It’d been two days since Sam called me out. I still felt gutted, but it wasn’t my explanation to give. Logan wanted to screw with Tate, make her fall for him and shatter her to pieces like she’d done to him. I didn’t like it, but it was Logan’s decision. It was his place to share the details with Sam, and I was taking the brunt of it. I was sick of it. After basketball practice, I headed to the parking lot. Sam worked the past two nights and I knew my little brother would be there. We’d been getting food there every time Sam worked and he was telling her what was going on with Tate, whether he wanted to or not.

When I tossed my bag inside my vehicle, I heard from behind me, “Can I have a minute?”

My blood went cold.

Kate was alone, her hands stuffed in her pockets, and her shoulders hunched forward. It was a meek posture, but she wasn’t meek. She was just alone.

“What do you want?” I made a show of looking around. “Your friends going to pop out and jump me?”

She frowned. I knew that look. She was on a fishing expedition. “Why would you say that?”

“That’s what you’re going to do Sam, aren’t you?”

“No.”

Her arm twitched. She was lying.

“Look,” she cleared her throat and her face twitched. I knew that look, too. She was biting the inside of her cheek. “Seeing you now, I don’t even know why I bothered.”

She turned to leave.

This was bullshit. She showed up so now it was my turn for some fun. “What do you want to know, Kate?”

She paused and then let out a sigh. “Fine. Listen. I need to know that it’s done.”

“What’s done?”

“You and me.”

I smirked at her. “There was never a you and me.”

“Yes, there was. I was your girl—”

“That I f**ked when I needed someone.” I sneered. “You kept yourself clean and you didn’t use to sleep around. I noticed. That’s all there was to it. Nothing more.”

She visibly swallowed. “There was more—”

“No, Kate.” It was the lack of caring in my tone. She heard the truth and jerked to the side, as if she were going to leave, but stopped. Her hands tore out of her pockets and balled into fists. They raised in the air, but not high enough that they could do damage. I waited. Kate was a bitch. I enjoyed that I was hurting her. “Come on. You went after Marissa because I was friends with her. Now my girlfriend? For what? To get me back? You’re pathetic, Kate.”

“Shut up.” She flinched with every word I said, but she swung her heated eyes back to me. “You shut up, Mason. You have no idea, no f**king idea why I’m doing this.”

“For power? You lost it. That’s long gone.” When there was no reaction, I laughed. “Haven’t you been watching? No one cares. The girls are turning against you.”

“You think they’ll follow her?” she sneered back.

“No, but they’ll like her. No one liked you. They were scared of you, but no one’s scared anymore.”

“They should be.”

“Why?” There it was. She was starting to show her colors. I could see inside of her now. “Are you going to go after every single girl? You don’t have the time, and all you’ll do is piss ‘em all off again. They haven’t turned on you yet, but they will. You go after every person, it’ll happen.”

“So maybe I’ll make an example out of her? Maybe that’s what I’m doing because people should be scared. They have no idea what I can do.”

It would be so easy to pull everything out from underneath her. I wanted to. I wanted to see that look on her face. She couldn’t match me, but I held back. “One word of advice, let it go. You’ve already lost power. You’re not going to get it back.”

“What do you know about it?”

“You have three friends right now.” I saw the scorn on her face. She was thinking she had more. She was wrong. “If you keep targeting Sam, you won’t. I’ll take them from you.”

Her sneer vanished. “You couldn’t.”

“I could.”

She eyed me, studying to see if I was bluffing. I let her see the truth. “Here’s your last chance. Drop it all and you can keep your friends. I won’t destroy that for you, but keep doing what I know you’re planning on doing, and I will ruin you. You’ll have no friends. You’ll have no allies. You won’t even want to come to this school again.”

A strangled laugh ripped from her and she shook her head. “Listen to you, big f**king deal here. You’re not God, Mason.”

“He wouldn’t do these things to you.” The cruel mask lifted. I let her see how lethal I could be. She saw it and shrunk back. “If you came here to make sure, one last and final time, that there’s a chance of you and me, there never was. There’s no chance you’ll ever be friends with the guys again. I know how you liked to hang out with them. You liked being at the top of the social chain. Those days are dead.”

“You shouldn’t talk to me like that.”

Really? She had no idea, but I fell silent. She was losing her control and I wanted to hear what else she would say.

“You have no idea, no f**king clue!” she shouted now.

Keep going, Kate. Tell me how I don’t have a f**king clue. Lay out the rest of your plan for me.

“No idea,” she continued to seethe. “Everyone forgets about you, but I don’t. You’re slumming when you go to this school. They forget about the rich daddy you’ve got. No one knows about the moneybags your mom has. No f**king clue, but I do. It’s not fair. You’ve got a scholarship. You’re going to college. Your life is set, Mason. Most the people at our school are going to community college. They can’t afford your NCAA football school.”

“That’s where this is coming from? I’m going to a better school than you?”

Her chest began heaving. The fury was bright and burning in her eyes. “Haven’t you seen my home? You know my folks. My dad’s a drunk. My mom works all the time, but when she’s not, she’s just as drunk as him. You think they saved up money for me? I’m not going anywhere, Mason, not like your precious princess. I’ve heard about her running. Track scholarship. Isn’t that what you were thinking, to get her here? You’re right, too. I know you are. She’s going to get a scholarship, probably at the same f**king college you go to, and you wanna know why? Because of you. They’ll give her one because you asked, because that’s how your life goes. You ask and people do it. I’m so sick of it—”