Broken Empire (Boys of Oak Park Prep 3)

That thought stayed with me through the rest of the weekend and into the beginning of the second week of classes, bouncing around in

my brain and colliding with memories of the conversation I’d had with Elijah.

Had I forgiven the Princes?

I wasn’t even sure what that word meant anymore. It felt too small and mundane to encompass my feelings toward the four boys, the things that existed between us. And I wasn’t sure it was the right question to ask either.

Maybe it wasn’t so much about forgiveness as about understanding. And I understood them now, in a way I never had before.

Per Doctor Garrett’s orders, I was still supposed to stay off my feet as much as possible, so gym had basically become a free period. On Wednesday afternoon, I watched the guys play volleyball as I typed absently on my phone.

I’d moved on from combing through articles and forums about dyslexia to digging for dirt on Adena. Her attacks against the Princes had only gotten worse, and I couldn’t stand it. She still came after me too—though not physically, since the boys escorted me pretty much everywhere—but all she had against me were words she’d used a hundred times before.

Bitch. Trash. Whore.

I could ignore those. But I couldn’t ignore her dragging out the Princes’ dirty laundry every other day, making sure no one on campus would ever possibly forget about it.

We needed to stop her. But we still didn’t know how.

A bit more digging had revealed that Elijah was right. Among their many business dealings, her family ran an investment firm that had been started around the same time Element Investments got off the ground.

But unlike Element Investments, which seemed to have limped into an early and quiet grave, Adena’s parents’ company was still going strong.

So what does that mean? Is there any connection between them at all?

The information that was readily available online about Allegiant Capital was basic and boring. They had a nice corporate website and good ratings on several money management sites.

Pursing my lips, I searched for “Adam Pierce Allegiant Capital” just to see if anything showed up. But nothing did.

Then again, almost nothing came up when I searched for the phrase “Adam Pierce Element Investments” either. Very few articles even mentioned his name, as if his imprint on the company had been minimal compared to the other royal families.

Something about it nagged at me.

Had he really even been a founding member of the company? Maybe the one article I’d found that mentioned him by name had gotten it wrong. My grandma had said he was sort of an outsider, “not of their caliber”, a latecomer to the group of friends.

So why had he been part of the company at all? Had he been?

And where had he gone?

Chapter 9

We survived the rest of the week—the strange, tight-knit little group that was the Princes and me. Over the following weekend, I spent a good chunk of time working with Finn on American Literature again, and on Sunday, Leah and I went to see a movie.

I almost came to blows with Mason, who was deeply opposed to me going anywhere without one of them escorting me. I understood his concern, even shared it in a weird way, but the thought of telling Leah I couldn’t go with her because the Princes wouldn’t let me brought back itchy, uncomfortable memories of my second semester at Oak Park, when the Princes had adopted me into their fold.

This wasn’t that.

The four boys were still deeply entrenched in my life, but it truly wasn’t the same as it had been then. And going on a movie date with Leah felt somehow important, like I was proving to myself and the entire world that things were different.

Mason must’ve seen in my eyes that I wasn’t going to bend—that if he pushed too hard on this, something between us would snap—because after we spent several minutes nose-to-nose, he cursed and broke away, stalking across my living room while the other three Princes watched, their gazes bouncing back and forth between us.

“Fine,” he growled, turning back to face me. “But if anything—anything—happens, or seems strange, or makes you feel even vaguely fucking threatened, you call one of us. Got it? No debating. No wondering if it’s a big enough deal. You call.”

“Alright.”

My voice was low, and I nodded seriously, as touched by the fact that he’d actually conceded as I was by his worry. He hated this. I could see it in every line of his body. But he was going to let me do it, because he knew it mattered to me.

They all insisted on escorting me across campus, and when we met Leah by her car, she arched an eyebrow at my honor guard.