“She’s inconsequential.” Anger was glaring back at me. His eyes were almost sparkling from the emotion. “What did you say to my sister? She never would’ve left otherwise.”

“Nope.” I clipped my head from side to side. “Not going there. You can’t put that blame on me. I liked your sister, even after she’d told me she was your sister. She went on her own free will. Apparently, when she saw what you did to Logan, that was the last straw for her. You know, because she actually liked us and liked Logan, too.”

His head lowered. He kept his eyes pinned on me. “I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t need you to. It’s the truth. She’s gone, Sebastian.”

“Then, why are you here?”

I countered with, “Why did you invite me? I didn’t see any of your fraternity buds out there.”

He smirked. “Because this has nothing to do with the fraternity. I used my fraternity to go against you guys. This party?” He indicated the door behind me. “All of that is completely separate from the fraternity—or the lack of a fraternity, thanks to your boyfriend. As for why you were invited?” He grunted, lifting a careless shoulder. “You heard my grandfather. I was given orders to invite you. Though I’m shocked as hell you came. I hoped you wouldn’t, and all my problems would have been solved.” He relaxed back against the bar and picked up his drink.

The small satisfaction that I had been feeling went away. “You mean, you didn’t think I would come?”

“I mean,” he gave me a chilling smile, “I was banking on the fact that you wouldn’t, but here you are. And whatever you have planned, it won’t work. What am I going to do with you now?”

It clicked with me. Whatever his grandfather wanted, Sebastian had his own agenda.

I said, “You’re not going to do what Gerald wanted, are you?”

He shook his head, finishing his drink. “Nope. How did you say that? ‘Not going there. You can’t put that blame on me.’” He laughed shortly to himself. “Yes, my grandfather will be upset, but there isn’t a thing they can do about it. For one, they never reach out to do their own bidding. It’s the grandchildren who reach out. The elders, and even my father—those guys all think it’s beneath them. You see, it’s during college. That’s when the bonding happens. That’s when people are supposed to become friends, do stupid shit together, and all for the main purpose of fucking up. You,” he fixed me with another glare, “are supposed to be brought into the fold, and we are supposed to become the best of buds. Well, Summer was supposed to be the best of buds with you.”

“What are you talking about? I thought you were the one who got Summer to befriend me?”

“I was, and here’s where everything goes sideways. Summer doesn’t even fully know what’s going on. She knows a little bit. She knows that your father is close to our family. She knows about your grandfather, but she doesn’t know everything. She was supposed to be initiated with you. And everything was supposed to be all happy, happy, joy, joy for the next four years until both of you learned the real truth.” He gestured around the room. “Look at this place. Look at the walls.”

Mason showed the photographs of Sebastian talking with his dad, his grandfather, and other men outside of a large house. “The private investigator found this.”

Logan shot forward from the couch, grabbing the photograph. “What the fuck? Is that a basketball player?”

“Dude.” Nate leaned over to see.

Logan shouldered him back. “Space. I’ve got broken bones here.”

Nate scowled at him.

Logan rolled his eyes and handed the photo over. “It pains me to know that one of my basketball faves is a slimeball like Park Sebastian. Seriously,” he patted where his heart was, “it hurts me right here. He took away my healthy bones. He took away my, probably, deluded thought that I could take five fraternity assholes at once and walk away still swinging. And,” he shot a finger in the air, “if my ego hasn’t been wounded enough, I’m in pain from knowing that I will not be able to go to that house to see all those celebrities. Can you imagine? I could get everything autographed, sell it online, and use that money to buy a shit machine. I’m talking a literal shit machine—where it goes and then flings that shit at the target. That’d be my revenge against Sebastian. Mount that crap on his front lawn and put, like, circling tigers around it, so no one could remove it. Best plan ever.” He pretended his hands exploded like a bomb and fell back slowly against the couch cushion.

“Really?” Mason lifted an eyebrow. “That’s your plan for revenge?”

Logan didn’t care. He folded his arms over his chest, winced, and then let them drop back to his sides. “Whatever. I should trademark my ideas. I bet someone will do it. Hashtag revenge shit machine. That video would go viral.”

“Oh my god.” I groaned from next to Mason. “Can we please get back to all these people Sebastian is connected to? Because that’s really concerning.”

Sebastian wanted me to look at the walls, so I did. The entire room was set up in a circular layout. The room was square, but the couches were positioned to form a circle, and the walls were covered in portraits. I hadn’t considered them when I first came in. All eyes and focus had been on Sebastian, but now that he’d pointed them out, I started putting names to faces.

A senator.

A celebrity—no, a couple of celebrities.

Wrong again.

I recognized more and more of them. Actors. Producers. Singers.

My gaze fell on one in the back corner. My father. Garrett was smiling at the painter. My gaze slid over to the painting beside him. Sharon. And on the other side of her was my mother. This was how they knew Analise.

I murmured, “You said it all starts in college.”

“It does. You’re starting to figure it out, huh?”

“What happens in college?”

Sebastian chuckled. The sound sent chills down my back.

He said, “You do anything and everything. You screw each other. You don’t screw each other. You get drunk. You don’t get drunk. It’s a normal college experience, but that’s where you make the mistakes. And you’re supposed to make those mistakes with, who else? Your best friends. I mean, say, for example, if someone raped a girl, who else is going to have your back to cover it up?” He pointed at a portrait of a young man and then to another one of a well-known actor. “Your best friend gives you the alibi. There’s no way you could’ve raped that girl because your buddy is vouching that you were at his house. If you want to cheat on a test,” he crossed the room to a portrait of a singer and pointed to another portrait of a senator, “your best gal pal, who’s the teacher’s assistant, will either get the test for you or cover your back. If a professor gets suspicious, the teacher’s assistant will let you know to do a few wrong answers on purpose. And so on and so on. That’s what this all is. Connections.”