Cocky Bully: The Enemies to Lovers Romance Box Set Read online

  Trent shrugged. “It happened before I came here, but that’s not important. What is important is that you come. There, I will give you the information you want.”

  “But we’re supposed to be in the dorms after school,” I said.

  “You have half an hour, princess. It’s not that difficult,” Trent said, shaking his head and stepped back. “Go around the back of the school and meet me there, or I’m not telling you anything.”

  “Fine then,” I said, watching him pick up my bag.

  I took his bag, and he walked away.

  “Wait,” I called out after him. I had forgotten all about the black market question. I needed to know more about that. “I need to ask you something,” I said.

  Trent waved a dismissive hand, not bothering to turn around as he spoke. “Ask me at the graveyard.”

  Chapter 6

  I should have worn a coat.

  Gray rain drizzled down in thin sheets as I walked out of the school building into the courtyard. I could smell the rich scent of greenery and ozone as I made my way around the building, my boots sinking deep into the soggy grass as I walked.

  My sweater wasn’t designed for the rain. It had large holes all over it, knitted together to be fashionable more than anything else. It was warmer than not wearing a sweater at all, but the cold droplets penetrated through to my thin t-shirt, leaving me with a chill. I crossed my arms tightly as I hurried along the side of the building toward the back.

  I had practically run out to meet Trent, not wanting to lose precious time and risk being late coming back. That would mean my third detention in a month, and solitary for two days. Knowing me, the boredom would literally cause me to fall dead within the first 24 hours of being locked up.

  The graveyard peeked out through the gray mist as I approached the back of the building. It was an old place, I could already tell, and the headstones were crooked with age. It must have been placed here before the school was. That was the only explanation I could come up with for why it appeared to be so ancient.

  “Samantha,” a deep and confident voice called out from the left side of the graveyard.

  Trent stepped out from around a twisted old tree, wearing a long navy coat. He looked like a model with how he was standing by the tree. I changed my direction toward him and felt my heart speed up as I got closer.

  “It’s cold,” I noted as I joined him under the bare branches of the tree in the graveyard.

  “Indeed,” he said, looking me up and down. “You’re underdressed.”

  “I forgot to bring a jacket today,” I said, staring up at him. He looked so warm and cozy in his thick wool coat. I wanted to get into it with him and feel his body heat. Unfortunately, that would be taking things way too far.

  “You brought your bookbag?” he asked, looking around my back.

  I nodded, thumbing the straps on my shoulders.

  “Take it off,” he said.

  “Why?” I asked, but I did as he said.

  “Because I said so,” he said, his voice growing heavy.

  I had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach about all of this, but I didn’t voice any further concern. I obeyed him, and that was my first mistake.

  “Put it down,” he said, looking toward the mossy ground at my feet.

  I dropped the bag, listening to the earthy thud as it hit the wet ground. I hoped that the water didn’t soak through and get my money wet. I smiled nervously at Trent as his eyes seemed to bore a hole straight through my chest.

  “Boys, we got it,” Trent said loudly, waving a hand in the air.

  Large men stepped out of their hiding places behind trees and gravestone, running up to me before I even had a chance to yelp. They grabbed me with their strong tattooed hands, putting them over my mouth and digging their fingers into my sensitive skin to hold me in place. I was trapped.

  My heart raced as Trent walked up to me, a smirk spread on his evil face. “You’re so pretty when you’re afraid,” he said, the worlds rolling form his pink lips like smoke.

  I was more than afraid. I was terrified. The icy grip of the man behind me, holding my mouth so that I couldn’t scream, made me feel like I couldn’t breathe. I was close to submitting to full-on panic, but I stopped myself. I was supposed to be tough.

  Trent leaned down and snatched the bookbag that I had placed at my feet and tore it open, breaking the zipper in one violent movement. “What’s in the bag, darling?” he asked, knowing full well that I wouldn’t be able to answer.

  “Something nice in here for me?” he asked, looking up at me as he shuffled through the contents of my bag. “Oh look, money,” he stated in a tone that oozed with mockery as he held up the tightly bounds stacks of cash that I had stored in the bag.

  I struggled against my captors as they chuckled. They must have been thrilled to get this much money from me, but I was far from amused. I couldn’t believe that Trent would do something like this to me. How had he even known that I had the money in the first place?

  “How much money is this here?” Trent asked, waving the bills in front of my face. “Must be a lot. I wonder where you got it from.”

  I jerked my head, trying to free my mouth to speak. Trent chuckled and waved his hand, signaling for his man to remove his hand from my mouth. I gasped in the cold, wet air as I was finally allowed to breathe. I wasn’t free, the warmth of a large man pressed firmly behind me, but I was able to talk.

  “You’re a bastard,” I growled, nearly coming to tears at the sight of Trent playing with the money my father had given me.

  “As a matter of fact, I am a bastard. What of it?” he asked with a smirk. Then, he frowned, looking at the bottom of the stack of money. “What’s this?” He said curiously, peeling off a paper from the bottom. It was the note my father had written.

  “Give it back, please,” I said, unable to control the tears beginning to roll from my eyes.

  Trent pouted at me, mocking my sorrow, then held the paper up to his ice-blue eyes. He studied the paper for a moment before lowering it, an evil grin spreading across his face. “Looks like daddy has money after all,” he said, letting the paper fall into the wet grass.

  “Stop it,” I shrieked, trying to display anger through tears. I knew that I looked pathetic, but that note meant everything to me. To see Trent toss it to the ground like it was nothing nearly destroyed me.

  “You lied to me, Samantha, and I don’t like liars,” Trent said, turning serious. His perfect eyebrows squiggled on his forehead, displaying irritation.

  “I didn’t lie to you, asshole. I just got that money. I didn’t know anything about it until it arrived,” I replied.

  “You’re silly if you think you can hide things from me, darling,” he said, tossing the money into the air and catching it. “I have eyes everywhere.”

  “You’re the one who lied to me,” I said, remembering his promise. “You told me that you would tell me what happened to Emily.”

  “And I will,” Trent said, pulling out a dollar bill from the top of the stack. “But you need to understand one thing.” He pulled out a lighter and lit the bill, struggling for a moment in the rain. “Obedience will get you a lot further than defiance will.” He pulled a carton of cigarettes from his back pocket and popped one into his mouth, using the dollar to light it.

  He was putting on a show again. He seemed to enjoy the theatrics. Everything he did was a grand display of his power. Maybe he thought it was cool to behave like this, but I wasn’t impressed. I knew that he was nothing more than a petty, arrogant, douchebag, and I wasn’t going to listen to the words that he spoke.

  “Go fuck yourself,” I said, the tears beginning to slow as anger replaced my sadness.

  “That’s not very nice,” Trent said, taking a puff of his cigarette. “You seem to have forgotten what I just told you.”

  “I don’t care what you have to say,” I replied, pulling once again against the men who held me in place.

  “You’re going to care v
ery much in a moment,” he said, holding up the stack of bills. “You said you were cold, right?”

  I nodded.

  “Then I’ll make a fire,” he said happily, placing the money down in front of him and pulling a small container of lighter fluid from his back pocket.

  “What are you doing?” I squeaked as he popped the lid off the fluid and squirted it over the stacks of money.

  “Keeping you warm,” he said, his voice frigid as he emptied the entire container of lighter fluid onto the bills. He crouched down and held his lighter up to the doused money.

  I gasped as the stack went up in flames, the bright orange fire dancing in Trent’s eyes as he watched the money that my father had given me burn in the graveyard. It was a fitting place to watch my hopes die.

  Trent stood up, the long end of his navy coat brushing across the hot flames. “Now, let me tell you exactly what happened to Emily.”

  Chapter 7

  I returned to the dormitory with my father’s soggy note in my hand, the blue ink running through the paper to render it barely readable. Trent had told me everything I needed to know about who had killed Emily, but I didn’t know whether to believe him or not.

  On the one hand, he knew that I had money, which meant he hadn’t been lying when he said he had eyes everywhere. He could easily know about Emily. On the other hand, he had chosen to bully me instead of working with me, manipulating me to gain power. He was a bad man, and his actions sickened me.

  How could a man that handsome be so cruel? It seemed like he could have anything he wanted in life, but he had chosen to go down the worst possible road. It wasn’t like he was stupid. The man was clearly quite clever, but he used it for evil.

  I sighed, shaking my head as I returned to my bed. I placed the note beneath my pillow and let the sheets soak up the rainwater in the paper. All I wanted to do was to go to bed now, but it wasn’t time for that yet. We still had a few hours before the lights were shut off.

  I sat on the bed and placed my head in my hands. My face was hot, but my hands were so cold from the outdoors. Trent had told me everything, ultimately keeping his end of the deal, but what was the cost of doing that? I had lost so much money in the process, and I wouldn’t ever be able to get it back. It was ashes in the wind now.

  At the end of the day, I was better off. Money was something that I loved, but revenge was even sweeter. The woman who had pushed Emily off the ledge and caused her death would be punished. I would be getting my revenge soon.

  Trent had told me about a girl named Angela, who Emily used to hang out with occasionally. They would get lunch together and talk about guys. I remembered seeing her a few times, and I had even talked to her once or twice. I knew enough about her to find her again, although she wasn’t in the same room as me in the dormitory building.

  Tomorrow, I would be plotting my revenge, but now, I needed to think. Trent had told me that he didn’t know the reason why Angela had killed Emily, but that it was probably something involving a guy named Brock. I wanted to find this man and talk to him, but I feared that Angela would know it was me who had enacted revenge on her if I did that. I wanted to keep a low profile. This was going to be a quick hit, and then it was back to normal. No more Trent, no more thinking about Emily, no more crazy stuff. I was going to behave myself until my time at Bayside was up, and I could go home.

  “Hey Samantha, another something for you,” a scratchy female voice said from in front of me.

  I looked up, seeing the butch girl again, holding another package. I was surprised that she had something else from me. I guess it was from my father again, but that was quick. I doubted it was more money, but you never know.

  I took the package from her. “Who are you?” I asked, cocking my head to the side.

  “None of our business,” she said, flashing a smile before turning around and walking away.

  I watched her disappear out of the room and then looked down at the new package in my hand. Whatever it was, I wasn’t going to let Trent take it from me again. This was a gift from my father, and I had let him down by getting the money he had worked hard for stolen like that. Never again.

  I shoved the package underneath my sweater and made my way to the showers again. I needed to rinse the taste of Trent’s thug’s fingers from my lips before it became a permanent addition to my taste buds.

  I pushed through the doors that led to the showers and found a stall at the back of the room where I would feel safer in. For some reason, I kept having thoughts about cameras in the shower room. Could that be how Trent knew that I had the money?

  I looked up at the ceiling but saw nothing to indicate that anyone had planted a camera in the room. My paranoid thoughts weren’t leaving me alone, but I knew that it was more likely that one of the girls in the dorm saw he money while I was opening the package for the first time and reported it to Trent. It wasn’t just men who were involved with his gang.

  The new package was wrapped in the same way as the first one, with many layers of tape and black plastic. I rubbed it against the door hinge on the inside of the stall in a similar manner as before, ripping through the plastic enough to pull out what was inside.

  There was a single stack of 20 dollar bills inside and a box along with it. I breathed a sigh of relief. At least I had some money to work with. This would make my life a lot easier.

  A note sat on top of the box, which I picked up and read before opening it.

  Dear Samantha,

  I misplaced this when I sent the first package. This is the rest of the money. Use it wisely. I’ve also included something your mother used to wear. I had someone take it from the house. I meant to give it to you before I got sent away, but I didn’t have the chance. Stay safe.

  Love,

  Dad.

  I would have been brought to tears by the letter had I not just endured Trent’s psychological torture half an hour earlier. I felt too tough to cry over a letter from my father now, even if he had also mentioned my mother in it.

  I put the note down with the money and opened the box. Inside of it, there was a gold necklace with a heart dangling at the center. It was cute and was something my mother had worn religiously before she passed away. I had thought she was buried with it, but apparently not.

  I took it out of the box and felt the cold metal in my hands. It was lovely. I unlatched the small hook holding it together and re-latched it around my neck, letting the heart fall between my breasts. It felt like it should have been there this whole time. It was natural.

  I stepped under the showerhead and turned on the icy water. Today, it didn’t feel so bad against my skin. Maybe that was because I was too deep in my own thoughts to acknowledge the world around me. I was numb, but not in a good way. There was a steady fire that had been lit inside of me, and I didn’t feel like it would go out any time soon.

  Being motivated by revenge is never a good thing, but it gave me something to occupy my brain during my imprisonment at Bayside Academy. Here, you risk losing your mind if you can’t find something, anything, to distract yourself with. At first, it had been Trent, but now, it was Angela.

  I rinsed the smell of burnt money from my hair, then turned off the water. I felt a bit better now that I had received both the tools and the information to begin enacting my revenge on Angela. First, I would need to gain access to the black market at the school, but I wouldn’t be doing that through Trent. I would have to find somebody else.

  I shoved the money into my pocket and left the empty box in the shower stall to be cleaned up by the janitor. I was going to be as low-profile as I could, and I wouldn’t be letting the money see the light of day until I was ready to begin buying things with it. I couldn’t risk Trent knowing about it and taking it before I could put it to good use.

  I returned to the main room with my wet hair tied in a sloppy bun on top of my head, counting the beds as I went back to mine. Blue, Black, Blue, Black.

  Chapter 8

  He was a handsom
e man, not unlike Trent, in some ways. His hair was parted neatly on his scalp, and his clothes were a bit neater than the average student. He looked like he had money, and that’s precisely why I knew he would have information about the local black market. If he had money, then he was probably using it.

  “Hey,” I said, feeling shy as I came up to him in the hallway.

  He gave me a look of mild surprise. “Hello there. Can I help you?”

  “I was hoping you could tell me where I could buy something around here,” I said, using soft language while still being direct about my intentions.

  He nodded, shifting his eyes left and right while sucking his lips into his mouth. “I think I might be able to do that, but I need to know you’re not going to rat my contacts out.”

  I made a cross over my chest. “Cross my heart, hope to die,” I said, trying to sound as sweet and innocent as I could.

  The man laughed. “You’re adorable, but that’s not going to work on me.”

  I pouted. “Okay, so what do I have to do then?”

  He pushed his fingers through his thick brown hair and grinned. “I could think of a few things, but I’ll settle on a simple background check from one of my boys. What’s your name?”

  “Samantha,” I said eagerly, standing on my toes briefly.

  “Samantha. And your last name?”

  “Briar,” I replied.

  “Samantha Briar,” he repeated as he stored it in his memory. “I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Until then, hang in there,” he said, winking at me.

  “Will do,” I said happily. He seemed like a nice enough guy, and he was definitely the right person to talk about when it came to the black market. I had struck gold.

  He walked away, and I watched him go. I was beginning to grow fond of the muscular builds that everyone at this school seemed to have. It had a dangerous allure to it.

  “Who the fuck was that?” A powerful voice said from behind me, causing me to jump.