Claimed by the Devils

Chapter 20

Sebastian POV

Aria living with us was supposed to make this easier. I wasn’t a fool. I saw the tension in my friends. The countdown had already started and she was nowhere near comfortable with any of us.

Elliot seemed to be the most active, going into her room and eating with her. She wanted us to leave, but we camped out on her bedroom floor, eating our delicious pizza in awkward silence.

After the pizza, we left her alone. I only saw her leave her room to go to the bathroom. When she emerged, her long hair was wet, and she’d taken a change of clothes with her. She went to her bedroom, never emerging unless she needed to use the bathroom.

We ordered more food, which arrived. Elliot and Lucian both entered her room to eat with her.

The door stayed closed.

Now, on a Monday we waited for her. I was starving. The door didn’t open.

“What’s taking her so long?” I asked.

My stomach chose that moment to growl. I was so hungry. I’d forgotten my usual trips to the cafeteria in case Aria emerged. My time had been wasted, but at least I now understand a couple more algebra equations to help me get by. I f*****g hated math, but to take over my father’s media empire, I was going to need it.

Lucian lost his temper, cursing as he walked over to her room and slammed the door open.

“She’s gone,” he said.

“What?” Elliot asked.

“Her bed is made. I’m guessing she left early.”

We were all angry as we left the dorm. This was supposed to be an important day. Our girl between the four of us. It was a signal, a signpost, but now, we were all alone. The whispers would start, which meant our fathers would all be getting in touch, asking us if we had control or needed assistance.

Fuck. s**t. f**k.

Aria was at the cafeteria with Heather. I should have known about it.

I let the guys go and crowd her as I went to get some food. I needed a full stomach to deal with this woman. She was so f*****g irritating.

Irritating or strong?

I would be lying if I said I didn’t like her fire. The girl who’d presented us the rose wasn’t the girl I wanted to be taking to the cove Halloween night.

I filled my plate with all the good stuff, paid, and took my place at the table. The guys each left, one by one to fill their plates. I took a bite, closing my eyes.

“Hungry?” Heather asked.

“Starved. I was waiting for this piece of ass to leave her bedroom, but she decided to go without us. Not cool.”

“Piece of ass?” Aria asked.

“You want to come between me and food? You’re an ass.”

This wasn’t the way to win her over, but right now, I didn’t give a s**t.

“You’re an asshole.”

“It would take one to know one.”

“You both sound like children,” Heather said. “You could have waited.”

“You’re taking his side?” Aria asked.

“Look, he’s a little baby that needs food.”

I rolled my eyes, but I liked that Heather was sticking to our bargain. If she didn’t, she was out of the picture, and I was glad she took us seriously.

To many people in this school, it was a high school for rich kids. A fortress to keep us all safe. To those of us who were aware, this was a battleground. The place to prove ourselves, and it wasn’t always safe. The s**t I knew already would scare the s**t out of everyone.

Taking another bite of food, I filled myself up as Lucian, Rowan, and Elliot returned. I wasn’t a slow eater. I liked my food inside me, not to savor every delicious mouthful.

I was guessing it stemmed from how fast meals went at home. One moment we could all be enjoying the meal as a family, the next, it was gone and I wouldn’t know when to eat next.

“You should have waited for us,” Lucian said.

“I’m not a child. I don’t need to be told what to do.”

“Do you think this works if you behave like one? There are rules to abide by.”

“I told you to find someone else.”

She pressed her lips together.

“And what would your parents say?” Lucian asked.

“Dude,” Elliot, Rowan, and I each said.

The parentals were a sore subject, and with how she pushed her chair back, grabbed her bag, and stormed out, we knew he’d hit a raw nerve.

Heather got up, but I grabbed her wrist.

“Work some magic, okay?”

“I can only do so much. My advice would be not to bring up her parents.”

“Do you know what went down with them?” I asked.

“No. She won’t talk about it. She only said it was important for her to do this.”

Heather pulled out of my hold and took off.

With them out of the room, I glared at Lucian.

“What the ever-loving f**k?”

“I’m sorry. It’s not like we can tell her the rules yet. Everything always has to be done at the right time, the right f*****g moment. It would be a lot easier if she fell into line without f*****g everything up.”

He stabbed his fork at a piece of bacon.

His stubbornness was going to get us all in trouble.

“We’re not going to win her over like this,” Elliot said. “How far are we from getting the info we need?”

He looked at me.

I was the one who had the way of obtaining the stuff we needed without it getting back to anyone. It was a magical skill I acquired back when we were kids, but it wasn’t any kind of magic.

All I did was help the right kid at the right time, and well, the boy was a genius. He could find out anything I needed so long as he was given time.

“A week, maybe longer.”

“That’s too much time,” Lucian said.

“If you want this to fly under the radar, you’ve got to wait.”

“And as we do, our time gets ever closer.”

I hated the time bomb going off in my head. We were all stressed about what it meant, but there wasn’t a single thing we could do about it.

Getting to my feet, I put my hands flat on the table and leaned forward into Lucian’s face. It had been a long time since we all fought one another. I was starting to think it might be time for another round. I wanted to slam my fist into his face and knock some sense into him. Anything to make him see that this s**t he was pulling wasn’t going to work.

“Why don’t you worry more about working that charming personality of yours, and less about what I can f*****g do.”

I left the table, heading out toward the male dorms. I got curious looks, but when we all parted ways, people seemed to find it the most important little detail. It wasn’t. We were nowhere close to perfect.

After typing in the code to the security system, I entered the building and went to the fifth floor where my guy was.

I’d made sure through my connections to give him his own personal room. I knocked three times and I got the call to enter.

Six computer screens lined up one desk. I didn’t know how he could work with so much information, but he already sat at the screen, looking.

“I should have known you’d be here.”

“Yeah, well, desperate times call for desperate measures, Fred.”

Fred Arson, the son of a technology firm. It wasn’t a huge company, but it was making a lot of headway in computers. I was guessing when Fred took over, he was going to completely shock the world with his sense of direction. He understood computers more than he did people.

When we were younger, at a country club, he was considered an outcast. On the smaller side and certainly not packing, a bunch of guys decided he was the best kind of punching bag. With a last name like Arson, they wanted someone to take their aggression out on.

I was the savior in this story.

I didn’t like the weak being hurt. I didn’t know why. I came from a long line of men who enjoyed hurting those weaker, more vulnerable. It was the one part of my family’s DNA I didn’t have.

Saving Fred that day, and several other days after that, becoming like a personal bodyguard to him, had secured our friendship. Of course, we never went public with it at Fred’s request. His dad was power hungry, and he’d want any way to get a connection to us, certainly a Knox with our media empire. We could propel him into a super company in a matter of articles.

Fred didn’t want our friendship to be used that way and I had to think he liked the secrecy of everything.

“Where are we at?”

“Hacking into Aria’s past is like attempting to get into the best-secured prison or bank. They have so much firewall action. So many passwords. This secret society s**t you told me about, you weren’t kidding.”

When I asked Fred to do this, I had to give him a warning of the kind of people he’d be dealing with. I told him for his own kind of protection. They would annihilate him if they felt he knew too much.

There were times I thought I was on the chopping block.

“I told you, it’s a tough world,” I said.

“No s**t. So far, it’s like Aria Vales didn’t exist until three years ago.”

“What?”

“We have her birth certificate, and all the necessary stuff. Hospital admission, and stuff like that. Her mother was in labor for close to two days. In fact, there was a period of time where she was in the ICU.”

“During her pregnancy?”

“After. It was a rough birth. Do you want to know what is also interesting?” Fred asked.

“Go on.”

“Her dad.”

I clicked my fingers, trying to think of his name.

“Nope, sorry, I can’t think of his name.”

“Alexander Vales.”

“Doesn’t have any significance.”

I didn’t see where we were going with this. I knew about Aria's family tree. She had a mom and dad. That wasn’t what I wanted to know.

Fred held his finger up.

“Wait for it.”

I looked at all six screens.

“What am I looking for?”

On screen three, a picture came up.

I saw the image of the dorm we now lived in. I recognized all of our dads, but at the end, right next to Lucian’s father, was a man I didn’t recognize.

“That is Alexander Vales.”

For some reason, my arms got chills.

“So Aria’s dad had a connection to the Saintly Devils back then.”

“Yeah, but look at this.”

Fred typed again, and another picture popped up.

“That there is none other than Joan Vales. Aria’s mother.”

Joan stood between all of our dads. Underneath the image was a single title, the selection.

I stood up.

“Aria’s mother was our dads’ selected?”

“Yeah, and this is all top f*****g secret, man. This took me two days to get. It’s like they try to keep the selected process a secret. Did you know none of these images can be found in a single All Saints history? I’ve checked their file system and I even went to the library for the records. They are not there. These pictures were taken. They are stored in one of your dad’s files, and that’s not all. Within that same file are the years before and after the selection process. All of them are wrapped-up types. So, this got me curious, and I cross-referenced between the register of students within each building.”

This time, Fred left the computer and went to his bed.

His room was so neat and tidy.

He pulled out an old-looking book. The spine was worn.

“I thought everything was put on computers now,” I said.

“Yeah, it usually is, but not everything.”

Fred opened the book to where I saw a piece of paper sticking out of the top. He pointed to Joan’s name.

“Aria’s mom is registered as living in the girls’ dorm for the entirety of her senior year.”

“But if she was a selected, her name would have had to go down as living with the Saintly Devils for safety purposes.”

“Not if that file was removed and destroyed. I’d put it down to an organization covering its back.”

Fred slammed the book closed.

“You warned me this s**t was deep, but I’ve got to ask, how f*****g deep?”

I ran a hand down my face.

“Fred, I need you to make sure that everything you find, you get rid of. If anyone even suspects you’re involved…”

I couldn’t bring myself to say it.

“Got it,” Fred said. “This is serious.”

“Dude, I get it. The fact you trust me with this means a lot. I’m going to keep doing what I can.”

“Do you have anything on Drew?” I asked.

“She is proving to be difficult to find. Like I said, between Aria being born and coming here, that part of her life is a complete mystery. I don’t know where she went to school. What she did.”

“She went to a public school,” I said. “But where?”

“Doesn’t it tell you that in her file?” I asked.

“It’s another mystery.”

He went back to the computer, typing away and bringing up Aria’s file.

“Previous schools are a blank. Her history, other than her grades, doesn’t exist.”

“Okay. I’ll see what I can find out. Make sure no one knows about this, and I only want you to talk to me.”

“You don’t trust your other Saintly Devils?”

“I think less people knowing about your involvement is good for your own safety.”