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Prologue
Chapter 1
Stone~
I was doing my best notto punch this motherfucker in the face.
It wasactually a testament to the control I had over my emotions that August Remington wasn’t already laid out at my feet. He knew the rules just as well as I did.
Just as well as wealldid.
So, why he felt as though he could just chat it up with me-in public-was beyond me. Especially, considering how what I did was none of his business in the first place. Contrary to what he and the others might think, I wasn’t a sheep. I wasn’t in this because it was what was expected of me. I wasn’t in this to follow in the footsteps before me. I wasn’t in this just to be a piece of a bigger puzzle.
I was in this to rule the fuckingworld and every key player in it.
“C’mon,Stone,” he said, pretending to speak in a whisper but not doing a very good job of it. “Everybody picks a girl, dude. No one’s not ever picked a girl before.”
Wewere seated next to each other in Applied Statistics, and it was too late to trade seats without causing a few heads to turn if he got butthurt. It also bothered me that he thought this commonality made us friends.
We weren’t friends.
While I had a fuckton of acquaintances and a shitload of casual friends, I only had one real friend. Even if he weren’t a part of all this, even if I couldn’t tell him about all this shit, even if he wasn’t privy to the biggest part of my life, Lennox Wilde was still my only real friend.
“I’m not talking to you about this, August,” I bit out. “Especially, nothere.”
“Oh, right,” he mumbled. “Yeah, yeah.”
Now I really wanted to punch him in the face.
The bastard knew what he was doing and why. Unfortunately for him, so did I. No matter what my signature had agreed to, I wasn’t stupid.
Nor was I weak.
My signaturehad promised a lot, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to play my cards close to the vest. It didn’t mean I was going to lay all my plans out in a nice, neat little diagram for them all to see and follow. It didn’t change the fact that I didn’t know these people well enough, considering.
August had already picked his girl.
They all had.
Ross had chosen his girl our sophomore year at Hales University. Fox had chosen his girl last year, during winter break. And Saxton had chosen his girl when we’d been fucking freshman, for fuck’s sake. August had chosen his girl just a few months ago, right before summer began.
However, we were all seniors now, and the ceremony was only two weeks away. Always the last weekend in September. Never in the same place, but always during that same last weekend of the month. Not sure why, and I never asked because I honestly didn’t give a fuck.
Still,what August failed to realize was that, even if I’d already chosen a girl, I wouldn’t have told him. I wouldn’t have told any of them. They didn’t need to know who I’d chosen, if anyone.
While RossCarmichael, Fox Harrington, and Saxton Voss were reputed to be ruthless but solid, I still didn’t know them beyond who they were and a few superficial conversations over the years. They were every bit as commanding as you’d expect from their last names and their family lines, but I still didn’t know them like that.
However, I didn’t get sketchy vibes from them the way I did August Remington. August Remington was a bad apple, and it was unfortunate that he was in my graduating class. It was also unfortunate that’d he’d been one of the selected few.
There was also the issue of the girls. Again, because I wasn’t stupid or anyone’s goddamn puppet, the second I’d gotten wind of the names of the girls who’d been picked, I had done my own background checks on them, and my background checks had rivaled that of the damn FBI.
I was going to knoweveryonein that room with me when the time came.
The professor started class, and much tomy surprise, August turned his attention to the front of the class. However, I knew this wouldn’t be the end of it. He wanted to know if I was bullshitting when I’d told him that I wasn’t picking a girl. He wanted to know if I was up to something, and if that was going to derail whatever shady shit he was up to.
I thought about the girls that had been chosen, and they were exactly what you expect; compliant.
Jennifer Polk, Alexis Wyatt, Kincaid Black, and Laney Spinner had been the girls chosen among our class, and they all were predictable.
