“Oh my god.” I groaned from next to Mason. “Can we please get back to all these people Sebastian is connected to? Because that’s really concerning.”
Sebastian wanted me to look at the walls, so I did. The entire room was set up in a circular layout. The room was square, but the couches were positioned to form a circle, and the walls were covered in portraits. I hadn’t considered them when I first came in. All eyes and focus had been on Sebastian, but now that he’d pointed them out, I started putting names to faces.
A senator.
A celebrity—no, a couple of celebrities.
Wrong again.
I recognized more and more of them. Actors. Producers. Singers.
My gaze fell on one in the back corner. My father. Garrett was smiling at the painter. My gaze slid over to the painting beside him. Sharon. And on the other side of her was my mother. This was how they knew Analise.
I murmured, “You said it all starts in college.”
“It does. You’re starting to figure it out, huh?”
“What happens in college?”
Sebastian chuckled. The sound sent chills down my back.
He said, “You do anything and everything. You screw each other. You don’t screw each other. You get drunk. You don’t get drunk. It’s a normal college experience, but that’s where you make the mistakes. And you’re supposed to make those mistakes with, who else? Your best friends. I mean, say, for example, if someone raped a girl, who else is going to have your back to cover it up?” He pointed at a portrait of a young man and then to another one of a well-known actor. “Your best friend gives you the alibi. There’s no way you could’ve raped that girl because your buddy is vouching that you were at his house. If you want to cheat on a test,” he crossed the room to a portrait of a singer and pointed to another portrait of a senator, “your best gal pal, who’s the teacher’s assistant, will either get the test for you or cover your back. If a professor gets suspicious, the teacher’s assistant will let you know to do a few wrong answers on purpose. And so on and so on. That’s what this all is. Connections.”
He swept his arm around the room. The walls were covered in the paintings. There was no empty space.
“No, we’re not some cult group or anything. It’s not blood in and blood out. It’s just…blackmail and IOUs. That’s what it is, and my family holds all the keys. My great-great-great grandfather started everything, so that’s how I’m in the unique position of knowing what the hell is going to happen after each class graduates.”
“So…” I frowned. “My mother…”
“No, no.” Sebastian shook his head. “Your mother is the mistake. She was considered to be inducted. She was initiated, so she knew of the connections. That’s what you’re told in the beginning. You and Summer would’ve gotten the same speech. We’re all here for each other. Everyone will support you. If you need money, we’ll give it to you. If you need a house, here’s a mansion. If you need a mistress, we’ll get you two who will do anything you want. The speech is custom-made. You and Summer are both girls, so you probably would’ve been promised success in whatever career you chose. If you wanted to be famous, they would’ve made you both famous. If you wanted a business, they would’ve had one ready and waiting for you once you graduated. Hell, if you wanted a husband, they would’ve introduced you to other members of The Network. And all of it would’ve been sold with the statement that we’re all family. We all love each other. We all take care of each other—along with our mistakes, too. We take care of those, so don’t hesitate to reach out if something happens. No matter how horrible the crime is, they’ll take care of it.”
As he kept talking, Sebastian was going from one painting to the next. A full glow radiated from him, while he was laughing. The effect had my insides turning into ice. I backed all the way to the door and reached behind me for the door handle. If I had to, I’d make a run for it. The nightmare he was promising wasn’t going to be given to me. But what else did he have in store then? I knew, without a doubt, that it would be much worse.
He kept on, “Families who started in are automatically chosen to be inducted, but we can choose others, too. My grandfather chose your grandfather to be inducted, so that meant that Garrett was inducted as well. He was an automatic, but your mother wasn’t. Garrett chose to induct her, and my guess is that was when they were screwing.”
“And Sharon? Her portrait is up there.”
“She was inducted later because Garrett broke it off with Analise. He went back to Sharon and eventually married her. After that year, a rule was made. No girlfriends. Only wives.”