Dukes of Ruin (Dark College Bully Romance): Royals of Forsyth University Book 4
Dukes of Ruin: Chapter 32

Perez and Lars, another Count, throw me at my father’s feet. I make a small, pained sound that I wish I could suck back inside my lungs. I’m home now—for whatever that word may mean—and raise my head to come eye to eye with Amos. Appropriate. With the tracker under my ear, I might as well be a dog, too. For all my bravado and attempts at defiance, this is where I’ve landed. Right where my father wants me.

Weak and defeated and beneath his boot.

I already regret the crying. The pleading. The begging. I knew this day would come, but I didn’t realize how demoralized I’d become in the face of it, degrading myself by appealing to Nick. The humiliation still lingers bitterly in the back of my throat, and even though I have no right to it, the betrayal stings just as sharply. He told me to trust him. He promised to take care of me, protect me. I knew it was false; I knew it, and yet…

A part of me believed. I know it did, because it’s the only way I can possibly explain the hurt of it.

“They just handed her over?” Lars is asking Perez. He’d met us here, at my father’s mansion, so he’s clueless. “Why would they do that?” Lars is smart, I’ll give him that. There’s a hint of cynicism in his voice that says he doesn’t quite trust this. Too easy; I could be a Trojan horse.

One glance up at my father confirms that he shares the skepticism.

“Bruin took her pussy for a spin,” Perez says, the toe of his shoe prodding at my ass. “He got what he wanted from her, and then he threw her away. Are we surprised?” He says the last sentence dryly, and somehow it strikes me more as a condemnation of the Dukes than me. Not that Perez doesn’t still get a jab in. “Must have been underwhelmed with the goods.”

“Get her on her feet,” my father says, dropping into his plush leather armchair. I can already hear the clink of ice in his glass, the scent of bourbon pervading the air. Strong, obedient hands lift me from the floor and my father orders, “Look at me.”

There’s no urge to lift my chin in defiance. No impulse to tell him to fuck off. What’s the point? He always wins.

When I just keep my eyes fixed to the floor, Perez’s harsh fingers grip my chin and force my eyes upward.

My father’s face twists in disgust. “I shouldn’t be surprised at the lengths you’ll go to embarrass this family, but shacking up with the West End goons? You always manage to exceed expectations. My darling daughter; the cunt of Forsyth.” His hand rests on Amos’ massive skull, scoffing. “Well, I see you’re still a disgrace. A pathetic representation of the Lucia name. I should—”

“You should what?” I jerk my chin from Perez’s grip. “Get rid of me? Trade me? Sell me? You’ve done all of that, yet here I am. Back in this hellhole.”

He taps his glass, the ring on his finger clicking noisily. “If I had another option, trust me, I’d take it. Perez is still willing to take you. I’ve spent too much time molding him into the kind of Count I want running the family business to spare him the burden of you.” He shoots me a look. “Family implies relation, and you, as distasteful as it may be, are that link.”

I give a dark, humorless laugh. “All the talent and genius currently occupying the Forsyth Royalty,” I jerk my head at Perez, “and this nine-fingered idiot is seriously the best you can do? The only one embarrassing this family is you.”

“Don’t you dare question my decisions!” he shouts, temper suddenly flaring. “All of this chaos started when Leticia went missing—”

“You think that’s when this started?” I gape at him openly. “God, you’re still blind as fucking bat.”

His eyes narrow and I bite down on my bottom lip, hard enough that I taste blood. “You were always such a jealous little brat, weren’t you? Insecure and petty, just like your mother.” He leans forward slightly and Amos shifts with him. “Your sister is worth fifty of you. She’s strong, capable, and loyal to the Lucia name. I can’t prove it, but I know you had something to do with her disappearance.”

“Then, once again, you’re wrong.” Perez’s hand clamps down on my neck in warning, but I just clench my teeth. “Leticia was spoiled and spiteful, just like you, but I didn’t do anything to her. She ran away.”

My father’s mouth twitches. “Is that the angle you’re going with? She ran away from a future of power, wealth, and influence, handed to her on a silver platter? I admit, I expected better. You might be trash, but you’re still my flesh and blood. I’d hoped some of the Lucia proficiency at subterfuge might somehow trickle down to you.” He sucks his teeth. “Pity.”

“It’s the truth.” I don’t bother telling him about the note, because even seeing it with my own two eyes, I have to agree with my father. It galls me to think it, but he has a point. No one would believe she ran like hell away from him and his empire, or god forbid, did something unspeakable. The running I can see, but after two years, I know the reach of my father’s arm. There’s no way she could have hidden for this long. “Maybe you can’t handle the possibility that you drove your precious Tisha away, but I know better. You’re not a viper; you’re a constrictor. All venom, no fangs.”

Perez’s fingers dig painfully into my neck. “I’m his fangs,” he sneers. “Show some respect.”

“So what now?” I ask, gritting my teeth against the pain. “You won. I’m twenty-one. When’s the wedding?”

“It’ll happen,” he says, leaning back in the chair. “Eventually.”

The word clings to the air and paranoia creeps up my spine. My eyes dart around the room, to the fireplace, to my father’s desk, calculating.

Even Perez says, “Wait—what?”

“You’re not quite marriage material yet, Lavinia. I thought the Lords would’ve worked that defiant attitude out of you. Daniel surely would have, if he’d had more time,” he muses, “but Killian doesn’t have the same flair for suffering. And the Dukes,” he features harden, “well, Nicholas Bruin thought he’d grandstand at the expense of my house. I didn’t push back at the time because I figured the little thug would do the work the others hadn’t.” His eyes take me in, displeasure in the curl of his lip. “But no, you’re still the same difficult girl you’ve always been. Look at you. You couldn’t even keep the interest of a Duke—a bunch of bottom feeders.” Shaking his head, he sets his glass on the table, concluding, “I believe a week should do it.”

The color drains out of my face, all the air punching out of my lungs. “A week?”

But he nods, saying, “Yes, I think a week of timeout will do—for now. I’ll reassess when you’ve had a little time to ponder your predicament.”

My knees threaten to give. I’ve never done more than three days in the chest, and that was already impossible. A week in there will kill me.

But it’ll kill me in the slowest, worst possible way.

Strangely, the voice that comes to me belongs to Sarah.

“We fight—every day. But unlike our Dukes, we don’t win or lose. The hard truth is that the fight never ends.”

I take a lunging leap at the fireplace, grabbing the iron poker propped against the stone. Amos instantly springs up, snarling at my sudden movement, and I feel Lars’ hand closing around a fistful of my hair. But I don’t plan on hurting anyone. Not the dog, not my father, not Lars, or even Perez.

Just myself.

I hold the stake high and plunge it toward my chest, hoping to finish this once and for all. There was a time I thought my mother cowardly for doing this—for taking her life. I see it now for what it is.

One last fight, and then we can finally be done.

Unfortunately, the moment the sharp point pierces my sternum—barely a couple centimeters—I’m being tackled to the ground by Perez, whose face contorts in fury as he pries the poker from my grip.

“Getting real tired,” he growls, throwing the poker aside, “of people taking liberties with my things.” He wrenches my head back to snap, “Your life isn’t yours to take. You’ll be dead when I want you dead, and no fucking sooner.” He levers to his feet with one arm, the other wrapped in a hard plaster that’s just smacked into the side of my head, making my ears ring.

“Take her upstairs,” comes my father’s voice, and I immediately struggle away, feet kicking out against everything and everything.

“No!” I yell, thrashing and snapping. “Just fucking kill me, you cowards!”

“You leave me with no choice, Lavinia.” He nods at Lars, whose arms are fighting to keep me contained. “You know where to take her, son.”

I don’t make it easy for them, bashing my feet into the railing as Lars and Perez haul me up the winding staircase toward my room. I punch and batter and bash my head back into Lars’ shoulder, eliciting an irritated grunt from him. For that brief span of distance between my father’s study and my bedroom, I fight. I fight so hard that my bones ache with it—so hard that I’m blind to anything but the instinct to rend and hurt.

And then I’m in front of the chest, and it all just spills out of me in a wave of horror.

The chest belonged to my mother. That much, I know. I don’t know where she got it, or how it became such a permanent fixture at the foot of my bed, but I know it’s been here since as long as I can remember, an ominous, malevolent presence that I’d spend my days skirting around, avoiding at any cost.

Perez is the one to lift the top, wrenching it open with a jerk of his one working arm. Turning to me, he smiles, all teeth and viciousness. “Don’t worry, baby. I’ll get you a better one of these when we’re finally together. Nothing but the best for my old lady.”

Lars picks me up and shoves me inside, their arms pushing and thrusting all my limbs into the small space. In the ferocity of my resistance, all I manage to get is a finger free.

The lid slams on it, making the bone crack.

I howl, snatching it inside to clutch against my chest, but outside, I can hear Perez tapping on the chest, voice booming through the wood.

“That’s for my arm, you fucking bitch!”

Once they’re gone, even the dull, throbbing pain in my finger isn’t enough to distract me from the sensation of being confined so tightly. It was better when I was younger. More space, more air. Now, my knees are crushed so close to my chest that it’s hard to breathe. There’s no logic to the feeling of being suffocated. Light slices through the meager slits between the wooden planks, which means air can get through, and even if it couldn’t, it’d make more sense to conserve what’s in here than to squander it by screaming and hyperventilating.

But my mind can never grasp logic when I’m in here.

I immediately begin gasping, my legs so desperate to unfurl that I think it might kill me if I don’t. How can a person survive this? How can someone not just explode from their body’s demand to break free? How is it possible? And through the rush of incredulity, my mind tells me that it’s not. It’s not possible. I will die here, screaming myself hoarse, curled into this wretched fetal position, and it’ll be slow, torturous, agonizing.

It’s how I know I’ve gotten rusty. I’ve gone too long without being exposed to this dread, this terror, this utter fucking certainty. At some point, I’d exorcized it from my mind, foolishly believing myself free enough. I’m sure of it, because suddenly, that elevator seems like the embodiment of paradise in comparison.

I doubt I last two minutes before the thrashing begins.

I kick and hit, throwing any part of my body against the wood as a scream claws its way up my throat. I think it must hurt to curl my fist and push with all my might against the front of the chest, but I can’t really feel it. My mind is too full of desperation now, driving my feet and knees uselessly into the aged wood. Over and over, I pummel myself into a tender, sore mass of meat and misery, even though I can’t get enough distance between my limbs and the walls to impart any useful abuse.

“…the fight never ends.”

I don’t know how long I’m engaged in this frantic battle, my muscles screaming in protest as I beat and beat and beat. Two hours? Three? Four? I just know that it’s unstoppable, the urge to struggle and scream. My body becomes a vibration of pure, undistilled will, but it’s futile.

“We don’t get trophies, Lavinia…”

The light between the planks of wood grows brighter and sharper. It’s the familiar sight of it that gradually eases the nuclear need inside my chest. It’s replaced with the burn of my lungs, dragging in gulps of air like I’ve just resurfaced from drowning. I know this place. I recognize the slants of light. The intensity. The hue. The angle. This is late afternoon light, meaning I’ve been engaged in the war against the walls for something like twelve hours. I’ve never done a thrashing for so long before.

It seeps out of me in a shuddering exhale, allowing me to remember the routine. Time. I need to count the time. There’s a beginning and an end, an alpha and omega, and it’s the hands of a clock, ticking away.

“There aren’t any spoils for us.”

Panting into the darkness, I collect my thoughts around myself like a veil, flipping through my mind for a book—an escape.

And then I begin a new countdown.

Seven days.

It’s not just the absolute darkness, the inability to know what is awake or asleep, that makes my mind go to such terrible places. It’s the sporadic surges of energy that get me—the urges to punch against the resistance around me—because they’re a reminder of what I am. Curled up, trapped, helpless.

If only it were silent and the ‘buh-bump… buh-bump’ of my heart wasn’t so determined to remind me that I’m alive. If only I could pretend, sinking into this oblivion. I breathe in and out, but never deep enough, my chest constricted in the same way my body is. There’s not enough room, never enough space. And I’m alone—so fucking alone.

‘Buh-bump… buh-bump’

I hum a tune to the rhythm of my pulse—something harsh and fast I recognize from one of Remy’s sketching benders. I think back to his philosophy textbook and a passage I read on solipsism; the belief that one’s self is the only thing that truly exists. I wonder what the opposite is. Simulation theory?

I distract myself with these little morsels in between the thrashings. My body’s too tired and defeated to fight, but my mind still tries. My lungs still breathe for me. The sun keeps rising and setting.

Six days.

I shift, triggering the pain that starts in the base of my spine, a tight burning like a searing ember. I try not to focus on it, to think of better things, but everything is so small, so dark, so hot…

Stop. Focus. Flex my toes. Curl my fingers. Twist my neck. The little things I can do. Count to ten. To twenty. To the space between here and there, where things just feel less hard and my thoughts tread lightly. My father is a genius. This punishment… there is nothing worse. Isolation from everything. Light, air, people, love, hate. I realize how much we need all of it to survive, as much as air and food.

That’s the startling clarity that comes to me on the second day.

How much I need people. How much I hate that. How their hands felt, their tongues and skin. No! I slam my head against the side of the box. The Dukes aren’t my people. They never were.

I suck in a deep breath and start to count.

Five days.

“Psst,” I hear. A finger pokes me sharply. “Wake up.”

I shake my head and burrow deeper under the covers. They’re tucked tight, my legs unable to move. “Go back to sleep,” I mutter.

“I have a secret,” she whispers. “Don’t you want to hear it?”

Leticia loves secrets, like her hidden spot under the floorboards. She loves hearing them, telling them, keeping them, hoarding them. They’re her vanity, her currency.

“Not particularly.” I attempt to push back the blanket, but it’s stuck in place. I always have to see her eyes when she talks. It’s the only way to know if she’s telling the truth. Usually, she isn’t. After a struggle I give up, saying, “What secret?”

“I’m leaving,” she answers.

“Why?” I ask. “Where?”

“I can’t tell you.” Of course. “But I’ll be gone soon.”

“He’ll replace you,” I say, even though we both already know it. There’s no escaping.

“Not this time. I’ve made sure.” I still can’t see her, but I feel her breath on my forehead and it makes me squirm in anticipation of her strike. “But do me a favor.” My eyes clench against the confusion, because Leticia knows better than to ask favors of me.

We’re worse than enemies.

We’re family.

“What?” I ask, wishing I could see her.

Her answer comes in a strange, intense voice. “Make him pay.”

I push and pull at the blanket, this time getting it off, and now I can see her—I can just open my eyes and…

‘Buh-bump… buh-bump’

Darkness. Absolute darkness. My breath catches and I’m frozen, paralyzed and unable to move, to breathe, to think. But I feel the tear, hot on my cheek, burning a path toward the bottom of the chest. The dream wasn’t real, but the nightmare very much is.

Four days.

This is about breaking me, I think, fingers numb and raw from picking at the crease between the lid and the side. My father wants me broken. He always has. Back when Leticia and I were small, he’d pit us against one another, choosing a winner. It could be about anything. Who could hold their breath longest. Who had the better grade, the shinier shoes. It was never about who was best—that was already known to be Leticia. Always Leticia. Me? The object of the competition was to break me. Despite the outcome, no matter how low I went, it was never enough. He sent me to the Lords, pushed me into captivity. When my rape and assault wasn’t enough, I was tossed to the dregs. The Dukes.

Even when I was on my knees, it wasn’t enough, and look where I am. The only place he thinks does the job. That’s all I think of when I hear faint footsteps on the hardwoods. How angry he’ll be that I’m still here. Has the dehydration not gotten me yet? How will he try to break me next? Who will he pawn me off on? Or will he finally be fed up and lock me away forever?

I’m not optimistic enough to believe he’d put me out of this misery.

The sound of footsteps come and goes, crossing the room, passing over the creaky floorboard near my dresser. That’s when I realize I must be hallucinating, caught in another dream. If it were my father or one of his soldiers, they’d yank this chest open and drag me out on wobbly legs that no longer wish to hold the weight of me. My eyes will cringe against the light, my lungs will burst with the promise of fresh air, and I’ll cry. I always cry when I emerge from this place, weak and so discouraged—not a drop of hope left in me.

Coming out is somehow always more humiliating than going in.

It’s how I know it’s not real. Father wouldn’t deny himself the pleasure if he really meant to end this.

Three days.

I slam my head against the side again, forcing myself awake.

‘Buh-bump… buh-bump’

I start my routine: the stretch, the counting, reciting a passage in my head. But my ritual is cut short by the flash of a light over the keyhole. I hold my breath, bracing myself for the man on the other side.

The top wrenches open so suddenly that I foolishly flinch away from it, squinting painfully into the blinding glare of light.

“What the fuck?” a voice breathes, low and full of disgust.

This isn’t my father, nor is it a soldier. The man is enormous, and when his hands reach into the chest, around my body, to lift me up, I replace myself void of the instinct to fight against it, because his scent crashes into me.

Wood and coldness, an undertone of mint, and something aggressively masculine.

“Sy?” It comes out in a skeptical croak, my throat dry and brittle. He grunts, dragging me out of the chest, and my knees hit the floor with a thud that makes him stiffen.

But I can see his face now that the light is gone, and it’s the oddest thing. This man used to make me shudder in revulsion. He used to make me shrink back against his hatred. He used to be the worst of the worst, something to be avoided and tiptoed around.

And now I’m flinging myself at him, arms locking around his neck as the crying begins. I don’t mean for it to. In fact, my whole body hitches with the effort of holding it in, but it escapes in tight, high-pitched wheezes into the warmth of his neck, and I have no control. I feel more than see his hands flung out at his sides, body rigid and so solid that I have no problem leaning against it.

“He wouldn’t kill me,” I cry, trembling so violently that I hear it in my own voice. “He wouldn’t let me die, he wouldn’t—”

“Sh!” Sy hisses, pressing a palm to the middle of my back. “You have to be quiet!”

But I’ve spent days now letting it loose, and it’s not about to be denied now. I gnash my teeth, but the dry sobs escape through them in shuddering squawks, and I keep clutching Sy tighter and tighter, as if I could disappear within his strength and resolve.

“Take a breath, you’re hysterical!” he snaps, trying to pry me off him. “If you dad hears us, then at least one of us will definitely be fucking dead.”

I shake my head, and when he wrenches me back, glaring into my eyes, I hope he understands what I can’t open my jaw wide enough to say.

I can’t stop.

Once again, I question the veracity of everything when it seems like he gets it, a somber comprehension filling his eyes. His mouth forms a tight, grim line. “Then I’ll need to choke you out. I can’t take you down the stairs like this.”

He doesn’t give me time to respond, darting around behind my back and wrapping a powerful arm around my neck. It’s almost a relief to feel his forearm crushing my windpipe. To feel his other palm pressing against the back of my head, cutting off my air supply, making my vision go spotty and dark.

If he’s expecting me to struggle, I don’t.

Just before everything goes black, I think of time and how much of it I’ve borrowed. I think of the cost and wonder if I can pay it. I pass out thinking of that, but the panic sinks under the surface, too deep to reach.

I don’t know how much time passes before I begin stirring. I just know that my body jostles against something firm but comfortable, and I rise from sleep like a frightened, wary thing. It isn’t until my eyelids clumsily rise that I realize I’m in the backseat of a car, streetlights zipping by. My gaze swims in and out, but I manage to focus on the shape of the driver. The curve of Sy’s cheek, the crouch of his bold eyebrow, the muscles shifting beneath his brown skin when he reaches out to flick the radio off.

I lay back here and watch him for a long time, quiet and still. It’s the height of irony, but now that I can move, I replace that I don’t want to. Maybe it’s a sense of security that I have no right to feel. Maybe I’m just defeated. Maybe this is what giving up feels like.

“You saved Remy.” The low rumble of his voice doesn’t startle me. It crests over me like a wave, tucking into the spaces beneath me. “Even after he fucked with you. Even after what he did at the Hideaway. Even after… everything.” He stops at a red light, and the curve of his mouth is tense and pensive. “Verity couldn’t have done that. It’s not her fault. She just wouldn’t know how to handle him. She would have freaked out—she would have bailed.”

He turns to glance at me in the back seat, the shadows of the car blotting out his eyes. Even though I know he hates me—even though I know he’s dangerous and full of hurtful things—I’m struck by the thought that I’ve never seen anything so soothing.

“But you stuck around and talked him down, even though you probably had every right not to. That’s real loyalty.” When the light turns green, he turns back to the road, easing the gas to accelerate. “You’re our Duchess now, Lavinia. And that means we’ll always come for you.”

I wonder how Nick feels about that.

Through the windshield, I can see the tower in the distance, rising defiantly into the air. It’s frozen hands look like someone who just took a breath one day and decided this was it—7:32 was as good as it could do—and now it’s content to be inert, staring out over Forsyth with its hands so close to touching, suspended in the moment before a clap.

Silently, I close my eyes.

Zero days.