Chapter 19
Staring at the text messages, I still couldn’t fucking believe what I was seeing. There was no way this could be real, but it was.
It fucking was.
Rylee: Bn thinkn n Im going 2 live a little b4 marrying u
Rylee: Sow sum wild oats, u know
Rylee: Feel free 2 fuck as many girls as u need b4 u cant anymore
Rylee: Im going 2 party 2nite and do the same. Get all that dick out of my system
Rylee: No hard feelings. We’ll be faithful after the wedding. We’ll even get tested
Rylee: Will be recuperating 2morrow n studying Sunday. TTY Monday
Rylee: Have fun
August had called an impromptu meeting, and while I’d had reservations about it, when he had sent out the group text with the time and place, he had mentioned that Alexander, Jacob, Donovan, and Arlene were also going to be in attendance. So, in my eyes, that had deemed it an official meeting. After sending Rylee a text that we’d be in a meeting tonight and that our phones would be off, I had gone to the rundown clinic in Riverleeds, and figured I’d catch up with Rylee afterwards. After all, it was a Friday night and I had planned on spending it making out with her.
All the guys had shown up-like I knew they would-but I soon discovered that our little get-together hadn’t been for business purposes at all. It had been August’s way of putting me and Saxton in the hot seat, and I had been surprised and suspicious that Alexander had gone along with the agenda August had set up.
Oh, the bastard had tried to play it off as inquisitive curiosity, but I knew better. August wanted my girl, and he’d call the meeting to try to find any loopholes in the Hera contract. Since mine and Rylee’s contract was the first ever, he had asked questions, and Alexander had made it clear that the only way out of the Hera contract was if the member called it off. The Order did not want any ‘mistakes’ making their way into the organization, so if a member was having second thoughts about their Hera supporter, it was allowed, and encouraged even, that he break it off. Even if he’s already slept with her, a broken Hera contract was better than a bitter, resentful, vengeful woman coming into the folds of an organization who prided themselves on ultimate control.
And everyone knew that an angry, bitter woman was unable to be controlled.
After Alexander had made the stipulations on the Hera contracts clear, August had gone after Saxton. He had wanted to know why Saxton had asked Kincaid Black to sign up for such an underling role. Though I was curious myself, it was none of our business, and Saxton had the right to refuse to answer his intrusive questions.
What had gotten my back up was how Alexander had allowed the questioning. Everyone had seemed to be eager to hear Saxton’s reasons for picking Kincaid, and it was because we all knew she was different. Had Kincaid been a male, she’d be a member like we were.
Saxton’s answer had been simple and believable. He’d answered that, who better to owe him a future favor than someone as powerful and wealthy as Kincaid Black? If anyone were going to be beholden to him, he wanted it to be someone who could make mountains move and oceans crash in case that’s what he needed. He’d stated that an average girl from an average family wouldn’t be able to do that for him. He planned on controlling the world’s media one day, and if he needed someone in his pocket to make that happen, who better than Kincaid Black.
Everyone seemed to buy his explanation, but something told me there was more to it. Even Fox hadn’t looked completely convinced. However, I had also noticed how Fox hadn’t been able to keep his eyes off Kincaid during the initiation, but that wasn’t saying much since Kincaid was stunning.
After everyone else had taken Saxton’s answers as satisfactory, we had actually move on to some legit Order business, and Alexander had reiterated how he was remaining in town for the next few months for additional support. Having never officiated a Hera contract before, he was sticking around to see it become legal and to observe any issues that may come up after the marriage. I hadn’t bought his bullshit, but I had nothing to argue against it with.
Besides, just because we were official members now, that didn’t mean we weren’t still on a tight leash. We still had to graduate college before we were given the full power of our futures.
As soon as the meeting had concluded, August had taken off with Alexander, Jacob, Donovan, and Arlene, and for a brief moment, I’d wondered if they were all headed off to entertain Arlene together. After that show she had put on the night of the initiation, I could see those kinds of encounters becoming a part of her future.
Once they’d left, Ross had taken off because he’d had some drama going on with his younger brother, Banks, and the guy hadn’t even bothered to sugarcoat it. Whatever his brother was going through, it had to be important enough to make him dip out so quickly.
Fox, Saxton, and I had stuck around for a while longer to discuss August, and how none of us trusted him. We had all agreed to discuss it more when Ross was available, and after about another half hour, we had all headed our separate ways.
And now, sitting in my car as everyone drove off from the site, I was staring at the texts Rylee had sent while I’d been in that fucking meeting. Rage was blinding me, but I wasn’t so far gone as not to pull up her social media accounts, and the first one I pulled up had her tagged by Laney in a picture that was clearly showing both girls drunk.
However, rage had quickly morphed into unbridled fury as the next picture to pop up was a group selfie of Laney, some blonde guy she was hanging all over, Rylee, and motherfucking August Remington.
It wasn’t hard to find out where Rylee was. Her locations were on, and it showed her at Field House, and that just further backed up her claims of wanting to get dick out of her system before we got married. The Field House was nothing but jocks, and girls were always outnumbered by the guys whenever there was a party there. Rylee wouldn’t be short options in that place.
I started up my black Audi R8, and traffic better be clear or there was a real possibility of me running assholes down on my way to that fucking party.
How could I have been so wrong about her?
My hands in a white-knuckle grip around the steering wheel, I wondered how I could have missed it. Nothing in her background check suggested that Rylee liked to slut it up. There was nothing in her background check that showed anything beyond average college partying during her freshman and sophomore years. Even Lennox had mentioned that she seemed like a good girl, and he’d never heard anything bad about her. So, how in the fuck could I have been so wrong about her?
How could I have missed it?
Now, while I had nothing against a woman’s choice to be sexually liberated, there was no fucking way I’d let my fiancé fuck however many dicks she wanted, wearing my ring, and then still marry her.
Never mind how it would look to The Order that I couldn’t control my own fiancé, knowing Rylee was spreading her legs for any swinging dick that came her way. That was not the kind of wife I wanted. I planned on ruling at the highest levels of The Order and a slut wife wasn’t going to help me get there.
Still, that was nothing compared to the sense of betrayal I was feeling. I felt something for Rylee, and I had been honest with her about it. I had been honest about everything since the night of the initiation.
And she fucking played me.
Telling me how I was more than just my last name. Telling me that she wanted time to get to know each other. Telling me that she needed space to sell our story convincingly to her family.
All of it.
I believed her.
Halfway to the party, I realized this must be Fate’s fucked-up way of saving me. It was Fate’s way of showing me what it really meant to marry someone you didn’t know. A background check-even ones as thorough as mine-could never tell you the things you really needed to know about a person, and that was their true character; what made up their soul.
I mean, how many men went to church every Sunday, only to beat or cheat on their wives Monday through Saturday? How many women volunteered for charity events, but were racist as hell the rest of the days of the week?
Facts in a background check were just that, random facts about a person. And all the facts in Rylee’s background check never hinted at what could be lying underneath those beguiling blue eyes of hers.
The street was littered with vehicles, but I was fortunate enough to pull into a space up front that was being vacated by a white Chevy truck. I parked, locked my car, then headed towards the house. On my way in, I got a lot of head nods and hellos, but I ignored them all.
I was here for one thing only.
It didn’t take me long to find them. They were all cozied up on a couch in the game room. Laney was sitting on the blonde guy’s lap with Rylee sitting next them, and it was only by the grace of God that Remington wasn’t with them. There was no guarantee that I wouldn’t have fucked him up, otherwise.
Rylee was too busy laughing at whatever they’d been talking about because she hadn’t even noticed me until I reached down and grabbed her by her upper arm.
She let out a yelp. “Stone?” Ignoring her drunken surprise, I drug her behind me until I found an empty spot on the side of the house, behind an oak tree.
Flinging her against the side of the house, I reached down, grabbed her left hand, then took my fucking ring back. Before Rylee could even process what I’d done, my right hand gripped her jaw and trapped her against the wall, hard enough to make her eyes widen in alarm. “Forget the contract. Forget The Order. Forget everything since you’ve met me, or else, I swear to God, Rylee, I will go after everyone you fucking love, and I won’t stop until there’s nothing left.”
Her bloodshot eyes started blinking up at me, and I wanted to strangle her. How dare her look surprised. I understood she was drunk, but she couldn’t be that clueless. She couldn’t believe that I would be onboard with her bullshit deal. I had texted her that I was in a meeting and that my phone would be off. My lack of replies to her texts had not been consent for her to go out and fuck every guy who caught her eye.
“Wait?” she mumbled, and it wasn’t quite slurring, but it was close. “You’re…you’re breaking the con…contract?”
“Did you really think I wouldn’t?”
“So, you’re ending…” Rylee went to shake her head, but I had such a tight hold on her face, she couldn’t move. Then her brows came down in confusion. “Okay,” she muttered. “So…so there’s no engagement anymore?”
I pushed off away from her and couldn’t believe that, only an hour ago, I had wanted nothing more than to spend the night with this girl, making out and getting to know each other. Right now, I couldn’t even stand to look at her.
“Have fun with your plans for the night,” I said snidely before turning from her and walking back to my car.
Fifteen minutes later, I was slamming the door to my condo, heading straight for the liquor. I was so fucking furious that I could barely think straight. Seeing red was not just a saying. It was a real thing.
“What’s going on?”
I didn’t bother turning at Lennox’s voice. I found the whiskey and was too busy pulling it out of the cupboard. “Rylee Madden is a fucking slut,” I replied.
“Whoa, what?”
I finally turned around, not bothering with a glass since the entire bottle was going into my bedroom with me. “I said, Ryl-”
Lennox waved a hand around. “I heard what you said,” he interrupted, looking rumpled from sleep. The slamming front door probably woke him. “I’m just wondering why you’re saying it.”
“She texted me tonight, telling me she wanted to spend this weekend fucking random dick out of her system before we got married.”
Lennox’s eyes widened. “She panicking?” he asked, and I hated how he sounded like it was reasonable for her to panic.
“Don’t know, Len,” I replied. “And I really don’t care. I broke off the engagement, and so Rylee Madden can fuck whoever she wants as many times as she wants.”
He ran a hand through his rumpled hair. “I…I don’t know what to say,” he said, genuinely concerned. “I never would have pegged her for being…”
“A slut?” I supplied. “Is that the word you’re looking for?”
“C’mon, Stone-”
“Fuck it, Len,” I said before leaving him in the kitchen and heading towards my room.