Page 143 of Heartless Sinner

And then I’d found the real treasure. Brooks’s journal.

It currently sat open beside my white-socked feet.

Normally, I respected boundaries. I wouldn’t read someone’s journal. Brooks didn’t respect a single one of mine, so those rules didn’t apply to him.

I set my tiara beside me and flipped open the journal.

The first entry matched his handwriting.

I read it.

Then the second.

Then the next. And the next.

Him keeping a journal was reckless as hell. Anyone could steal this thing and sell it to the media for enough money to flee the country.

Yet Brooks casually traveled around with enough Byron family secrets to fund TMZ for a decade.

I tucked one leg under me and kept reading.

He wrote about his family. His father. Politics. The things people said behind closed doors.

According to Brooks, his father would lie, cheat, and steal if it meant staying in power.

No shocker there.

I wasn’t a fan of the president for many reasons.

The entries about his mom were different. Softer.

I slowed down while reading one about celebrating her birthday in the Caribbean.

He’d been happy when he’d written the beginning of it. I could almost hear the version of Brooks in every sentence.

Then his father had stood her up.

He made sure to write how pissed off that made him.

I flipped another page.

Adelina came up plenty too. In one entry, Brooks had overheard his parents arguing about whether she should attend Saint Vale. His mom was terrified she’d become a Fawn.

That was when I learned something new.

A Saint Vale student could reject Haven status.

His mom was worried Adelina would give hers up to fit in.

Adelina would be crazy to do that. As a Haven, she had it made.

No Initiation. No crazies in masks chasing you through the woods with chainsaws. No cleaning up a dead professor’s blood off concrete.

Keep your Haven status, bestie.

I kept going, reading about donor secrets and money laundering. So much political dirt.

Then I turned another page.