Page 139 of Secrets and Lies
“Everything’s fine. He just heard something about the house and wanted to know what I know about it.”
“Something about the house?” he asks.
I know he heard me say Xave’s name and mention the Hawthornes a few times while I was breaking everything down for my dad, and I know he has to be curious about what we were talking about.
“A security issue,” I tell him. “Someone was sneaking into the house for a bit.”
“What?” West asks, not quite pulling off the surprise he was probably going for. “Like, an outsider?”
I already figured West knows about Xave since Damon is his best friend, and his reaction confirms it.
“Yup. But we’ve got it all under control.”
“Do you know who it was?” he asks, his tone too careful to be merely curious.
“I do. And I know how he’s been getting in without us knowing.”
West is silent for a moment, then he stiffens in my arms. “Holy shit.” He looks up at me with wide eyes. “That’s how you’ve been getting into my room. You have Xave’s program.”
“It’s an app,” I correct cheekily. “And it sounds like you know more about this than I do since I never used any names.”
His face goes beet red. “I…I…” he stammers.
“Relax, babe.” I press a quick kiss against his forehead. “You’re fine.”
“But I lied to you.”
“You didn’t lie. You just didn’t tell me.”
“Isn’t that the same thing?”
I brush a lock of his hair back so it’s not tickling my chin. “A lie of omission is, but only if you purposely hide the information. I never asked, and you never brought it up, so you didn’t lie. You just kept the truth to yourself.”
“You’re not pissed that I didn’t tell you?”
“No. You were being loyal to your friend, and that says way more about your character than if you betrayed him to score brownie points with me. Now, if I asked you and you lied to my face, that might be different, but again, you’re being loyal to your best friend, and I respect that.”
“So what’s going to happen to Damon?”
“Nothing, as long as he hasn’t done anything to fuck me, or the frat over.”
“And Xave?”
“Same thing. As long as he doesn’t fuck us over, he’s fine.”
“Why didn’t you turn them in?” he asks. “Why would you risk going down with them if they fuck up?”
“My family has a saying,” I tell him. “Sapere è potere. It means knowledge is power. Turning them in would have been advantageous in the moment, but having that kind of leverage over Xave, and by extension, his cousins, is way more beneficial to me than getting some props and good favor from the leadership, or even the alumni.”
“That makes sense,” he says, nuzzling his cheek against my chest like a happy kitten. “How did your family end up as part of the Misfit House?”
The Keeper house is officially named Montague House, but it’s had a ton of nicknames over the years, including Romeo House, which is the one most people still use today, but fordecades, it was referred to as the Misfit House because of who founded it.
Like the other three societies on campus, the Oathkeepers were founded by a group of students and their parents in the years after Silvercrest was established. And like everything in life, the founding families all had specific things in common that united them and gave their frats an identity.
The Kingmakers, or the Kings as everyone calls them, are the descendants of royalty and nobility, and they’re known for thinking their shit doesn’t stink because their ancestors held a title in some random European country a dozen generations ago.
The Rebels were founded by a group of families who made their fortunes in less-than-legal ways and were in the process of adding legal enterprises to their business models. Most of the Rebels still have some shady links, but there are some, like the Hawthornes, who have deep ties to organized crime and all sorts of nasty stuff that goes on in the black markets.
