“I mean once you’re out, you’re out. No one can unilaterally decide who gets initiated. And there’s no way we would have given Colin a bid.”

I bite the inside of my cheek. “Why didn’t Colin get accepted last year?” I ask.

Tripp shrugs. “He quit. As soon as we let him out of the basement. Said we were all assholes, that we didn’t share a brain between us, that our talk of brotherhood was bullshit—”

I think of Colin’s clenched fists, his fury—it was real. And then I remember another pledge calling the brothers “assholes”—the boy from the story with the handcuffs.

“Chains,” I say suddenly. Not Colton—Garrett couldn’t even remember his name right. But Colin Haines. C. Haines—a moniker derived from his real name.

Tripp nods. “That’s what we called him.”

I shake my head thinking he was there all along, buried somewhere in our notes. Colin Haines was the pledge who “freaked out” in the basement, but not—as I assumed—from fear, but from anger.

“So Colin quits, and then Jay blackmails him to attend his classes?”

Tripp shrugs. “Jay was pissed. He said we should have never given Colin a bid, that he was a liability, and needed to be kept under control.” He clears his throat. “He was getting Colin to do stuff. His laundry. Give him money. He said”—pink slashes bloom on his cheekbones—“he wanted to make Colin his bitch. I guess the class attendance was part of it.”