Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 125121 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125121 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
I blinked. “He said that to you?” My surprise wasn’t unjustified. So far all I knew about the man is that he pressured one son into marriage, and kicked the other one out of the family for not having kids. Didn’t sound like the makings of Father of the Year. “What the hell were they doing back then that he had to?”
“At first, it was just a couple of idiots goofing off. You know, like every game of truth or dare. The truths were sexual. The dares were humiliating. But what happened in the frat, stayed in the frat. And anyone who didn’t want to play along, went about their business,” he said. “Then, a few of the older brothers started taking it too seriously. It wasn’t a fun drinking game anymore. Dad said it morphed into a test of loyalty and courage. You had to prove yourself to get into the club, and do even worse to stay in it.”
“What kind of things did they ask the brothers to do?”
Adonis fixed somewhere over my shoulder. “Dad told me the truths changed from revealing your own, to getting someone else’s. Find out if Tony took a little extra to help him win the last game. Or get proof Mandy is cheating on Phil,” he said. “Club members were tasked with snooping and deceiving people to gather secrets the T.O.D. could wield against the other Royals. And the dares—”
“—were about taking those Royals down,” I rasped.
He nodded slow. “It got ugly, Luna. Guys were seducing and scheming girls into bed, dropping I love yous in their ears until they told their ‘boyfriends’ all their secrets. Disgusting in and of itself, then they started the Dirty Dozen.”
“What was that?”
“The T.O.D. Club had twelve members. Every month, they each chose a girl, invited her to their monthly full-moon party, got her pass-out drunk, and took pictures of her in various compromising circumstances.”
My food turned rancid in my throat.
“Leverage,” he spat. “Against all the Royal girls, and their current and future boyfriends. ‘Get the truth from Paisley that her father is planning a merger with Consolidated Oil. If she refuses, I dare you to show those photos of her in the back room with Nicky all over campus.’”
“Disgusting isn’t the word.”
“One of the rare times the English language fails me, because there isn’t a word that conveys how soulless and foul those guys had become,” Adonis said. “My dad left the club long before it got to that point. He didn’t know what they were doing until they came for him. He’s a Wilson. Blackmail against the man he’d become was the holy grail.
“One of the guys made the mistake of targeting his girlfriend at the time. He took one look at the pictures, and beat the shit out of him. A week later, he had the entire club booted from the frat—including the president and vice president. He severed business ties with all of their families, and dragged their social status so far down the ladder, leverage couldn’t catapult them back up.
“That was supposed to be the end of the Truth or Dare Club.”
“But someone brought it back,” I rasped. “Could’ve been anyone in the fifty years since your father was at Regalia U.”
“I was at Regalia U a few years ago. I’m not saying the club couldn’t have been around then, but I didn’t hear a word about it. If the guys in my frat started it up again, they did an extraordinary job of hiding it.”
I bobbed my head. “I believe you. I haven’t heard anything about it either. Neither have my friends, and they’ve been around these people a lot longer than me,” I said. “They got smart. Made sure no one could shut them down this time.”
“They got worse.” Adonis took my hand. Not my pinkie. Not a subtle glance that conveyed more than I could comprehend. He slipped under mine—his palm warm and soft. “I’m so sorry, Luna. I promise you, I will root out the students in this club, and hold them responsible for what they’ve done. Playing with people’s lives in their sickening games,” he spat. “The club was stopped once. They’ll be put down again.”
The English language did not fail him. Put down was exactly the right word for what would become of the Truth or Dare Club.
I didn’t have much to say after that. I was too lost in my head, thinking of an almost fifty-year-old club coming back to haunt Regalia once again.
Adonis drove me to campus and walked me to the Gallery. A few students passed us—catching a look at the casually dressed professor, and the freshman he shouldn’t be seeing outside of office hours. He took his professionalism seriously. I knew that walk wasn’t just a walk to him... and still he did it to be the gentleman to me that he’d always been.