I turned away, heading back into the kitchen while the three of them kept their eyes on her.
Gripping the edge of the counter, I heard the door open, and I watched them stay rooted in their spots as she calmly stepped inside, walking past them. She veered right, stopping at the entrance to the kitchen, and stared at me, her hard eyes doing a good job of masking the hint of hurt I noticed.
Her clothes were damp, and I could make out her white bra beneath her tank top.
“Where is my mother?” she asked.
Damon, Will, and Kai walked in around her, spreading out around the kitchen, and turning to face her.
“Is she why you came back?” I asked.
Of course, she would brave us for her mother. We’d counted on that.
“I’m not scared of you,” she stated.
I nodded, crossing my arms over my chest. “I think you believe that.”
Looking at her now, her hair dotted with crystals of water, Damon’s blood on her hands and the bottom of her tank top, and the resolute look in her eyes, I’d never been surer of anything.
No, she wasn’t scared. She’d given into it. She was owning it.
Run or play. Fuck it.
“Where is she?” she pressed again.
“You get answers when you confess.”
“And submit,” Will added.
“To what?” she gritted out, turning her fierce eyes on him.
“To us.” He came around her, looking her in the eye. “All of us.”
“Your tantrum cost us three years, Rika,” Kai charged, baring his teeth. “And it wasn’t easy time. We were hungry and threatened and miserable.”
“And now you’re going to know what that feels like,” Damon added, leaning on the wall and holding his stomach as he glared at her.
Kai hovered down over her. “You’re going to learn how to shut up and look down when I enter a room.”
“And you’re going to learn how to fight and resist, because that’s what I like,” Damon countered.
“But with me,” Will came in close, making her jerk, “you’ll want it.”
She shook her head. “Tantrum? What tantrum? I don’t know what you’re talking about?”
“You come when we say.” Damon leaned on a hand on the island, tensing in pain. “You leave when we say. And as long as you do as you’re told, your debt to us will be paid. Your mother will be safe, and you’ll have money to live. You got that?”
“You’re ours,” Kai told her. “You owe us, and this has been a long time coming.”
“Owe you for what?” she shouted.
“We took you with us that night,” Will charged. “We trusted you!”
“Never trust a fucking women,” Damon grumbled, reciting his father’s words no doubt.
“And I was supposed to trust you, too!” she shot back. “And what did you guys do to me?”
She glared between Damon, Will, and Kai, and I stilled, wondering what the hell was going on.
“What is she talking about?” I demanded.
But Rika ignored me, pushing forward.
“You served three years? Well, I’m not sorry for you,” she growled. “You guys screwed up, but surprise, surprise, you actually had to pay a consequence for once. You’ve never had to own up to anything. There’s no one to blame but yourselves.”
“You don’t know anything!” Kai bellowed, shouting in her face.
She shook her head, a spiteful smile in her eyes. “Really?” And then she shot her glare to Damon. “You were sent to jail for raping an underage girl. Winter Ashby, the mayor’s daughter. The video was proof. What’s there to explain?”
I blinked long and hard, the morning that the videos surfaced flooding back.
I’d woken up on Halloween, the day after Devil’s Night, and discovered that some of our videos had been posted online for the whole fucking world to see.
Which, quite simply, led to my friends’ arrest.
It had been stupid to record the videos in the first place, but we were always careful with it. We kept one phone especially for those nights when we wreaked havoc and wanted to keep a little souvenir. And back then, we thought we were untouchable.
Winter Ashby had been one of Damon’s conquests. She’d willingly taken him to bed the night before, but she’d been underage, and her father was just as powerful as ours.
And he hated Damon’s family.
Which was probably why Damon preyed on her to begin with.
There was no way her father would drop the charges. He saw an opportunity to take down a Torrance, and he did it.
I looked over at Damon, seeing his flat expression as he stared at her.
“There’s nothing to explain,” he replied calmly. “You have me figured out. I preyed on a young girl, and I don’t even remember her face.”
Rika thinned her eyes on him, probably expecting more of an argument, but that wasn’t Damon’s style. He didn’t talk. He acted.
She then turned to Will and Kai, carrying on, “And you guys beat up a cop. Nearly to death. They found him on the side of the road.”
Another video that had surfaced.
“That cop,” Will shot out, moving into her space, “is Emery Scott’s brother. Her abusive…older…brother, and you’re damn right I beat the shit out of him!”
She pinched her eyebrows together. “Emery Scott?”
“Yeah,” Kai joined in. “We caught wind of it earlier that summer, so we jumped him, and I don’t care what you think. We’d do it again.”