Mercy: A Dark College Romance (Somerset University Book 3) Read online

  They were supposed to be for the Zeta Rho hopefuls. Instead, they were heading down my sisters’ gullets fast.

  “I was just—”

  “Go, Mai!”

  She went.

  I smothered a laugh as she grabbed her stuff and beat it out the door. I closed it behind her with a look to Blair. “I know you function on a steady drip of stress, but everything is going to be fine.”

  “Fine?” she repeated. “How can you say that? These will be the first new sisters since us. It’s on our shoulders to pick the women who’ll carry on our legacy. And do I need to tell you what goes into making that decision?”

  “No.”

  “Extra bonding activities. Extra physical activities.” Blair rattled it off like I hadn’t spoken, fingers held up to illustrate. “We have to give them the test and take them to the obstacle course. You and I must keep eyes on them every second of every day to make sure our final ten are the girls who’ll represent Zeta Rho. And the initiation,” she burst out. “We’re not spilling secrets which means we have to think of another final test for the girls.”

  “Blair.” I touched her temples, massaging tiny circles. “Deep breaths. In and out.”

  “Be serious, Val,” she snapped even while she slowed her breathing.

  “Everything is going to be fine. You’ll focus on the sisters and I’ll take on the pledges. I’ll book us the military obstacle course this week and for the initiation, we’ll do a game-show-style event where the sisters put together everything they’ve learned.

  “Intellectual challenges that test them on the charter and general knowledge. And physical challenges like a tightrope, hurdles, stepping stones, or belly crawls. I looked it up and we can set all that stuff up in our backyard. They gave us a bunch of extra money in the budget to host rush and pledges. We won’t even make a dent buying the things I bookmarked.”

  “Oh. A game show.” Blair took hold of my hands and pressed them together between us. She grinned at me over my fingers. “This is why they call you madame president.”

  “Actually, I’ve worked real hard to get them to stop calling me madame president,” I teased. “Come on, Blair. You know I wasn’t going to let you handle all of this by yourself. We split the work fifty-fifty like always.”

  She took a breath, held it, and let it out slow. “I know we’ll be okay. It’s just... all eyes are on us, Val.”

  “Eyes like whose?” I asked softly. “Your mom?”

  Blair pinked. “She expects a lot from me. What mother doesn’t? She won’t stand for me not to live up to my true potential or for me to bring Zeta Rho down. Everything has to be perfect.”

  “Everything will be perfect. It’s day one and we’re all kicking ass. We’ve clearly got the best snacks on the row because the sisters can’t stop eating them!”

  Keily and Sofia jerked red-handed. Bold as shit, Sofia snatched the tray of caramel pretzel brownies and took off running.

  “Hey!”

  “Catch me and do something about it.”

  Blair glared at me. “This is what I’m talking about. The Sallys are about class and dignity. Who is going to take us seriously when our sisters are in the corner hoarding brownies like they’re Gollums with the ring?”

  It was hard to defend Sofia when she was upstairs cackling and taunting me. “Nice job landing that Lord of the Rings dig.”

  “Ugh!” Blair stomped off—no doubt to check, recheck, and check again that everything was perfect.

  “Sofia Richards,” I called up the stairs. “Stop torturing Blair. And give me back my brownies.”

  “Too late. They’re gone.”

  I went up, catching a glimpse of her as she disappeared into her room. I walked in and flung myself on her bed. Sofia followed suit, jumping on top of me and laying her head between my shoulder blades.

  “Blair has every right to be nervous,” I said. “We struggled to the end of sophomore year, and this year we’ll have even more on our plate. I should be feeling the same, but all I can think about is Maverick.”

  “Is he really going tonight?”

  Sofia knew about Aiden’s invitation. Of course she knew. There wasn’t a single thing I didn’t share with my best friend.

  “He says he has to. The guys are holding back with him and the only way to find out Aiden’s true goal is to lower his guard.”

  “Why does that mean he has to meet up with that creep in a deserted stadium in the middle of the night? Why can’t Kendra, Teagan, Sabrina or Eve tell you what his true goal is? If they’re really the friends they’ve been pretending to be all summer, you’d already know everything about the club.”

  “You have a point,” I muttered. “But those four just keep telling me different versions of the same answer. The club is about pushing boundaries. It’s about deeper bonds of sisterhood. Stretching ourselves to the limit of what we thought we knew.

  “They say that, but when we go to their parties, all they do is hook up and lose money. Maverick might be right. We won’t see any more until they consider him as one of them.”

  “Please tell me you’re not letting him go alone.”

  “Hell no, I’m not.” I flipped to face her. “We agreed I’d be there. Hiding.”

  She nodded. “Please tell me you’re not thinking I’d let you crouch in the stands by yourself.”

  “Aiden demanded a midnight meetup to be extra creepy. You shouldn’t have to drag yourself out of bed to—”

  “Val.”

  I sighed. “Yeah, I know. We’ll be up there hiding together.”

  “Yes, we will,” she said, looking smug. “Bring more brownies in case it goes long.”

  MAVERICK

  To say I was a tad distracted that day would be to say Pan’s Labyrinth was kind of an okay movie. It’s flipping brilliant, and I didn’t hear a word in my Introduction to Nanoelectronics, Computational Cognitive Science, or Database Systems classes. I walked out of there with blank notebooks and judgmental headshakes from my professors.

  I’m hours away from meeting a potential sociopath in an empty field. If he jumps me with his six buddies, my girlfriend will risk herself trying to save me and we’ll both be taken and never seen again.

  That explanation would’ve bought me some sympathy but I held on to it for obvious reasons.

  After my final class, I slid into my car and set off for home. My first one.

  Mom greeted me at the door with her newest accessory riding shotgun in her purse. Chester’s furry head poked through the strap. He barked at me as if to say his current situation was my fault.

  “So much for the Beaumont Boys being the animal lovers.”

  She clicked her tongue. “What can I say, I held him and fell in love. You were right. Samson and I are swinging by the spa to meet up with the girls.”

  “Samson? What was wrong with Chester?”

  “Nothing’s wrong with Chester, but he’s going to be a big, strong boy and he needs a strong name. Won’t you? Won’t you, little boy?” Mom cooed at the pup, kissing all over his face.

  I inched around her and hurried off. Once she was done with him, it’d be me next.

  “Have fun at the spa, Mom.”

  “Bye, baby.”

  Bounding up the stairs, I searched for my father in his usual places.

  The library. Empty.

  The sun room. Not a soul.

  His office.

  Dad glanced up from his paperwork as I strode in.

  “I should have checked here first.”

  “Son.” Dad rose up, arms out to envelop me in a crushing hug. My bones ground together when he hugged me. I could only imagine what it was like for smaller, daintier people. I.e., nearly everyone other than me.

  “What brings you by?” he asked.

  “Do I need a reason?”

  Dad guided me over to the armchairs. The cool leather on my back swirled memories of long nights bent over the computer with my father. He’d let me run around unrestrained in here, go
ing so far as to remove anything breakable or expensive so this could be my second playroom.

  That was the lens through which I viewed the world. Sitting on the carpet with my toys and peeking up at my father—larger than life behind his desk. Smart. Powerful. Strong.

  I knew at five years old that he was what I wanted to be when I grew up.

  “You never need a reason, Ricky. So tell me, how did the first day go? How is the lovely Val and my boy Adam?”

  We launched into the usual conversation, filling each other in on what went on in our short time away.

  “Hope you’re not busy in three weeks,” I said. “Amelia’s angling for you to give a speech at her correspondents’ dinner.”

  “She sent me an email this morning. I’ll be sure to follow up with her.” Dad leaned back in his seat, scanning me up and down. “But you didn’t come here to tell me what Amelia did herself. Something is bothering you, son. Out with it already.”

  I cracked a smile. “When I start off with the bad news, you ask why we can’t have normal conversations anymore. When I open with the pleasantries, you accuse me of stalling. You’re impossible to figure out, Dad.”

  “You’re damn right, and that fact has kept me in business all these years. Now what’s wrong, Rick?”

  Dropping my head back, I turned my gaze on the vaulted ceilings to hide the indecision in my eyes. How much was I going to tell him?

  “Rick?”

  “Do you remember Ezra’s accident two years ago?”

  “The shooting? Of course I remember.”

  “No. Before that. Although, it is connected.” I dropped my chin, locking on to him. “Remember when he fell chasing the van?”

  “Ah, yes. The boy Ezra claimed was kidnapped.” Dad rose and moved over to the bar cart. “Hasn’t he made it home safe and sound?”

  “He did, but it’s not about Sawyer. It’s about the guy who lured him to the van in the first place.” I twisted to track him crossing the room to close the door. “Dad, tell me why someone would protect their hard drive with an S-one trifid encryption using a straddle algorithm.”

  “Trifid encryption?” He retook his seat and handed over a glass of scotch. “Protection like that, we’re talking state secrets, banking information, or intellectual property worth billions. MT uses something similar to protect our proprietary information.”

  “Okay. Can you think of any reason why a college student—who isn’t your son—would encrypt their files with trifid?”

  Marcus inclined his head. “As I stated, he must have something highly valuable worth protecting. Encryption on that scale is not easy to achieve and it wouldn’t be cheap to buy.”

  “Highly valuable was my first thought until I opened the file and found endless data on the men in the Nu Alpha Theta fraternity. Aiden has—”

  “Hold on.” Dad put up his hand, stopping me in my tracks. “Opened the file? You don’t mean— Rick, did you hack this man? You swore to me you would never do that. I didn’t teach you these skills so you could invade people’s privacy.”

  “I didn’t hack him. I became his poker buddy and he let me see the file.”

  The lie turned my stomach. I made a promise to my father and I took that sort of thing seriously. If I wasn’t a man of my word, then what kind of man was I?

  The answer is I’m the kind of man who’d do anything for the people I love. We had to know the truth about Aiden, the Sons of Slaughter, and just how much information he had that could bury us.

  “He let you see it just like that?” Dad’s eyes narrowed. “After the lengths he went through to protect it?”

  “That’s the thing. The file is just those stats, Dad. Height, weight, running times, eating habits, and social skills. I don’t know what to make of it. Do you?”

  “If he let you see his file, surely he explained.”

  “The fraternity. It’s hard to get in and even harder to stay in. He tracks the brothers to see who is falling short.”

  The lines on his forehead hardened. “I see but... a trifid encryption.”

  “Ezra said he’s dirty, Dad. It’s looking more and more like he was right.”

  Dad tossed his head, face smoothing out. “Ezra said he was a kidnapper and the boy turned out to be fine. The encryption is a step above overkill, I will give you that. But have you considered someone who isn’t my son may have the same skills with computers? He feels he has to collect this data and, apparently, he feels the same urge to protect it. Doesn’t sound too dirty to me.”

  I rejected everything he said immediately. “You don’t know what Aiden Connelly is like. Those all-knowing smirks. The hints he drops to Val. I trust Ezra’s and Val’s judgment.”

  “And I trust yours,” said my father. “But I will say this, I’ve worked with many a former Sam or Sally. The fraternity has a strong reputation and the men it turns out go on to do great things. It’s difficult to know the inner workings of a closed community like that, or say what practices are par for the course. It seems this Aiden Connelly is opening up to you. Give him a chance, Rick. Everyone deserves one.”

  “Could one argue he lost his chance when he threatened to tell the Sons of Slaughter where Brian was hiding?”

  “One could,” he admitted. “One could also recognize that in the end, he didn’t get involved in the situation and what happened to Ezra was a result of you boys taking it on yourself to play undercover agents.”

  My head dropped right back on the chair. “Which we’ve apologized for a thousand times.”

  “Yes, you have apologized for hiding dangerous things from us, taking on a situation you weren’t equipped to handle, going outside the law, and getting your best friend shot.” A hand rested on my forearm. “You apologized and we forgave you, because chances aren’t limited to one.”

  “All right, Dad.” I placed my hand over his. “I get what you’re saying.”

  Give Aiden a chance... to prove he’s exactly what I think he is.

  THAT NIGHT, OUR FAMILY sat around the dinner table eating ravioli with sundried tomatoes and pine nuts. On a normal day, that was my favorite meal.

  I barely touched it.

  My attention drifted to Val and, sitting by her side, Sofia. Neither one would hear of letting me meet Aiden alone. I had a niggling feeling that they were looking forward to sneaking around and pulling one over on him. I believed Aiden was a lot of things. Chief among them someone not to be underestimated.

  After dinner, I carried Adam up to his new room. Daphne had outdone herself with a jungle theme—inspired by Val’s trip to Costa Rica. Adam’s walls were transformed into a window to another universe. Vines stretched over his canopy bed. Monkeys swung by his jungle gym and stuffed animals joined him in his reading nook.

  Most nights he asked to sleep in the nook. That night was no different.

  I tucked him into his makeshift bed of comforters, pillows, a snake, and two lemurs. Val watched from the doorway as we went through his routine. Checking the closet and under the bed for monsters, reading a story, and sitting tight until he fell asleep. Half an hour later, he was out like a light.

  Val kissed me on my way out of the door. “It’s a few hours until midnight,” she said. “Sofia and I should get going.”

  “Now? Why?”

  “I doubt he’ll show up four hours early to shoot the shit. Sofia and I will find a spot to lie low, and when you arrive, you’ll be alone as he demands.”

  Gripping her shoulders, I steered her away from Adam’s room and propped her against the wall, staring hard into those flinty green eyes. “This is my last-ditch attempt to get you to stay here.”

  “Go for it.”

  “I love you and I promise nothing will happen to me. You trust me, don’t you?”

  Her lips quirked up at the edges. “I do, and well done whipping out the trust card.”

  “Thank you. I’ve got more.”

  “Please, continue.”

  “Aiden has no reason to come for me. I’m no
t a Sam and he knows I’ve got nothing on him. The book he gave you mentioned an initiation to get into the club. There’s no reason to think this is anything other than what he says it is.”

  “The logical approach. I like it.”

  “One more.”

  “Let’s hear it,” she said.

  “Sex.”

  “What?” Val burst out laughing. “Expound.”

  “Nonstop. Every sexual favor you can think of is yours on demand, and for this tempting offer, all you have to do is grab your best friend, head down to the theater and watch a couple of your favorites until I get back. What do you think?”

  Val slid her hands up my shoulders, bringing me down to her height. Her kiss was a sweet gift on my lips.

  “I think that I trust you absolutely but I don’t trust Aiden or his friends. I think that just because an initiation is standard, it doesn’t mean it’s safe or something any sane person would choose to do. And I think all sexual favors are already available to me on demand.” She popped another kiss on my cheek. “I heard your offer, considered it, and now it’s time to go. See you soon, baby. I’ll text you when we find a good spot.”

  With that, Valentina met Sofia at the top of the stairs and together they left. I considered going after her and then I considered I may be overreacting. The logic I gave Val held up. Aiden had no reason to snatch me off the street or murder me in a deserted field.

  This is exactly what Aiden says it is.

  CAMPUS WAS OPPRESSIVELY quiet. First night of school, and this late, students hadn’t reached the point of slacking off. Drinking on shadowed park benches or searching for somewhere to hook up that wasn’t five feet from their roommates.

  No. All the good little Somerset kids were safely tucked in their beds. And I was alone.

  I arrived at the stadium and a locked gate.

  Me: I’m here. How do I get in?

  Aiden: East entrance service door. It’s open.

  Ever been in a football stadium at night? No. Why would you? Why would anyone wish to enter the place like this? Forgotten echoes of cheering fans whispering through the gloom. Flickers out of the corner of your eyes that turn out to be another trick of a mind searching for someone. Anyone. And the sole beings those eyes find are six still figures in the middle of the field. Waiting for you.