Tamsin’s Warning

Marlo

The door of the science building restroom clicked shut, cutting off the low murmur of students out in the hallway.

I leaned over the sink, turning the cold tap on full blast. I cupped my hands under the icy stream and splashed water onto my face, desperate to wash away the burning exhaustion behind my eyes. Water dripped from my chin into the drain. My skin was hot, my stomach twisting into tighter knots with every second that passed.

Cal was standing right outside the restroom door. A bruised, bloodied enforcer acting as my personal bodyguard. The thought alone made my hands tremble against the wet sink.

“You better ask Tamsin who paid her tuition.”

Cal’s raspy whisper echoed in my mind like a disease. Tamsin Sterling the ice queen of Monash University, the girl who had spent three years making my life a living hell was tied to my family's money. Everyone was tied to it. Everyone had taken a bite out of my dead parents’ grave.

I grabbed a paper towel and dried my face, looking up at my reflection in the mirror. My cheeks were pale, dark circles bruising the delicate skin beneath my eyes.

Suddenly, the heavy door opened and closed behind me.

Click.

The sound of the lock turning on the inside of the door made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

I spun around, pressing my back flat against the cold, tiled wall.

Tamsin was standing by the entrance. Her pristine white coat was gone, leaving her in a fitted black turtleneck that made her pale skin look almost paper white. She wasn't sneering. She didn't have that arrogant, cruel smile she usually wore when she humiliated me in front of the quad.

Her hands were shaking. She had them clutched tightly in front of her chest, her pale blue eyes wide, glassy, and darting nervously around the small tiled room.

"Tamsin," I said, my voice low and guarded. "Cal is right outside that door. If you think you're going to"

"Shut up, Marlo!" she hissed, taking a sharp, frantic step forward. Her voice cracked, tight with pure panic. "Just... shut your mouth for one second."

I froze. I had never seen Tamsin like this. She was always composed, always cruel, always completely in control of her world. Seeing her break apart made a cold chill creep down my spine.

"What do you want?" I asked, forcing my voice to stay steady.

Tamsin swallowed hard, her chest rising and falling in shallow, panicked hitches. She looked toward the door, then turned her frantic gaze back to me.

"You think he's protecting you, don't you?" Tamsin whispered, her voice dropping into a raspy, desperate thread. "You think Jarrah Vance brought you to his mansion because he cares about you? Because he wants to keep you safe?"

A sharp, familiar ache bloomed in my chest. "He saved my life ten years ago. He pulled me out of the fire."

"He's using you as live bait, you stupid girl!" Tamsin snapped, tears of frustration welling in her eyes. "Look at what he did to Cal! Look at what he does to anyone who gets in his way! Jarrah doesn't love you, Marlo. He doesn't save people out of the goodness of his heart. He is his father's son. Everything he does is a calculation!"

Her words hit my heart like small, sharp stones.

Live bait.

The conflict inside me flared into a violent fire. I wanted to scream at her. I wanted to tell her about the letters. I wanted to tell her about the thick, silvery burn scars covering Jarrah's back the permanent marks of a fifteen year old boy who risked his life in a burning house while my world melted. Those scars weren't a calculation. They were real. They were blood and pain.

And yet another voice inside my head whispered the terrifying truth. Jarrah had locked me in a room. Jarrah had brought me to a compound built like a fortress. Jarrah was preparing for a war, and I was sitting right at the center of his target.

"Why are you telling me this, Tamsin?" I asked, my voice barely audible over the hum of the fluorescent lights. "You've hated me since the day I got here."

"I don't hate you," Tamsin whispered, a tear finally slipping down her cheek. "I was terrified of you. Or terrified of what you represent. My father owed money to the Vance network. Big money. When I got into Monash, Siobhan paid off my dad's debt under one condition: I had to keep you isolated. I had to make sure you didn't make friends, didn't build a network, didn't have anyone to turn to when things started happening."

My stomach churned violently. "Siobhan..."

"Your aunt is a monster, Marlo," Tamsin whispered, taking another step closer. "She didn't just take your family's money. She sold your family's shipping lines to the syndicate piece by piece."

Tamsin leaned in so close I could smell the sharp, metallic scent of her panicked breath.

"Three nights ago, before Jarrah locked down the campus, I saw her," Tamsin murmured, her eyes wide with dread. "I was at the docklands near Pier 42, picking up papers for my father. I saw Siobhan getting into a blacked-out sedan with a known syndicate broker."

My breath caught in my throat. My hands tightened into hard fists at my sides. "Who?"

"I don't know his name, but he wore a heavy gold ring with a crest a serpent wrapped around an anchor," Tamsin whispered hurriedly, her eyes darting toward the door as if she expected someone to crash through it. "She was handing him a thick leather ledger. I heard her say your name, Marlo. She told him that your twenty-first birthday was the deadline. If Jarrah didn't hand over the master keys to the Cleary trust by midnight tomorrow, they were going to sink the main Vance container ship off Port Phillip Bay."

A cold horror washed over me, numbing my skin from head to toe.

A heavy knock rattled the wooden door of the restroom, making us both jump.

"Cleary!" Cal’s deep, bruised voice boomed through the thick wood. "You've been in there five minutes. Open up or I'm kicking the door down."

Tamsin stumbled back in terror, wiping her cheeks frantically with the sleeves of her sweater. "Don't tell him I said anything! Please, Marlo! He'll kill me!"

"Tamsin, wait"

Before I could reach out, Tamsin unlocked the door and threw it open.

Cal was standing in the hallway, his face swollen and bloody, his eyes dark as pitch. He glared down at Tamsin as she squeezed past him and sprinted down the corridor without looking back.

Cal stepped into the doorway, his heavy gaze locking onto me. He looked at my pale face, then at the mirror, his jaw clenching tightly.

"What did she tell you?" Cal asked softly, his tone flat and dangerous.

"Nothing," I lied, my heart hammering against my ribs so hard I thought he could hear it. "She was just being cruel."

Cal stared at me for a long, agonizing moment. Then, he reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out his phone, and tapped the screen.

"She's done talking, boss," Cal spoke into the receiver. "We're heading back to the car now."

He lowered the phone and looked at me, a bitter, ghost of a smile touching his split lip. "Jarrah wants you back at the estate immediately, Cleary. The harbor police just pulled a body out of Port Phillip Bay."

My knees felt weak. "Whose body?"

Cal stepped aside, gesturing toward the exit.

"The syndicate broker from Pier 42," Cal whispered. "And your aunt’s ledger was tied around his neck."