“Did you know about all the awful stuff going on there?”

He paused to gather his thoughts. “I mean, not really? I had heard rumors and things, but I never thought much of it. Every student hears the same rumors at one point or another, you know? And after Pauline died, I was pretty upset and mostly just tried to focus on graduating in the spring. I know she wasn’t my real mom, but she was like a mom to me too.”

I could see how he would feel that way. My mom was like a mom to everyone and anyone that needed her. But most of all, to me.

“I’m sorry that this has all happened to you,” I said. “Especially about Marta being killed. Even if you didn’t know her that well, she was still your mom. It must have been difficult hearing that our father had killed both of the women you knew as mothers.”

“What do you mean?” David’s face looked truthfully, blank and confused. “Who else did he kill besides Marta?”

“You don’t know?” I asked.

He didn’t, so I enlightened him. “Our father killed my mother too.”

There’s a certain kind of look that evil has, and it can sometimes take a few different forms. Sometimes, it can take the obvious form that shows itself clearly, It could be obvious, like the look of the yellowed, maniacal grin that my father had, or the way that Marta used to smile before she did something truly horrible. But then there’s a different look that evil can take on, one that is much harder to describe and to prove. It’s a silent, emotionless, invisible look that chills you to the bone. It’s the kind of empty reaction that you can tell is hiding something so vile that it can’t bear to reveal itself until it’s ready to strike.

It might have been my nerves from the day that were just shot, but something about the vacant look in David’s eyes when I told him about my mother’s murder made me feel as though I were staring into the face of something even more treacherous than my father.

“David?” I asked as I got up and started to back away toward my room.

I’m not even sure what made me get up; he hadn’t done or said anything.

“Are you okay?” I asked hesitantly.

He looked at me as if he were staring past me instead of at me when he answered. “Yes, Lisette. I’m fine.”

I kept looking at him as I went down the hall toward my room. David laid against the couch with his eyes wide open, watching me but looking as if he were watching something completely different behind his eyes. Like it was something that only he could see.

And when I got back into my room, I locked the door.

The next morning, I slept in late. I didn’t have any dreams at all, and it was honestly a nice and restful break for my mind. When I came out for coffee, I saw the blanket that David was using neatly folded and laid over the arm of the couch.

But I didn’t see David.

“Morning,” I said to the guys as they were gathered around the table with coffees in hand.

Adam came over and kissed me on the tip of my nose.

“Morning,” Julian smiled.

“Where is David?” I asked.

“Not sure,” Michael answered. “We thought maybe you would know. He wasn’t here when we came out for coffee this morning.”

“Did he leave a note or anything?”

“I didn’t see one.” Michael went back to drinking his coffee and checking updates on his phone. I think he was glad that David had left; they all were. And I think I was glad that he was gone too.

I didn’t think about David much for the next few days. Final exams were nearing, and Goldshire was busy preparing for graduation. It seemed ridiculous to even think about graduation when we knew that we still had to deal with my father and his schemes before we could leave Charleston, but even so, it was hard not to be a little excited about graduating from college. Mom would have found it even more impressive that I’d been able to graduate with a 4.0 GPA even despite all the murderous craziness.

The guys didn’t seem quite as excited about it as I was, but I reminded them that if we didn’t take time to enjoy some of the trivial things in life, then what was it all about? Since Julian had already graduated, he didn’t have any exams or preparations to make, so he indulged me more than the other two by listening to all my silly graduation wishes.

Since Goldshire had separated from Lineage, the effect of all their shady dealings had dissipated from our campus, and Goldshire was beginning to feel more like a regular school, one that wasn’t entrenched in a long history of corruption. It made it easier to feel like things were normal on some days.

We had all talked about where we would go when we were able to leave. I thought Asheville sounded nice…all the mountains and solitude, with the quaint little towns. But the boys seemed to want to go even farther away than that. Adam had even started talking about the west coast. We had all agreed that wherever it was, all four of us would be going there together.

I wondered how long the three of them would stay patient about my inevitable choice of who to be with. But for now, they all seemed content with the way we were.

The only tradition that Michael had forgotten to change when he restructured Goldshire’s school events was the graduation after party. Lineage and Goldshire had always held separate graduations but then combined graduating student bodies later in the evening as a gesture of good-willed, mutual celebration. He realized his mistake and was getting ready to change it, but I intervened.

“I think we should keep the graduation party,” I said.

“Why would we do that?” he asked. “Why would we want to combine anything with Lineage?”

“We both have a half-brother who is graduating this year, too. Don’t you think it would be nice to celebrate with him?

None of us had heard from David since he had left the apartment. I had told the guys that David seemed upset and strange after I told him that my mother had been murdered by our father. Julian just said that it was probably a hard thing for him to hear since he liked my mother so much and that he probably just needed some time to sort everything out. That seemed perfectly reasonable considering all that he had found out about so suddenly.

But I didn’t know what David’s plans were after graduation and didn’t know if we’d even see each other again. So, I thought the graduation celebration would be a good idea. Michael ended up conceding because he could see that it meant a lot to me.

Personally, I don’t think he ever cared if he saw David again.

“Do you ever just think about leaving?” I asked Michael as we were lying in bed together one night.

“You mean leaving town?” he asked.

I nodded. “Yeah. Julian and Adam talk about it all the time. They both seem like they would just drop all of this and leave everything behind after graduation and leave. But you don’t ever mention it.”

“That’s because we aren’t done,” he said as he pulled me closer. I liked it when we laid in bed together with our naked bodies touching beneath the sheets.

“Done with school? Graduation is right around the corner,” I said.

“No, I meant done with what has happened here.”

I snuggled against him. The weather was getting a little bit warmer now, and when we kept the windows open, it brought just the right amount of chill into the room.

“My father hasn’t done anything lately,” I said. “He seems to have quieted his hunt for us and is just letting us be.”

“That’s true,” Michael agreed. “But he has done so much in the past that he needs to atone for. And I’m sure that he’s still running his illegal operations within Lineage. We just don’t see them as much now since Goldshire has separated from it.”

That was true. There was no way my father would have given any of that power or money up. It just wasn’t right under our noses as it had been before.

“What are you hinting at, Lisette? Do you want to just walk away from all this and go start fresh somewhere else?”

I didn’t answer right away because I wasn’t sure. Michael rolled me over gently so that he could see my face. “I want to do what will bring you the most peace,” he said. “Everything that has happened here has been so terrible—everything except for you and I finding each other. If you want to stay until we can finally figure out how to take Jack down, then we’ll stay. If you need to do that for your mom, and for yourself, then that’s what we will do. But if you want to leave, and you feel ready to let go of all of this and start new somewhere, then I am ready to do that too. And so are Adam and Julian. Just say the word, and we’ll leave right after graduation.”

I wasn’t sure yet.

I’d had some time to think about everything. Although my feelings were every bit as strong and determined as they had always been, some of the drive that I had for revenge had been replaced with the peace that I found now. Yes, I wanted to stop my father from hurting anyone else. And yes, I wanted to expose the corruption that had resulted in my mother’s death.