Devious Vow: Chapter 17

Ten years ago:

My heart almost stops when my eyes scan the words on the page in front of me.

We regret to inform you…

No.

My throat closes up. My skin feels too tight.

This can’t be fucking happening.

Every year, the Hamilton Foundation seeks out five—five total—individuals bound for law school and pairs them with a tenured professor at the school they’re applying to. It’s a mentorship on crack, and it pretty much guarantees you a spot at that school, not to mention employment afterwards.

Naturally, there are something like ten thousand students vying for those coveted five slots. The first round decimates it down to five hundred. The second cuts that number to fifty, and the third cuts it to fifteen…three candidates per slot.

I made it into the third round, and even had a video call with Dr. Shoshana Mendel, the brilliant civil rights attorney I’d be paired with if I made the final cut. She’s even at my dream school, Yale University.

Making that final cut depends on an in-person interview. It was going to be even easier for me given that Yale isn’t that far from the Knightsblood campus.

I made all the arrangements. I had my interview notecards memorized, and knew all the right things to say.

And then two days before that interview that would decide the course of my life, Alistair fucking Black snuck into my bathroom and put blue dye in my shower.

There wasn’t any way in this world or the next I was showing up to that interview looking like a fucking Smurfette. So I cancelled, and sent a long-winded, highly apologetic email alluding to a medical condition that was preventing me from attending, and asked about rescheduling.

That was two weeks ago. The letter in my hand right now is the first I’ve heard from either Yale or the Hamilton Foundation since.

Dear Ms. LeBlanc: We regret to inform you that we are unable to reschedule the final interview of your application process. The positions in our program are highly desired, and we regret to say that you have been eliminated from our selection process. We wish you all the best in your future endeavors.

That’s it. Do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars.

One of the reasons the Hamilton Foundation’s selection process is so cutthroat is because you only get one chance at it.

There’s no “we welcome you to apply again next year”. You take your shot, and if you miss, that’s it.

Fin.

The paper falls from my hand to the floor. My pulse thuds low and heavy in my chest. I want to cry, but no tears come. I want to scream, but I’m too stunned.

I’m going to fucking kill him.

I know it was Alistair. Days after the shower incident, having taken time off from my Knightsblood classes and about five thousand more showers, scrubbing a layer or six of skin from my body to get rid of the blue, I was finally back in public again.

My skin still had a slight blueish tint, and my blonde hair was still tinged green. But I was back in class. When I locked eyes with Alistair across the main quad, the fucker just smiled at me, raising a single, purposefully blue-colored middle finger.

My stomach drops further as the full weight of it hits me.

That fucker.

That fucking mother. FUCKER.

Anger boils in my blood like acid. This is beyond a prank now. He just destroyed an entire trajectory of my life.

I’m still sitting on the edge of my bed shaking with rage when Demi walks in with Giorgiana.

“Hey! We were—” Demi stops when she sees the deathly look on my face. “Oh, fuck, what happened?”

Slowly, I kick the letter under my bed with my heel. I turn to look at her.

“It was Alistair Black.”

Demi’s aware of the blue shower incident, obviously, being my roommate. And she guessed that it was somehow related to me being tapped for one of the four clubs. But I haven’t told her more than that. Not even after I saw the fuckhead flip me off and grin, virtually bragging that it was him.

I don’t know why I didn’t tell her before—maybe because I’ve always viewed this rivalry, this prank war between me and Alistair, as just a private battle.

But he crossed a fucking line.

He crossed way over a line.

Demi frowns. “What?”

“The blue dye in the shower,” I hiss quietly. “It was Alistair.”

Both of my friends’ mouths fall open.

“Alistair Black is the one who hit you with the blue dye?” Giorgiana chokes.

I nod.

“But… That means he was in here. Like, it means he broke into your fucking room.”

Demi pales, looking around as she hugs herself. “That’s fucking creepy.”

“I have to tell you guys something.”

It’s like watching yourself driving toward a cliff, knowing you need to hit the brakes, screaming at yourself to stop, but ignoring your own pleas and driving right over that edge all the same.

I know it’s a lie. I know it’s supremely wrong, and well, well beyond the pale. If Alistair dying me blue was crossing a line, this is vaulting a mile past it.

But fuck him. He just ruined the Hamilton Foundation placement for me.

Demi looks concerned as she moves toward me. “How do you know?”

I shake my head, exhaling slowly. “Because I was here when he broke in.”

It’s the pebble that starts the avalanche. The one little lie that lights the fuse of an atom bomb.

“What?!” Demi blurts.

“You’re joking!” Giorgiana gasps.

I shake my head again, hugging myself. “No joke. I was here, and I was getting changed. He…” I look away. “He saw me, and he tried to…you know.”

Demi looks like she’s going to be sick. “Oh my fucking God, Eloise!”

“I screamed,” I lie, warming to my story. “I think that rattled him, because he told me not to tell anyone and left. I had no idea he’d already put the dye in the shower.”

“Forget the fucking dye!” Giorgiana blurts. “He tried to rape you?”

Fuck.

“No,” I shake my head decisively. “I don’t…it wasn’t like that. He was just, like, creeping on me. Watching me change.”

“Oh my God, that’s seriously fucked up,” Demi chokes. “Jesus, Eloise, have you reported this?”

Oh, shit.

“No, it’s…” I clear my throat. “I just want to forget about it.”

Giorgiana stares at me. “E, you have to report that. I mean what if he does it again, to another girl? What if it’s more than watching her change next time?”

“Guys, please,” I try and backpedal, not confident anymore, wishing I could reverse time by two minutes. Jesus, why the fuck did I lie like this?

“Eloise, I know you’re scared,” Demi says. “But…I mean, I live here, too.”

God, what have I done. She looks terrified.

“I want to respect your fears, but…” She bites her lip. “If you don’t report this, I will. I have to.”

In the end, my guilty conscience gets the best of me, and I don’t report it.

Demi does, though.

A week later, when two other anonymous reports are made with a similar story, Alistair is put on academic probation as the school opens an investigation.

And suddenly, our prank battle has become an all-out war.

Present:

It’s after midnight when I slip into the penthouse I share with Massimo. Guilt dogs my every single tip-toed step down the hall to my room, shutting the door quietly behind me.

It has nothing to do with what just happened with Alistair. It’s not misguided guilt because I’m technically married to Massimo. In no way do I think of what I just did with Alistair as “cheating”.

Cheating involves breaking a commitment and a promise. It involves betrayal.

There are none of those things in my marriage to the monster I share a home with. The man who married me against my will. Who doesn’t touch me, and who threatens me all the fucking time. The man who fucks other women in front of me expressly to humiliate me, also against my will.

The man who’s killed right in front of me.

No, what just happened with Alistair doesn’t fill me with guilt. It makes me feel alive for the first time in a freaking decade.

The guilt is over what happened after the sex.

A few days ago, Massimo cornered me in the kitchen with more threats. He wanted updates on where his father’s will was. But he also told me he wanted insider information on a big case Crown and Black is currently involved with, concerning a man named Roberto Chinellato. They’re defending him on a murder and racketeering charge.

Again, what just happened with Alistair does not make me feel guilty.

…It’s the part where Alistair went to the bathroom for a minute afterward and I noticed a file folder filled with documents pertaining to that case spilled across his office floor, having been knocked off the desk.

Documents that I quickly took a bunch of pictures of with my phone before Alistair came back, pulled me onto his lap on the sofa, and proceeded to fuck me again until I was shattering into a million pieces.

I crank the water in my shower extra hot before stepping inside. I wince, letting the heat scald me in penance for what I’ve just done.

The breaking of professional trust, not of my utterly bullshit, at-gunpoint marriage vows to a psychopath.

After a while, I turn off the water, stepping out of the steamy shower stall and reaching for a towel.

“You’re home late.”

I bite back a scream, whirling and yanking the towel over myself as I glare at Massimo. He’s smiling coldly at me, leaning against the vanity in dress pants and a button up shirt, his arms folded over his chest as he leers at me.

My face burns as I grit my teeth, angered by his intrusion. I yank the towel tighter around myself, and even reach for a second one to drape around my shoulders as a nauseous feeling curls in my stomach.

“What the fuck are you doing in here?” I spit.

“Well, it is my house,” he drawls. “And you are my wife.”

“Don’t.”

He snorts, rolling his eyes. Then his cruel gaze drops to the marks on my neck, and a slow grin curls his too-thin lips.

“My my my, what a good little whore⁠—”

“Shut up.”

“Do you have anything for me? Anything to show for your whorish behavior?”

My eyes narrow. “You don’t get to talk to me⁠—”

I gasp, stumbling backward into the glass of the shower stall as Massimo surges into me. He grabs me by the throat, choking the air from my lungs as he leers into my face.

“I get to talk to you however the fuck I want, wife,” he snarls. “And I’ll ask you one more time: do you have anything for me.”

I manage to swallow through his grip, nodding quickly.

“Show me.”

When he lets go, fear has me racing over to my phone on the vanity. I bring up the pictures I took and show him.

“Mmm, good,” Massimo murmurs, nodding as he scrolls through them. A ding tells me he just sent them to himself. “And the will?”

“I’m trying,” I blurt, hugging the towels tighter.

“Try fucking harder,” he snaps. “Or maybe I need to motivate you the way I motivate my whores.”

Oh God.

Massimo reaches for his belt.

“Don’t you fucking dare touch me,” I hiss.

He starts to chuckle, shrugging casually. Then his hand drops from his belt.

“I could,” he sneers. “I could. But I won’t.” He grins. “I enjoy torment much more.” He wags a finger at me and starts to turn away. “Find that fucking will, Eloise.”

“Why are you doing all this?!” I ask just as he gets to the bathroom door. “I mean getting me this job, making sure I work under Alistair, and⁠—”

“And watching you shower after you fuck him?” he sneers with a grin that turns my stomach. Massimo shrugs. “Why does anyone play any game, my dear?” He winks before he turns and walks out of the bathroom.

“Because it’s fun.”