Corrupt (Devil's Night 1)

“To what?” she gritted out, turning her fierce eyes on him.

“To us.” He came around her, looking her in the eye. “All of us.”

“Your tantrum cost us three years, Rika,” Kai charged, baring his teeth. “And it wasn’t easy time. We were hungry and threatened and miserable.”

“And now you’re going to know what that feels like,” Damon added, leaning on the wall and holding his stomach as he glared at her.

Kai hovered down over her. “You’re going to learn how to shut up and look down when I enter a room.”

“And you’re going to learn how to fight and resist, because that’s what I like,” Damon countered.

“But with me,” Will came in close, making her jerk, “you’ll want it.”

She shook her head. “Tantrum? What tantrum? I don’t know what you’re talking about?”

“You come when we say.” Damon leaned on a hand on the island, tensing in pain. “You leave when we say. And as long as you do as you’re told, your debt to us will be paid. Your mother will be safe, and you’ll have money to live. You got that?”

“You’re ours,” Kai told her. “You owe us, and this has been a long time coming.”

“Owe you for what?” she shouted.

“We took you with us that night,” Will charged. “We trusted you!”

“Never trust a fucking women,” Damon grumbled, reciting his father’s words no doubt.

“And I was supposed to trust you, too!” she shot back. “And what did you guys do to me?”

She glared between Damon, Will, and Kai, and I stilled, wondering what the hell was going on.

“What is she talking about?” I demanded.

But Rika ignored me, pushing forward.

“You served three years? Well, I’m not sorry for you,” she growled. “You guys screwed up, but surprise, surprise, you actually had to pay a consequence for once. You’ve never had to own up to anything. There’s no one to blame but yourselves.”

“You don’t know anything!” Kai bellowed, shouting in her face.

She shook her head, a spiteful smile in her eyes. “Really?” And then she shot her glare to Damon. “You were sent to jail for raping an underage girl. Winter Ashby, the mayor’s daughter. The video was proof. What’s there to explain?”

I blinked long and hard, the morning that the videos surfaced flooding back.

I’d woken up on Halloween, the day after Devil’s Night, and discovered that some of our videos had been posted online for the whole fucking world to see.

Which, quite simply, led to my friends’ arrest.

It had been stupid to record the videos in the first place, but we were always careful with it. We kept one phone especially for those nights when we wreaked havoc and wanted to keep a little souvenir. And back then, we thought we were untouchable.

Winter Ashby had been one of Damon’s conquests. She’d willingly taken him to bed the night before, but she’d been underage, and her father was just as powerful as ours.

And he hated Damon’s family.

Which was probably why Damon preyed on her to begin with.

There was no way her father would drop the charges. He saw an opportunity to take down a Torrance, and he did it.

I looked over at Damon, seeing his flat expression as he stared at her.

“There’s nothing to explain,” he replied calmly. “You have me figured out. I preyed on a young girl, and I don’t even remember her face.”