gas and we take off, gravel flying out behind us as the wheels spin and we pick up speed. “Maxwell, Ophelia … and Heather.”

“Shit,” I breathe, clenching my teeth tight. If Ophelia gets Heather out of here and onto that private fucking helicopter they have parked at Maxwell’s place, they could be gone in an instant, dropped at the private airstrip that Maxwell also owns. He could take my sister to another country and use her as leverage to get whatever it is he wants out of us.

He could kill her. Worse, he could … But I can’t think about that happening. I have to focus on the moment at hand.

“If they reach the gate, Maxwell’s formal motorcade will be waiting,” Vic says, scooting me aside so that he can dig under the seat. He removes a pistol and inserts a magazine, passing it over to me. From the driver’s seat, Hael does the same, removing a weapon of his own. “We can’t stop them if they get there; they’ll send us to the underworld in a hail of gunfire.”

“Roger that, boss,” Hael murmurs, hitting the gas. As the Camaro speeds up, taking the curving, gravel road at a much faster speed than I’d normally be okay with, Victor dials up Aaron in the Bronco.

“Stop Maxwell’s car before he gets too close to the gate.”

Legally, Maxwell Barrasso cannot bring anymore than four of his private security members on campus with him—two guards for him and two for Ophelia. The rest are waiting just outside the gate where the VGTF are, as we speak, getting ready to descend.

If Maxwell gets to his motorcade too soon, only one of two things can happen: we die dripping with lead as Vic suggested, or he and Ophelia escape with my little sister tucked between them. Either one of those scenarios is unacceptable.

“On it,” Aaron says, rocketing off down a side road that disappears into the woods. It’s a service road for the groundskeepers, that much I do know from looking at the maps on Oscar’s iPad. I also remember that the narrow, pothole-filled road curves around to cut off this gravel road before it reaches the gate.

“Come on, come on,” I whisper as I hear Aaron’s ragged breathing through the phone. Just ahead of us, I can see the pair of sleek black Maybach sedans. Maxwell, Ophelia, and Heather are likely in one while several of the guards are in the other as a decoy. We can’t shoot at them, of course, because it isn’t worth the risk of hitting my sister. Even if we shot the tires out, there’s the risk of causing an accident that kills Heather along with everyone else.

“Almost there,” Aaron breathes, and then I see it, the white and blue Bronco shooting out of the woods and hitting the small hump of dirt that marks the end of the access road. The SUV flies into the air and crashes down in front of the two black sedans, cutting off their route and trapping them between the low stone walls that line either side of the main road for small stretches at a time.

They have no place to go but to use the same path Aaron’s Bronco took, down the side road and toward the woods. They reverse and then take off, and we follow. But Aaron’s bought us enough time to swing the Camaro in front of them.

The Eldorado blocks the road from behind.

Trapping them.

Doors open and men in suits appear, armed with assault rifles.

Heather is wrenched out of one of the doors, her arm gripped tightly in the hand of a large, white man that carries the same generic profile as his son, James. The frown on his face is legendary; his temper piqued as he shoves the barrel of a gun right up against the side of Heather’s head, burying the metal in her temple as an involuntary growl slips past my red-painted lips.