41. Jace

41

JACE

J ulian looks almost maniacal as he stares us down. "Wouldn't you like to know?" he says, his tone mocking.

Julian's laughter rings in my ears, echoing around the empty backyard. His cocky, smug expression has my fists clenching at my sides, my patience wearing thin. I step forward, my eyes locked on him. "Who are you working for?" I demand, my voice low and tight. "You said you're following orders—so who's pulling the strings?"

Julian just smirks, leaning back like he's got all the time in the world. "Now, why would I tell you that? Where's the fun in giving away all the secrets?"

My blood boils at his taunting, the way he's toying with us like we're nothing. I grit my teeth, taking another step closer. "I'm done playing games, Julian. You're not walking away from this until you tell us everything."

He glances at Alec and Devin, then back at me, his smirk widening. "Fine. You wanna know who's been calling the shots? It's someone closer than you think. Not everyone at the Sentinel is in love with your intrepid little reporter, after all."

His eyes gleam with malice as he leans in, his voice a low whisper. "One of the people she works with has been behind it all, using me to do the dirty work. I just took advantage of the situation to get my revenge."

The words hit me like a punch to the gut. One of Tessa's colleagues? The last thing I expected was that someone she worked with could be behind everything. "Who?" I bark, my frustration boiling over. "Who the hell is it?"

Julian shakes his head, the smug look never leaving his face. "Oh, I'm not giving you a name. Where's the satisfaction in that? You'll just have to figure it out yourselves."

Before I can stop myself, my fist connects with Julian's jaw. The sound of the impact is sharp, and he stumbles back, clutching his face, but still laughing. "Ooh, there it is. The anger. The desperation." He spits blood onto the grass and looks up at me with wild eyes. "You're not gonna get what you want from me, Jace. But hey, good luck figuring out who's been playing you this whole time."

Devin steps forward, pulling me back before I can take another swing. I can barely hear him over the rush of blood in my ears, my mind racing with Julian's words.

"You won't get away with this," Alec growls.

" You three are never going to get away with this," Julian taunts. "I'm going to tell everyone you went crazy and tried to pick a fight with me. You have no proof that I'm behind anything."

"Do you want to provoke us?" Devin asks, his voice deadly calm. "Because I have no qualms with beating the shit out of you until your brains are so rattled that you end up in a coma. Once you're comatose, you can't stop us from finding out who's behind all this, and by the time you wake up it will be too late."

He's not usually the violent type, he's more of a peaceful negotiator, but listening to the way he's talking right now is almost enough to send a shiver down my spine.

A flicker of fear crosses Julian's face before he schools his expression, looking bored. "Fine, whatever. I've gotten what I wanted from that little bitch anyway."

Alec turns like he's about to walk away before he lunges at Julian, ready to strangle him. I manage to grab him just in time and pull him back.

He seethes, trying to fight my grip, but Devin holds him back from the other side. "You have thirty seconds to pack your shit and leave this fraternity. You're officially kicked out and banned from the premises."

"You can't do that!" Julian argues, getting to his feet.

"I assure you that I can, actually," Alec says, eyes narrowing as a smug smile appears. "I'm the fraternity president. We may not be able to go after you for the stalking, but you admitted you tried to harm the girlfriend of a brother, which falls under…" he trails off, glancing over at me and I realize that he's allowing me to be the one to formally kick him to the curb. A smirk rises on my face as I start listing off all the ways in which he's screwed.

"It falls under Conduct Unbecoming, Disruptive Antics, and Harm Threatened to a Fellow Member or Member's Family," I say, my tone cool as I cross my arms. "Take your pick but you're out of here."

Julian opens and closes his mouth, scowling before shrugging his shoulders. "Fine. I don't want to be part of your shitty frat anyway. I mean, who holds sober parties?" he scoffs.

The three of us frog-march him into the house and lead him up the stairs where he's given exactly thirty seconds to grab whatever is important to him.

We call campus police and they escort him out of the house, leaving us all breathing a temporary sigh of relief.

"Let's go back and check on Tessa," I say, exhaustion creeping in after everything that's happened today.

Alec nods. "Yeah. We need to tell her what's going on and see if she knows anything about who might be behind things."

The drive back to the house is silent as we process everything we just learned. I can't believe someone I considered a friend would do this to us. I can't believe we trusted Julian and he betrayed us like this.

My mind spins even as I get out of the car and head up the porch to the front door. Once inside, I spot Tessa who has fallen asleep waiting for us.

She wakes when I sit next to her on the sofa. "Hey," she says, her voice sleepy as she blinks awake. "What happened?"

"Julian was behind the stalking, but it turns out that he's not the only one involved," Devin explains, sighing as he settles into the worn armchair.

I reach out and take her hand in mine, squeezing it. "He admitted that he helped with the stalking but that he was just following orders from someone else."

"Who?" Tessa asks, sitting up as she fully wakes up.

Alec's jaw tenses. "He wouldn't tell us. All we got from him was that it was someone you work with at the paper."

Tessa's eyes grow wide and her hand flies to her mouth. "Someone I work with? I don't understand. Why would any of my coworkers be out to kill me?"

"Is there anyone who had beef with you in the past?" Devin asks. "Anyone who might hold a grudge?"

Tessa's expression is baffled, her eyebrows drawn together as she tries to think but slowly it smooths out into a look of dawning comprehension. "There is one person," she says, looking down at her lap. "I'm not proud of this but back when everything was still going on, before anyone even knew there was a drugging scandal, one of my junior reporters came to me with a story proposal. His name was Ryan Carter and he said that he had a source who told him that someone was dealing drugs on campus at Sigma parties."

We glance at each other, remembering the shady dealings that went on at the frat house back then.

Tessa draws in a slow breath. "I looked into it for him and realized that the drugs being dealt were date rape drugs and that the story was so much bigger than a single podcast episode could do justice to. I told him that I was going to have a team take it on but then I ended up being the one to do all the research and reporting. I told myself it was to protect him from retaliation because he was just a junior reporter and I didn't want to throw him to the wolves with a story this big."

"But?" I prompt, knowing that there had to be more to the story.

"But I knew deep down it was because I felt a connection to the story. I could have been one of those girls who was assaulted. I connected with Valencia over the story too, when she agreed to be interviewed. It seemed better coming from a female reporter than a male one, in my mind."

Tessa folds her hands over her belly. "He got credit, but I think he's been cold and distant with me since then because he feels like I stole the story from him. I hate to think he might have held a grudge this long though. I don't think he'd go so far as to try to hurt me over it, especially since I had him help me with parts of the story in the end."

"It could still be worth looking into," I say, scratching my chin. "We could just talk to him, maybe he's not involved directly but he's part of it like Julian was."

Tessa twists her fingers together, digging them into the blanket on her lap. "Please don't harass him," she begs. "I don't want to further antagonize him if it turns out that he's had nothing to do with it. So can we drop it, please?"

"Okay," I say softly, bringing my hand up to smooth the worry lines on her forehead. "We'll look at some of the other staff members then, see if any of them have a connection with the story."

I exchange a brief glance with Devin and Alec and it seems like we agree—no stone should be left unturned, but we don't want to upset Tessa right now.