Her eyes narrowed before they widened. “Alexander Kipleton… Kip… The kid you paid,” I explained, confirming what she seemed to have realized.
“I cannot… How…?”
I didn’t have the time or energy to explain it all to her, especially not when someone shouldered past me. “Belle, wait,” I called, spinning on my heel, but she was pushing through the cops, ready to step out of my life.
“Sir, you need to stay,” a police officer told me while she had just vanished.
“I don’t know anything about this, I just—”
He nodded. “There’s a masquerade going on in the Great Hall. I’d appreciate it if we could simply get this over with before you all join in over there. The mayor requested this to be as low-key as possible. Give us ten more minutes and you’ll be free to go.”
I couldn’t believe that Silvercrest was so rotten, they would manage to almost keep this secret.
Living on the streets had taught me a thing or two, and so I nodded politely, retreated before I snuck past some distracted officers and out the door.
The Great Hall had been closed off and I could hear someone talking in there. I didn’t think I’d find Belle there, so I stepped toward the entrance.
“She’s gone.”
I spun, surprised to find Corey Jones standing in the shadows, looking lost and powerful at the same time. “Excuse me?”
He smirked. “You’re Kip. I’ve seen your tattoos during dinner. Was almost jealous of them. And now I realize, you were the one to…” He shook his head. “Belle knew and yet she brought you home…”
I nodded. “She didn’t want to hurt you. She wanted to hurt her mother. I think Belle loved her father, and no matter how much it sucked that he never reached out—”
“Restraining order. He wasn’t allowed because he had put her at risk. Had he contacted her, they’d have thrown him into prison. Corinne did great work with her planning.”
“Belle loved you, Mr. Jones. Always. She was worried what it would mean once this came out, and here we are…”
He smiled and I finally took off my mask. “I know she did, and yet, now she is done with everything. Did you know she arranged to get her degree sent to her? She can finish it online. Lied about some exchange thing. The school believed her after she assured them I’d pay the tuition throughout the rest of the year.”
My heart thudded. She’d been scheming while I hadn’t known it. “She can pay it, you know? By herself, I mean…”
He smirked. “She won’t have to. I will not withdraw the money I paid so far. She didn’t pick this life, so the best I can do for her is to help her finish this off.”
I swallowed. “How did a decent man like you end up among the rotten Society of Silvercrest?”
This time when he smiled it looked positively malicious. “Just because I love and support my step-daughter doesn’t mean I don’t belong here, Mister Kipleton. Never forget that.”
With that he left and I pulled out my phone, but Belle’s line went straight to voicemail.
I shouldn’t be surprised.
Hurrying outside, I figured she’d pack her things at home. Corey had clearly given her the space, and therefore I had a good chance to find her there.
Or so I hoped, because the last thing I wanted to do was hunting her across the country just to beg for everything I had thought within reach.
Belle
I stepped out of the house I’d lived in most of my life and smiled. I wore jeans, a simple tee and a black leather jacket, nothing left of my bohemian style, and shouldered my back.
I was leaving this life behind, and with it the lies and the deceit.
I had done what I needed to do in order to get out, and now I was ready to move on. I’d finish Silvercrest Prep because it would get me into the best colleges, but that was all I was going to take with me.
In front of the gates a car stood, waiting, and I smiled to myself as I opened the passenger door and slipped in.
In the dark I couldn’t see much of the man in the driver’s seat, but when he held out a passport to me, I took it and smiled. “It was that easy, huh?” I asked.
He chuckled, the sound deep. “It was that easy with the right amount of money. If you take that and use it, you’ll be free of the family name you carried for so long, and of your life.”
I nodded, brushing my thumb across the cover of it before opening it. I vaguely saw the outline of my picture on the passport, and could barely read the name printed there, but I knew it anyway, because I’d picked it: Anabelle Jacky Dixon.
For a long moment I stared at the dark letters, the light of the dash the only thing illuminating the inside of the dark car.
Once I’d realized Kip had to have someone helping him, I’d snooped in his phone. It had been easy using his fingerprint when he was sleeping like the dead, because he’d stayed over just to annoy my mother.
I’d found a name in his phone’s list that had caused my heart to pause and I knew.
It all had made sense then, and I’d done the only thing I could think of and had called that number.
My dad had answered almost immediately, as if he worried Kip could report something bad, but then he’d been shocked to find a woman on the phone.
And he’d told me everything.
I’d repaid the favor by telling him I wanted to get out.
And here we were.
“You sure you don’t want Kip to know where you are?”
I smiled to myself, closing the passport. “He is a great person, no doubt, but I met him as a liar, a cheater, and a person who was ready to ruin more than one person’s life.”
“So was I. Although I knew I was
