Updates once per week. UNEDITED DRAFT. Content notes apply only to this part.
There’s something kind of bullshit about needing to attend classes while I’ve got so much going on in my life. Nothing about this marketing class is grabbing me. As soon as it ends, I’m ready to bolt. I can’t even manage a charming smile for Janet when she tries to approach me about the group project.
I should start skipping. What are they going to do, fail me? Prevent me from graduating?
What a joke.
Except I’m no longer so sure I’ll be taking over for Dad. The Bouchard Syndicate was always my future, but now, I have no fucking clue anymore.
I check my texts, relieved to find one from Asch telling me that he got Pandora and Samantha safely to their dorm room.
That doesn’t mean Pandora is going to stay safe. Bobbi—Lynx—might not be going after her, but the threats aren’t over.
Nothing is ever over.
I know enough about my dad’s business to know that even if we stopped with all this BS, the world wouldn’t change. The backroom deals will continue. Networking will still get you ahead faster than hard work.
It’s really not like me to get nihilistic like this, but the past few days might be getting to me.
My entire body is wired. I didn’t even release any aggression the way Asch and River did when they took on Bobbi. I’m glad I was there to help Pandora, but I’d had to be the smart one. The calm one—and who thought that was a good idea?
I need to hit something.
Without a convenient punching bag around, the gym will have to do. I stop by my car for my gym equipment, then make my way to the locker rooms.
River is in the middle of changing into his workout clothes, and he glances at me. “Don’t see you here often,” he remarks. “What brings you to my domain? You look like you want to kill someone. I can suggest a few candidates, if you want.”
“Your domain?” I scoff. “It’s the gym, River. And I come here plenty.” I lift my shirt up to show off my abs. “I don’t get like this without working out.”
His gaze sweeps over me, lingering on my abdomen before looking back at my face. “Fair enough,” he says. “Want company? I have some aggression to take out, too.”
“Yeah. I’m sure I could kick your ass,” I say with a smirk.
River scoffs, but he waits for me to get changed so we can head to the training room together. I notice River make a strange curve around the entrance to the saunas.
Not a fan of the heat, maybe?
“Asch texted,” I mention. “He’s with Pandora and Samantha in their dorm. He’ll probably stay with them for the night.”
“Good,” River says. “I’m glad someone’s there with them.” He exhales slowly. “I don’t think Pandora will appreciate having one of us with her all the time, but…” He trails off. “We just don’t know what’s going to happen.”
I stretch to loosen up my muscles. “I mean, let’s be real, half of it is protecting Pandora from herself.”
I shouldn’t have said that.
Pandora would hate me for saying it.
But I remember how she’d been after the attack, and how frayed and broken she’d looked.
If she’d allowed it, I would have kept her locked up in my room and spent all day with her. All week.
The rest of our lives.
River winces, but he nods. “Yeah. She’s… She’s not doing so hot, man.”
Try telling me something I don’t already know.
He starts to stretch, too, limbering up.
We get into position across from each other.
“No face punches,” I say. “Or groin anything. Because we don’t want to make Pandora even more upset.”
“No vitals,” River confirms. “No dirty tricks.”
He takes a step toward me, taking the offensive right away as he tests me with a jab aimed at my shoulder. I let him clip me, then counter with a punch of my own.
It’s different from sparring with Asch. River’s movements are slower, but each one is more deliberate and powerful. I’m so used to Asch that River catches me off guard, and I mentally chastise myself for that. I need to be able to deal with any threat, not just ones that fight like my best friend does.
“You think Asch is fucking Pandora right now?” I ask as I try to unbalance River with a kick.
“Might be,” River says, sidestepping the kick and getting into my guard so he can aim another punch at my stomach. “That ever bother you?”
I block his punch, but wince from the impact anyway. “Nope. It’s hot, Asch fucking Pandora.” I send a jab his way, but he backsteps. “Does it bother you? Pandora with me. Pandora with Asch. Pandora with both of us, without you.”
My next kick catches him in the calf, but he doesn’t stumble.
He starts to circle me, and I can’t get a good look at his face as he replies with surprising honesty, “Sometimes.”
I don’t know what to make of that. I know that Pandora is too much for one person. If I didn’t have Asch and River to help, I’d have been swept up in all of her craziness by now.
Sometimes, I still want to.
It would be easier to kill everyone and dye the world in blood.
Easier, until we get caught.
Easier, until blackmail stops working or somebody decides to take us out.
Easier, until even our connections can’t get us out of it.
“You think you could handle her on your own?” I ask mildly.
River ends up in front of me again, and he shrugs. “I could try. It’s more…” He takes a deep breath, and he meets my eyes. “There’s this whole dynamic I’m not a part of. And I get it. You and Asch have history. But it’d be nice to not be on the outside.”
I stop moving too. My lungs burn with how heavily I’m breathing. “If you don’t want to be on the outside, then stop being a little bitch and actually hang out with us.”
River scowls at me. “I’m not being a little bitch.”
“No?” I shake my head. “Then why haven’t you had dinner with me and Asch at all since we all got back from winter break? I know you weren’t with Pandora every night.”
He’s quiet for a moment, but his hands clench into fists at his sides. “I didn’t want to intrude. Speaking of intruding, have you told Pandora that you two were about to fuck on the couch when I walked in?”
It’s my turn to be stabbed by guilt. “We haven’t had the time,” I point out. “Rescuing Pandora and reassuring her was more important.”
“Yeah, guess telling her that wouldn’t be very reassuring,” River mutters. He sighs, holding up a hand. “Now I’m being a little bitch. It’s not like I want to be in the middle of a Blaze-and-Asch sandwich, but I hate being on the outside, too.”
I step closer to him and push his hand down. We’re around the same height, which means we’re on eye level with each other. Heat radiates off of River, and I can smell his deodorant mixing with his sweat.
River stares apprehensively. “What are you doing?”
Nothing about River is attractive to me. Not that he isn’t hot; he is, I know that objectively. But I’m not drawn to him like I am to Pandora, or even the less intense attraction I have for Asch.
But I grip the back of River’s neck anyway and press my lips against his.
He startles, his body going rigid against mine, but then he’s kissing me back—not quite demanding, but not submitting either. It’s only for a second, then he pulls away with a quick glance around us.
No one else is around to have seen it.
“Wow,” I say. I have to resist the urge to wipe my mouth. “I’m really not missing out. I should tell Pandora you’re ass at kissing.”
“Shove it, Blaze,” River mutters. “Maybe if we weren’t in the middle of the gym, I’d put more effort into it. But the last thing we need are pics of us kissing circulating around campus, too.”
“Better pics of us than…” I bite my lip, and my gaze instinctively goes in the direction I know the basketball hall is.
His eyes darken. “Yeah.” He looks down at the floor. “I don’t regret a lot of things, but I’d erase that if I could. All of it. Pandora’s always had it hard, even back in high school. I was so determined to get revenge on her that I forgot why I love her.”
Love.
I’m not sure I know what that word means. It gets thrown around a lot, and my mom has said she loves me, but beyond that? I never got attached to people or things. Use them once, discard them.
I kept Asch.
And I’m going to keep Pandora.
I can’t imagine a world where I don’t have her at my side, making dumb jokes, egging me on, getting sexy and violent and leaving me completely breathless.
Is that love?
No fucking clue.
“She got worse after that,” I say. “The talk of… her heart being missing, or eyes in the walls. She didn’t do that before.”
“I think that might’ve always been there,” River says. “She didn’t talk about it or anything, but there’s always been something she’s hidden from everyone. I think it might’ve been that. But I don’t know for sure. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that we made everything worse, and we have to fix it. Somehow.”
I grab my water bottle and sit down on the mat. After a few gulps of water, I say, “How do you fix her mind, River? She’s never going to accept that maybe she needs to be on meds or something.” I curl my nose in disgust. “Or therapy. Fuck. I wouldn’t do therapy. Would you?”
River shakes his head and joins me on the mat. “No.” He huffs out a bitter laugh. “I probably need it, though. All of us, with everything going on, could probably use a shrink. But what would we tell them that wouldn’t make them go to the cops? A whole lot of nothing. Except…”
I wait for him to continue, but he stays silent.
“I heard some people talk about their problems with friends,” I say with a bitter laugh. “Or their parents. There was this show I saw, where the end was the family admitting they needed to actually tell each other their feelings. And the closest thing I remember my dad doing was to tell me how much of a disappointment I was, and that I needed to do better.”
“I think we all have daddy issues,” River mutters. “And mommy issues.” He’s quiet again, then he offers, “My mom finally left my dad. Or he killed her. I don’t know which. I just know she’s gone.”
I realize I don’t know anything about River’s family, outside of his dad working for the Pavones.
“Which version is better?” I ask.
He blinks at me. “She might’ve been a shitty mom, but I don’t want her dead or anything. I wish she’d have been able to leave while I was still there, but I guess she got tired of being his punching bag without me around.” He grimaces. “Sorry. You probably don’t want to hear this shit.”
I shrug. I don’t really know what he wants me to say, but it’s not like I’m a stranger to having a shitty family life. “If you want to talk about it, I’ve heard Asch whine about his mom plenty.” I grin. “And he’s tried very hard to be nice whenever I was pissed about my dad.”
“This is probably the kind of shit I should save for my imaginary therapist,” River says dryly. “But yeah. All of this bullshit comes from somewhere, right?”
We sit silently for a while before I say, “You think Pandora wants kids?”
The question startles him into another moment of silence. “I don’t know,” he finally says. “You already met her parents at Thanksgiving—all four of them—but you probably don’t know that her mom almost died giving birth to her sister. Her papa has a reputation for being even more unhinged than Pandora, and you know about Ezio’s family now.” He licks his lips. “There are more rumors, but I don’t know what’s true.”
The entire family was chaotic.
But warm, too, in a way I’ve never experienced. Everybody joking around, eating food that Giulio Pavone had prepared. Vanessa Pavone hadn’t liked all the ribbing, but everybody else had laughed.
The Thanksgivings at my house are always as dry as the turkey.
“So, is that a yes, Pandora wants kids, or no?” I ask. “I guess it doesn’t matter. I can’t decide if I’d be a good dad. It was part of the plan though. Get married and have kids to carry on the Bouchard legacy.”
He shakes his head. “I have no idea. She’s never said either way. I don’t know what kind of mother she’d be.”
“The fun, take-your-kids-to-gut-a-man kind?” I suggest with a snicker.
Of course, my dad had made me watch a man get beaten to death when I was still in elementary school.
“Probably,” River agrees, though he doesn’t look amused. “Do you want to be a dad?”
It feels weird to be considering the future. My Bouchard legacy is probably gone. I can’t imagine my dad will hand over anything to me at this point. That means I don’t have to worry about an arranged marriage, I don’t need to pop out kids to be heirs.
I won’t have endless millions or billions to squander away. I’ll have to do real work, and my degree actually matters.
“I have no fucking clue. But if Pandora wants it, sure, I’ll pump her full until she’s got a little Blaze inside her.”
The image of Pandora with a big, pregnant belly is appealing and completely absurd, all at once.
Would Pandora even be able to handle being incapacitated for all those months?
River shakes his head, but a faint smile ghosts across his lips. “Could be a little Asch, or a little River, too,” he points out. “I doubt she’ll want you to be the only one who fucks her even if she’s trying to get pregnant.”
“I’m sure my sperm would beat yours in that race,” I say smugly.
River punches my arm lightly.
Honestly, we’re only twenty. It’s way too early to be thinking about kids. I don’t want to worry about any of this while other threats are looming over our heads.
“When you find Rachel’s killer, do you think that’s enough?” I look at the punching bag in the corner of the room. “Will Pandora be satisfied?”
“She’ll find something else to focus on,” River says. “There will always be evils in the world, and she’s never going to stop trying to make things better in her own way.”
I’m not sure I agree with him.
If Pandora wanted to improve the world, she wouldn’t be going about it with violence and carnage. Zayden could have died with a simple bullet, but she’d sawed his limbs off and made him suffer.
That’s revenge.
That’s making the world suffer everything she’s suffered.
If I were anyone else, I’d call her out on it.
But I want her to get what she wants. I want Pandora to thrive in the violence and the destruction and to bring about the end of the world like she always says she will.
She’s beautiful when she’s making her enemies bleed.
“We’ll see when we get all this shit done.” I finish off my water bottle. “By the way, how do you feel about performance boxing?”
River shrugs. “It’s fine. It’s gotten boring, honestly, since I started the other fights. But I don’t want off the team or anything.”
“I’ve been thinking about our main problem right now.” I pull out my phone and tab over to my notes. “John Allers. Everything points to him having been the one who had Rachel for all of a week. He goes through women fast. Not all of them last only a week, but he’s been a regular with the Bouchards.”
River’s expression darkens. “And everyone’s okay with that,” he says, his voice going harsh. “A woman a week, no problem. Just disappear them.” He shakes his head. “I don’t understand why they’d kill her, though. She wasn’t really mouthy or anything.”
“He might have fucked up and gone too far.” I shrug. “Anyway, there’s no way we’d be able to get past all of his security. So we need to lure him to us.”
“That sounds great in theory,” he says, “but how would we actually do that?”
I grin at him. “Don’t you know that rich people love watching the lower classes beat each other up?”
If there’s one thing I know, it’s how all us rich assholes tick.
Especially the rich assholes who are part of the Bouchard inner circle.
I start a group text with the more proactive members of Kappa Alpha.
Blaze
I hear you all want to organize a big event.
Have I got the event for you.
Jeremy
Fuck off, Bouchard.
Peyton
Hear him out.
Helping him get that internship must have really turned his opinion on me.
“What are you doing?” River asks.
I grin. “Catching flies with honey.”
Blackmail isn’t the only way to get people to cooperate, after all.
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