“Keeping my head low. I’m leaving the college and staying away; I don’t think this will blow over anytime soon. I wanted to give you the heads up because I do care about you despite what you believe or have heard about me. I will be working on figuring out where I go from here–I have some help.”

My chest tightened. It made me feel guilty for tossing him to the side if what he said was true. If he was truly interested in me for more than my status, I just kicked him to the curb during the worst time in his life. But the rules we had to follow would forbid it unless I wanted to suffer the same fate as him. Because his family wanted to rise above the nastiness, they were being punished in true mafia style—takedown. If you didn’t follow the rules, you couldn’t play the game.

Unspoken.

Unwritten.

And yet, we were still beholden to them.

I couldn’t trust anyone in this world.

So, I settled on watching shit television and eating sour gummy worms on the couch after bidding goodbye for now to Garrett.

Kelly waltzed into the door like nothing had ever happened. “How was school this week?”

“How was your impromptu vacation?” Was I a bit sour? Maybe. She ditched me for Thanksgiving, and then acted like she didn’t abandon me.

What Garrett said earlier played in my mind with how she went missing over the week. I didn’t believe that it was a vacation, but I was happy to not have her looking over my shoulder while I was learning with James and whoever else Evans sent over to pull me forward in my knowledge. I was not up to speed, but each day I got better.

She sighed. “Wonderful. I really needed to decompress and spend some days at the spa.”

”I’m heading to the baseball game tonight. You coming?”

That caught her attention. “Did you also go and schmooze at the parties while I was gone too? You are becoming a social butterfly. I would love to go to the game with you and watch your boyfriend wipe the floor with their competition.”

While schmoozing wasn’t the term I would have used, she was correct in her guess to going to a couple of parties to play nice and pretend I was playing with the rest of them. Montgomery Group needed to have a presentation of upcoming strength—they all wanted my company and potentially head on a platter. Sloane was playing nice in front of others, but I saw the look in her eyes when she spoke to me in passing.