Kings of Linwood Academy - The Complete Box Set: A Dark High School Romance Series by Callie Rose (sight word books .TXT) 📕

he closes the door, I set the sandwiches on a little table by the door and look up at the boys.

“He knows I called Dunagan. He might know we were poking around asking Summer questions too. I’m not sure if it was one thing or a combination of things. He trapped me in the hall, and it felt like he was sort of… feeling me out. Dropping stronger and stronger hints of his suspicions, waiting to see how I’d respond. Maybe he didn’t know for certain until that exact moment, but he definitely knows now.”

“Fuck.” Lincoln’s single word contains a mountain of meaning. His amber eyes blaze as he steps forward, the muscles of his shoulders seeming to grow even broader as his hands clench into fists. “Did he threaten you?”

I shake my head, licking my lips. “No. Yes. He… offered me a deal.”

“What deal?” River asks.

“He said he’ll pull strings to get my mom a plea bargain and make sure she gets a reduced sentence if I stop looking into this. If I don’t talk to Detective Dunagan. If I let my mom take the fall for him.”

No one speaks for a long moment. I can tell the same thoughts I had are running through each of the guys’ minds. Weighing what this really means and wondering if we can trust Judge Hollowell to keep his word on anything.

“The bigger question is,” River says slowly, fiddling with the cufflink on his suit jacket, “what will he do if you don’t play along? If you go ahead and meet with Dunagan on Monday?”

Cold fear rushes through me like a blast of icy wind, and I lock my legs to keep from sinking down to the floor.

“I don’t know. I don’t know how safe I am here, or at school, or anywhere—but my mom’s a sitting duck. She’s locked in a fucking prison cell with nowhere to hide. And we don’t know who Hollowell’s got in his pocket. He could have someone go after her and then cover it up—”

I break off, refusing to even finish that sentence. I can’t bear to think about it.

Lincoln tugs me into an embrace, wrapping his arms around me. His grip is so tight it almost hurts, but I don’t want him to stop. The feeling is grounding somehow, as if being physically held this tightly stops me from feeling the metaphorical noose tightening around my neck.

This is it. The moment I’ve been anticipating and dreading since this whole thing began. The moment when we’re out of options. When my mom’s fate becomes set in stone.

Unless…

I cling to Linc, my fingers digging into his back as I bury my face against his chest. The others are all surrounding us, so close I can feel the heat seeping from their bodies into mine. We stay like that for several long beats as a thought bounces around in my mind like a single stray ping pong ball.

Judge Hollowell looked surprised.

When I accused him of killing Iris because he’d gotten her pregnant, there was the briefest moment of hesitation, a look of surprise, before he agreed.

Why?

He has to know she was pregnant; that news couldn’t have caught him off-guard. Everyone knows she was pregnant. The kids at Linwood all know, which means their parents must know.

But he still seemed taken aback by my accusation, as if some part of it was untrue.

She was definitely pregnant.

And he definitely killed her.

But maybe… maybe that wasn’t the reason he killed her.

“There’s something else,” I say quietly, pulling out of Linc’s embrace so I can look at the kings. “Something we missed, something we haven’t thought about.”

“What do you mean?” River shakes his head in confusion.

I pull my bottom lip between my teeth, replaying that moment in our hushed conversation over and over in my mind. I’m certain of it. Judge Hollowell was lying.

“I don’t think he killed Iris because she was pregnant,” I whisper. “Or at least, not just because of that. There’s something else.”

Chase’s eyes widen. “Like what?”

“I don’t know.” I curl my fingers into fists, wanting to press the heels of my hands against my eyes, to block out the entire world and all of this insanity. “I don’t know. But the way he acted, the way he so readily admitted to it… It was like he wanted me to think that’s why he killed Iris. Like he wanted me to stop looking there, to leave it at that.”

“And you think there’s more to it,” Dax says slowly, his brows lowering as he considers this.

“Yeah. I do.”

“So what do we do?” Chase’s gaze bounces around our small circle before landing on me. “If we think there’s another explanation out there, what do we do?”

My stomach tightens.

God, I hope I’m not making the biggest fucking mistake of my life.

“We keep looking.”

15

Silence falls in the little room, heavy and stifling.

I lick my lips. I said “we”, but the honest truth is, this fucked up situation is reaching the point where I can’t ask these boys to keep wading in deeper with me. It only puts more of us in danger, and I hate the thought of that.

But before I can say anything else, Lincoln dips his head once. “Okay.”

The others are already nodding in agreement as he speaks, and a surge of overwhelming emotion chokes off my breath.

It’s too much.

The fear. The gratitude. The relief at not being alone. My heart can’t handle the overload of feelings across such a huge spectrum.

“Thank you,” I whisper.

River lifts my hand to his lips and kisses my knuckles, his expression serious and determined. “Always.”

“Fuck. We better get back to dinner.” Dax glances toward the door. “We’ll take you upstairs first, and if that fucker Hollowell leaves our sight again for a second, we’ll follow him.”

“Be careful. Please.”

I feel like a broken record saying that, praying for safety when none exists. It doesn’t matter how careful we all are, we’re playing a dangerous game that could have deadly consequences.

But Dax nods, and then the