Broken Empire (Boys of Oak Park Prep 3)

I was having a hard time focusing though. I kept pulling my phone out of my pocket and checking the time, anxious as hell for Tal to get here already.

For years, it’d been just the four of us. Me, Mason, Elijah, and Cole. But right now, I couldn’t help feeling like our gathering was incomplete, like we were missing an essential piece.

I hadn’t been lying to Talia—in fact, I’d made it my mission to never do that again. We did miss her. I missed her. And I wanted her here with us.

When my phone rang over an hour later, I perked up and glanced at it quickly, thinking maybe it was Legs wondering where to park or something. It had taken her longer to get here than I’d thought it would, and I’d been debating calling her again to make sure she hadn’t changed her mind about coming.

But it wasn’t her; it was a number I didn’t recognize. I swiped the screen and answered anyway, standing up from the patio chair as I did.

“Yeah?”

There was quiet, then a hiss of static on the other end, and then a deep voice said, “Finn Whittaker?”

I tugged the phone away from my ear for a second and checked the screen again, but the number on the caller ID didn’t mean any more to me than it had two seconds before.

“Yeah, I’m Finn. Who’s this?”

“Philip… Hildebrand.” His voice was low and halting, but my eyebrows shot up as soon as he said the words. “I know your family. And I… I remember you from the hospital, I think. You came… with my granddaughter a few times after my stroke, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. That was me.” I shot a glance over my shoulder at the others from where I stood near the balcony railing. “Uh, sorry, Mr. Hildebrand, but what—?”

“It’s about Talia.”

Those words came out in a rush, and something in his voice shifted—broke—so fast, I felt it in my stomach like a gunshot wound.

Fuck.

No.

“What about her?” I croaked, my grip on the phone tightening so hard my fingers hurt.

“She’s…” His voice broke again. “There’s… been an accident.”

Chapter 2

I sat in a high-backed chair in front of an ornately carved vanity, staring into the large mirror.

The face in front of me was familiar, with haunted hazel eyes, high cheekbones, and dark brown hair spilling over pale shoulders. The image tilted her head when I did, her gaze ser

ious and intense… but the woman in the mirror wasn’t me.

It was my mother.

Charlotte Hildebrand, a woman I barely knew. A woman whose actions had affected me in ways I was sure she never could’ve anticipated. A woman who, even though she was ten years dead, was still shaping my life as if she held a guiding hand on my shoulder.

But where was she leading me?

Toward salvation or ruin?

“Why did you do it, Mom?” I whispered, and the image in the mirror mouthed the words along with me. “Why did you do any of it? Who were you?”

The woman in the mirror didn’t answer. She didn’t even move. But something in her expression shifted, skin seeming to stretch tighter over bones as her hazel eyes hardened like gemstones. The line of her lips changed, becoming almost cruel, and it altered everything about the way she looked.

I didn’t know this woman.

And I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

I reached for the mirror, as if I could wipe away the image like one might wipe away condensation on foggy glass, but instead of meeting a cool, smooth surface, my hand met flesh and bone. The woman’s palm pressed against mine, and with the same harsh, pained, furious look on her face, she laced our fingers together and pulled.