15. Jace

15

JACE

A fter the party, I expect to hear from Tessa, but she's been quiet the last few days. I was about to text her and ask if she wanted to hang out when we received an email, summoning Alec and me to the dean's office.

As the two of us sit outside Dean Harrison's office, neither of us is certain what this might be about, but I have a sick feeling in my stomach that something is seriously wrong.

Alec hasn't said a word since we got the summons, but I can feel the tension radiating off him like a furnace. His leg bounces impatiently, and his fingers drum against the armrest of his chair, a beat I can't quite match.

Dean Harrison's assistant finally pokes her head out from behind the office door, giving us a sharp nod to head in. The tension thickens as we step inside the office, and it only gets worse when we see the look on Dean Harrison's face. His jaw is tight, eyes narrowing as he waves us toward the chairs in front of his desk.

"Well, gentlemen," he starts, his voice low but lethal. "Care to explain this?"

I'm about to ask what he's talking about when he reaches for a folder on his desk, flipping it open, and spreading out a stack of photos. I feel my stomach drop.

It's pictures of Tessa—the ones we had Matteo and Julian take of her at the carnival. The ones we thought would be enough to embarrass her into backing off from the fraternity for good.

Alec tenses beside me, his jaw clenching even tighter, but he doesn't say a word. I try to swallow the lump in my throat as Dean Harrison leans back in his chair, arms crossed, staring us both down like we're the scum on the bottom of his shoe.

"Photos of a student circulated online. Tessa Collins, to be specific," he says, voice growing colder. "I've received a complaint about your fraternity's involvement. This is exactly the kind of behavior that got Sigma Theta suspended last year. I thought you boys were smarter than this."

I shoot a quick glance at Alec, hoping he'll say something, but he's still stone-faced, staring straight ahead. So I force myself to speak, my voice coming out more strained than I'd like. "This was…"

Dean Harrison cuts me off with a sharp raise of his hand. "I'm not interested in excuses, Whitmore." He slaps the stack of photos with his palm, the sound echoing in the room. "This is a clear violation of our campus conduct policy, and let me remind you, Sigma Theta is on probation. One more incident like this, and you'll be banned from campus permanently."

The weight of his words hits like a ton of bricks. I glance at Alec again, but he's still refusing to meet my eyes. I can practically feel the storm brewing in him, but he keeps it all locked down.

Dean Harrison isn't done. "I don't care what your reasoning was. You've embarrassed a fellow student and tarnished the reputation of this institution—again. Clean up your act, or Sigma Theta will be nothing more than a bad memory on this campus."

"Yes, sir," Alec finally grinds out, his voice low and tight. I echo him, my stomach still twisting in knots.

Dean Harrison stares us down for a few more agonizing moments before waving us off. "Get out of my office. Fix this, or you won't get another chance."

It feels like a reprieve from the gallows as we head out, the tension thick enough to cut with a knife.

"Why?" Alec asks, his voice cracking at the end. "Why would she do this to us?"

I have no answers for him and I set my jaw, squinting in the sunlight that beams down on us. "I don't understand it either, Alec," I say, trying to gather my thoughts. "I thought things were fine between us."

"Everything is on the line right now," Alec says, walking stiffly beside me. "I can't let this happen. I can't let Sigma Theta get banned."

"I'm going to call an executive officer meeting," I tell him, typing furiously on my phone as I text the others.

Emergency meeting in fifteen , I type, waiting for the message to send before I stuff my phone into my back pocket and pull Alec toward me by his shoulders, forcing him to look at me. I can tell his anxiety has spiked from this whole thing, and he needs to calm down before the meeting.

"We'll get through this," I promise him. "We'll figure this out. We can handle this. We're Sigma Thetas," I remind him. "Brotherhood before all."

"Brotherhood before all," Alec repeats, though his words sound hollow and empty. I nudge his shoulder with mine.

"We're going to figure out a plan," I tell him, and we start walking again. "She's not going to get away with destroying our second chance."

But my own words sound flat in my head, as though I don't believe them either. I'm trying to do whatever I can to keep Alec from spiraling out, so I stuff down my doubts and focus instead on getting Alec back to the frat house.

Inside, the meeting room is already full of the rest of the officers. Julian and Devin are sitting next to each other and Matteo is just putting his backpack down when the two of us arrive.

"What's going on?" he asks, settling into the seat next to Julian.

"We've got news," Alec says, tone clipped as he takes his seat at the head of the table. "The photo incident at the carnival was reported."

"The dean called us into his office and raked us over the coals," I tell them, my stomach still in knots. "He told us if there was one more issue, we're permanently banned."

"I knew that little witch was out to get us," Julian says, a sneer on his face. His dark eyes narrow and he shrugs out of his letterman jacket. "I say we go after her for this, let her know we're not going to be messed with!"

Matteo shakes his head. "While I think Tessa should have talked to us instead of going to the dean, think about how that might look if we retaliate. The school is already keeping us under close watch."

"Maybe that's part of her plan," Devin says, his gaze far away as he speaks. "She's been hanging around me, Jace, and Alec a lot lately," he explains. "Flirting, messing around, trying to get us to let our guards down."

I refrain from pointing out that we were doing the exact same thing recently, and let Devin speak. "If she gets close enough to us, she can dig up dirt and bring us down. She wants us to retaliate publicly. She wants us to try to take her down. When we do, she has her next story—‘Sigma Theta Banned from Campus,'" he says, a bitter edge to his tone.

Matteo frowns. "That's pretty underhanded if that's true. I don't want to lash out at her but I do want her to stop trying to take us down."

"Then it's settled," Alec says. "We need to stop letting Tessa Collins manipulate us and keep her far, far away from Sigma Theta from now on."

Julian leans back. "Is there something we can do that won't be obvious it's coming from us?" he asks, resting his chin against his fist. "You're right that if we don't do this carefully, we're going to immediately get caught."

I consider this for a moment. "We need to keep her distracted," I decide. "Keep her busy thinking that she's being followed around but make it hard to trace back to us."

"Yeah," Devin says, agreeing with a nod. "We have to make her think she's crazy to suspect us. Pretend nothing is wrong, that we don't even know about the reprimand."

"As long as no one gets hurt," Matteo adds. "We're not trying to ruin her life, we're just trying to make her stay away from us. I'm frankly surprised that she went to the dean's office. Didn't I see the three of you guys go upstairs with her at the party the other day? I thought things were better."

"We did too," I mutter, clenching and unclenching my fist under the table. "I genuinely thought we had made a fresh start."

"Shows how little we know about her," Alec adds in a low voice. "We need to stop letting ourselves get swept up in her schemes."

"Her pussy couldn't have been that good," Julian says, a snigger escaping him. Matteo, Devin, Alec, and I all flash him a dark look.

"Shut the fuck up," I snap. "Leave that shit out of this."

"We're only focused on getting back at her for reporting us," Alec says, a calm look on his face but danger in his eyes as he regards Julian. "Now, are we all in agreement?"

"Aye," we all echo in chorus.

Alec nods. "That's settled then. We have to be careful, but we're going to do whatever it takes to get Tessa Collins off our backs once and for all."

His words seem to linger in the air, and I glance around seeing the other officers nodding their assent.

Tessa Collins is going to regret the day she picked Sigma Theta to go after.