Page 181 of Depraved Boys

“You stopped the car when the headlights filled your vision. It doesn’t matter how much you drank. They rammed into you.”

“The question is, who?” muttered Sebastian.

I dipped my head. Miss Claymore was the most likely suspect, but something didn’t make sense. “Why would she come after me if I was already leaving the academy?”

Prakash squeezed my hand. “She came to your house after forcing you to resign. It wasn’t enough for her to make you leave. You’d become a nuisance, and she needed you dead.”

Pain lanced through my skull, and another memory forced itself to the front of my mind. Prakash had been the last person to see me before the accident, but we had argued.

“I came to you for help,” the words slipped from my lips in a whisper. “Why?”

The door slammed open, and my head snapped up.

A bleached blonde stepped into the room, wearing the white sneakers and blue, checkered dress of a cleaner. But her sneering features hit me like a fist to the stomach.

“Ashley?” I gasped.

She raised her chin. “Hello, Willow.”

“You’ve got a nerve to show your face here after everything you’ve done,” said Leopold.

“I’ve been here all this time.” Ashley placed her hands on her hips. “And thanks to my new job, I know everyone’s secrets.”

Sebastian’s mouth gaped open. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

My head throbbed harder, and I rubbed my eyes, hoping to relieve the pain, but Ashley’s presence triggered a bunch of memories. In the morning after my first visit of the hideout, she’d shown herself in my room, brandishing a bunch of designer shopping bags and boasting about putting the house for sale on auction.

Ashley pointed at Leopold. “You will fuck everything that moves, including my sister.”

Leopold raised a shoulder. “That’s not exactly a secret, but these days, I only want to fuck Willow.”

Then she pointed at Sebastian. “And you had an affair with Miss Claymore.”

“Your deductive reasoning is impeccable,” said Leopold. “Did you discover this before or after you bugged our rooms?”

Ashley pointed at me. “These three are playing a long game. At the end of it, they’ll dump and humiliate you in the worst possible way.”

My brows drew together. Ashley had ambushed me at the end of the night and hit me over the head with something heavy. That’s why I ended up in the east wing, looking for help.

Leopold chuckled. “You’re just regurgitating your experience with the knights. Bugger off and crawl back into your hole.”

Ashley ignored him and pointed at Prakash. “I have every scrap of evidence linking you to the murder of Corrine Gibbons, and I’m willing to hand it into the police and have you jailed.”

I sucked in a sharp breath.

“Impossible,” Prakash whispered.

“My sister isn’t the only person who has been collecting shit about you. Practically everyone who matters knows you killed Corrine.”

Prakash stiffened, and he turned wide, betrayed-looking eyes at me. His brows drew together, and his mouth went slack as though to ask, ‘why?’

I shook my head. “She’s exaggerating. I found Corrine’s diary in my room. It was written in code, and I started translating it. Your name came up a lot, and I just wanted to find out what happened from her point of view.”

“You kept quiet because you thought he had killed her,” said Ashley.

“How about we stop feeding this attention-craving lunatic and sling her out?” said Leopold.

“I have Corrine’s diary, Willow’s laptop, the coroner’s report, Miss Claymore’s journal, and a whole bunch of other incriminating evidence. I can prove to the police who killed Corrine and why.”