Chapter 282: The Watching Party

The Main Legacy Common Room had a lot of private spaces.

Little alcoves carved out for girls with family names older than most countries. Reading nooks where heiresses could cry about their fathers’ expectations without ruining their mascara in public. Secret corners where the daughters of dynasties gossiped and schemed and occasionally—

occasionally

—admitted they were human beings with human feelings.

But Amber Castellano’s private room was something else entirely.

A space carved right out of the common area, just for her. Because when your family moved half the world’s shipping containers, when your surname was practically embossed on every port from Shanghai to Rotterdam, you got a room with your name on the door and nobody questioned it.

Small. Intimate. A couch that could fit maybe four people if they didn’t mind being close—and they were close, tonight,

closer than usual

, thighs pressed together in a way none of them would acknowledge out loud.

A mounted screen on the wall.

Perfect for watching things you weren’t supposed to watch.

And right now, four girls were watching something they

definitely

weren’t supposed to watch.

"Oh my

god

."

That was

Natasha.

Voice barely above a whisper, like speaking louder might somehow make what they were seeing

more

real. Might make it actually happening instead of just—just pixels on a screen, just footage, just—

On the screen, Delilah Maxton was straddling Phei in the fire pit lounge.

Her cashmere sweater was already off, puddle of expensive fabric somewhere on the ground. Her skirt was bunched around her waist like an afterthought, like she’d been too desperate to even get properly undressed.

And she was

grinding

—desperate, shameless, the kind of grinding that belonged in private bedrooms with locked doors, not school gardens where anyone could walk by—while Phei’s hands guided her hips like he owned them.

Like he owned

her

.

Like she was something he’d bought and paid for and was now taking out for a test drive.

"Turn it off,"

Natasha

said. Then, immediately: "Don’t you dare turn it off."

Yuki’s fingers hovered over the remote.

She didn’t press anything.

Her hand was shaking.

"The footage quality is exceptional,"

Yuki

murmured, because of course that was her first observation. Of

course

it was. Her brain was wired for analytics, for data points, for the cold comfort of numbers when reality got too overwhelming to handle like a normal human being.

"Whoever planted this camera knew what they were doing. The angle, the lighting—the frame rate suggests professional-grade equipment—"

"Yuki,"

Gianna

cut in, voice low and smooth as velvet stretched over a knife’s edge, "I love you, but if you start calculating frame rates right now, I will have my men drop you in the Hudson."

"That’s... not how statistics work."

"It’s how

I

work."

Gianna Romano

didn’t raise her voice. She never raised her voice. Growing up in a family where raised voices meant someone was about to disappear—had taught her the power of speaking softly.

But her eyes were glued to the screen just like everyone else’s.

Couldn’t look away.

Wouldn’t

look away.

And her hand—her perfectly manicured hand with nails the colour of dried blood, of old Chianti, of things Amber wasn’t going to think too hard about—had somehow drifted to rest on her own thigh.

High on her thigh.

Very

high.

She didn’t seem to notice.

None of them did.

Or maybe they all noticed and just—

Just decided not to say anything.

Amber watched her friends watching the video.

Watched

them, with the kind of hungry attention she usually reserved for things she wanted to own. Things she wanted to

devour

.

Natasha,

all political poise and

diplomatic training

, looking like she’d swallowed her tongue and it had gotten stuck halfway down.

Yuki,

analytical to a fault, whose cheeks had gone pink despite her best efforts to stay clinical, to stay

distant

, to pretend she was observing rather than—than whatever she was actually doing.

And

Gianna.

Gianna, the mafia princess who’d probably seen things that would make grown men weep into their whiskey. Gianna, whose father had allegedly once made a man disappear for spilling wine on his shoes.

Gianna, whose thighs had pressed together so subtly you’d miss it if you weren’t looking.

But Amber was looking.

She was

always

looking.

That was her thing, wasn’t it? Watching. Waiting. Cataloguing weaknesses and desires and the little cracks people showed when they thought no one was paying attention.

Right now, her friends were nothing

but

cracks.

"This is

wrong,"

Natasha said, even as her eyes stayed fixed on the screen. Couldn’t unstick themselves if she’d wanted to—and Amber was pretty sure she didn’t want to. "This is—we shouldn’t be—she’s our

friend

—"

"A friend who’s currently riding her cousin’s lap like she’s trying to win a bloody rodeo," Amber pointed out. Her voice came out huskier than she meant it to. Rougher. Like something had scraped her throat raw from the inside. "I don’t think she’s too concerned about

propriety right now, Tash

."

"That’s not—"

"Oh,

shit

."

Yuki’s quiet curse made everyone freeze.

Because on the screen, Phei had just grabbed her thighs.

Delilah’s head snapped back like a puppet whose strings had been jerked. Her throat arched—pale and exposed and

offered

—her mouth opening on a moan they couldn’t hear but could imagine.

Could

feel

.

Somewhere deep in their own bodies.

In places they weren’t supposed to acknowledge in polite company.

In places that were suddenly very, very warm.

"The way he just—" Natasha started.

"Mhm."

"Like she was—"

"Mhm."

"And she let him—"

"Mhm."

Silence.

Heavy.

Suffocating.

Four sets of eyes. Four racing hearts. Four girls who’d been raised to be princesses, to be

prizes

, to sit pretty and wait for worthy suitors to court them properly with flowers and poetry and appropriate

chaperones—

Watching a boy they’d all once dismissed as nothing.

Watching him claim one of their own like she was already his.

The video shifted.

A different camera angle—slightly to the left, capturing more of the surrounding area. The fire pit with its dancing flames.

And there, barely visible in the corner of the frame,

stood a figure

.

Watching.

"Wait,"

Amber leaned forward, squinting at the screen. "Is that—"

"Oh my

god

," Natasha breathed.

"Is that

Danton

?"

Yuki enhanced the image—because of course she knew how, because her idea of fun was probably hacking government databases on a lazy Sunday—and yes.

Yes.

That was Danton Maxton.

Standing behind the hedges like some kind of creeping garden statue.

Watching his twin sister dry-hump their step-cousin.

His face was—

There weren’t words for his face. Horror and something darker. Something hungry and sick and twisted all at once, like a man watching a car crash and slowly realizing he was the one driving.

"He’s been there the whole time," Yuki said quietly. Her voice had gone strange. Flat. Like she was trying very hard to be clinical about something that defied all clinical analysis. "Based on his position and lack of movement, he arrived before Phei did. He

watched everything. From the beginning.

"

"That’s..." Natasha’s diplomatic training failed her entirely. Every hour of coaching, every lesson in carefully neutral language—all of it gone, evaporated, replaced by pure horrified human reaction. "That’s properly

fucked

."

Gianna said nothing.

But her lips curved into a smile that would have made her father proud.

"

The twins

," she murmured, almost to herself. "All that

closeness

everyone jokes about. All those little moments everyone pretends not to notice." She paused, letting the words settle like poison into wine. "And now we know why Danton hates Phei so much than before, don’t we?"

"Gianna, that’s—"

"Pathetic."

The word slid out like a blade from silk. "That’s what it is. Absolutely

pathetic

."

On screen, Danton’s hands were clenched into fists at his sides. His jaw was working—grinding, probably, hard enough to crack teeth. Even from this distance, even through grainy footage, you could see him shaking.

And he didn’t leave.

He stayed.

Watching his sister moan. Watching her grind. Watching her lose her mind over a boy Danton had spent a decade trying to break.

The camera shifted back to the main feed, and Danton vanished from view.

But none of them would forget his face.

That

expression

.

The hunger in it.

"Can we—" Natasha’s voice cracked. She cleared her throat. Tried again, sounding like someone who’d just run a marathon and was pretending they weren’t about to collapse. "Can we discuss the elephant in the room?"

"

Which elephant

?" Amber asked innocently. Too innocently. "The one where Delilah’s about to orgasm in a public garden, or the one where her twin brother’s watching like some kind of

Victorian pervert?

"

"The

other

elephant."

"Oh."

Amber’s smile turned wicked. "

You mean Phei’s cock

."

Natasha

choked

on air.

Literally choked. Started coughing. Had to look away from the screen for the first time in ten minutes just to

breathe

.

"Because that’s definitely

an elephant

. A trunk. A

third leg

. I mean, did you

see

the outline? Through his

boxers

? That’s not normal. That’s not—that’s not

human

. That’s—"

"Can you

please

—"

"I’m just saying what we’re all thinking!"

"I wasn’t thinking—"

"Liar."

Natasha’s mouth snapped shut.