Tiny Dark Deeds: A Dark High School Bully Romance (Court Legacy Book 3)
Tiny Dark Deeds: Chapter 53

Prom Night

Sloane

The seasons changed, and once again, my life changed with it. Things slowed down, and my safety, along with my family’s, got safer. I had a family, and it went far beyond the reaches of Bruno and me. We didn’t just have a family. We had a universe of people and love around us, and with that love, came protection. Bru got to spend the rest of his junior year without living in fear, and I got to do the same with my senior year. We got to go to prom.

And my little brother kind of killed it in a tuxedo.

“Stop messing with it. You’re going to fuck it up,” he growled, hitting my hands off his tie. He’d tried to do it himself, but it was all messed up so I was fixing it. His eyes lifted. “Sloane, it’s fine.”

“It’s not fine because it looked like shit before.” And if he hit me again, I’d fuck his hair up, which was something else he’d spent like a million years on.

Bru growled again, but he did let me fix his tie to my liking. He was letting me do a lot of things these days, and soon, we wouldn’t even be at the same school. I’d be graduating and moving on, so we needed to cherish this time together.

I think he knew that, which was why he let me fawn all over him. He’d moved back in, finally home and where he belonged, and it seemed so long ago our lives had been upheaved.

We got reminders, though, sometimes, like last week. We’d both been allowed to skip school to take a day trip. The pair of us had arranged a final resting place for Marilyn and Godfrey Sloane, his parents and mine for a time. They’d been that in every sense of the word when it counted and had paid the ultimate price trying to help me.

I could never forget that, so many sacrifices made for me. I’d finally started to talk about those things in my own therapy sessions, and sometimes Bru came with me. He had his own for his own things, stuff that had happened, and with a trusted family counselor. He got to share what was on his heart, and I’d seen the light return to his eyes in the passing days since. My brother had made a mistake by going over the Legacy families’ heads and trying to do things himself. He’d acted impulsively, but with the help of those same families, he gratefully wouldn’t have to pay for that mistake for the rest of his life. They’d taken care of it. Taken care of us, and Bru had gotten to walk away from that night with Callum like we all had.

I couldn’t be more grateful.

Of course, those specifics had stayed with the families, the parents. They’d done things behind the scenes to make sure my brother had a life, and as far as I knew, the world believed Callum Prinze to be a missing person. He’d gone on a trip and never returned, and though I didn’t condone what Bru had felt he had to do, I couldn’t bring myself to ever chastise him when it came up. He’d wanted to protect me, and if the tables had been turned, I didn’t know what I would have done. I know I would have protected him too, though, and done whatever I had to do to make sure that happened.

I suppose, I know what I would have done.

“Not bad, I guess,” Bru said in the mirror, admiring my work. He was rocking Armani today, and I’d heard Ares had a similar tux. I hadn’t seen him yet. I’d been trying to help Bru make sure his tie didn’t look like crap. Bru’s gaze hit me in the mirror. “Nothing like you, though.”

My eyes lifted, my black dress long and with a shimmer. The slit basically hit my hip and was held together by a single strand of delicate rhinestones across my thigh. The dress itself was backless too, and the dark prince would probably have my ass tonight for being so revealing. I cared less about that and more about pissing him off, though. He’d told me I had to wear black tonight because he was a control freak and said we had to match each other.

Not liking being told what to do, I’d found the most scandalous dress I could find, and Bow had nearly fainted at the shop when I’d picked it out. She’d called me trouble and told me I was looking for it. Apparently, wearing black was just what Legacy did at these things, and Dorian would get me for being defiant.

I’d like to see him try.

“You look truly gorgeous, sis,” Bru said. He eyed my necklace, the one Ares had given me. I never took it off, but I never went anywhere without my own personal Court ring either. Yes, Dorian had convinced me to join, and Bru had too.

Bruno and I had the same rings.

The dark prince had rubies in his for the eyes, but Bru and I had had black diamonds put in ours. The diamonds were our thing and something we shared, just like I had with Ares and our necklaces. My necklace looked even more fancy these days since that was where I now wore the dark prince’s gift. He’d given me that ring with rubies for eyes, and I wanted it close to my heart.

That was the place it should always be.

I touched my ring with black diamonds to Bru’s. I did have that bond with Ares and our necklaces, but I also had a bond with Bruno.

“Thanks, dork,” I said, referring to his earlier compliment, and he smiled.

“No problem, dorkette.” He nudged, and I’d give him a noogie except for the fact that he had spent so much time on his hair. He smiled, and I hugged him, telling him he looked beautiful too. This got me another nudge, but we both looked up when a knock hit Bru’s door. He told whoever to come in, and the room filled quickly.

“Are you guys ready? We need pictures.” Her camera recording, the mayor of Maywood Heights made it into the room. She was all grins, her husband’s hand in hers. Ramses wasn’t without his own phone, taking impromptu pictures of Bru and me like paparazzi.

He even made sound effects.

The gesture was as completely nerdy as it was wonderful, and Bru and I made a show of trying to hide our faces.

“Please. Please. No pictures,” I stated, joking and being overdramatic about it. Ares brought up the rear behind the parental units, and when he closed the door, his eyes expanded in my direction.

He shot a finger at me. “You’re wearing that?”

“Tried to tell her,” Bru said, looking at me, and I lifted my eyes.

“Well, I think she’s beautiful,” came from the smallest paparazzi in the room. Brielle took my hand. “Truly lovely, honey.”

“Thanks, Mom,” I said, and she pulled me in for a hug. I squeezed her just as hard, having an out-of-body experience here. I had a mother. I had one and she was taking pictures of me before prom.

I had a father too, and though my dad didn’t look like he loved my outfit, he was definitely too polite to comment about it. Ramses’s eyes warmed. “You do look beautiful, love.”

“Thanks, Dad.” He hugged me too while Brielle gushed over Bru in his tux. Meanwhile, my twin gave me the stink eye over her shoulder.

“He’s going to kill you,” I heard Ares growl before our mom shut him up and made us take a picture together. Ares forced a smile with fake teeth, which dropped the moment the photo was taken. In fact, he’d done it so well something told me he’d probably had to do quite a few of these photo ops before everyone came in here. His eyes narrowed coolly at me. “If he doesn’t, I will.”

“No one’s killing anyone. Jeez,” Brielle stated, her eyes lifting. She forced all three of us in a picture together before getting one with just Ares and Bru in their tuxedos. They stood like a pair of dudes with their hands clasped in front of their tuxes, no smiles, of course, because again dudes. Ares had actually done something with his hair too, his curls up and his undercut freshly buzzed. He also wore his necklace like me, the silver beneath his bow tie. He never took it off, also like me, and I suppose I’d never told him what that meant to me, or what the gift of my own necklace meant. I guess I never had to.

It was unsaid.

I honestly still couldn’t believe I had a twin, and if he hadn’t come at me all aggressive, I might have told him how handsome he looked. As far as I knew, he didn’t have a date tonight, but I’d heard that was by choice. Word through the grapevine was, Legacy didn’t take dates to dances, the arrogant fucks. I, of course, was the exception with Dorian, but that didn’t really count, considering I was Legacy.

I definitely would be giving them all a hard time about that when I saw them tonight. They were all supposed to meet us at the house in a bit. Apparently, whenever Legacy went to a dance, the parents all met up at one of the Legacy homes to do all the necessary pictures with the kids. I thought that was sweet, but Dorian had rolled his eyes when he’d told me about it.

The three of us here now allowed Ramses and Brielle to get their own pictures in, and Ares only grumbled through, well, all of it. This was old hat for him, but I loved every minute of it.

It was fabulous.

It was so nice to have a family, Bru and I really hamming it up and enjoying it. We all broke Ares down a bit too and got him to smile in a few. A real one, not a fake one. Ramses announced the group would probably all get here soon, and I thought we’d go downstairs right away, but we didn’t. Ramses and Brielle actually asked Bru and me to sit because they wanted to talk to us.

Ares chose to stand, his hands in his pockets. He lounged against the wall with what I’d call something of a knowing expression, and when I eyed him, he shrugged.

“We’ve been wanting to ask you both this for a while actually,” Brielle said, taking Ramses’s hand. He squeezed it before Brielle’s eyes warmed in Bru’s and my direction. “And to Bru specifically.”

“We know you’re seventeen, but we wanted to know if maybe you’d like to be an official part of this family,” Ramses said, his smile wide. “On paper and legally.”

“Basically, they want to know if you want to be my sibling in the official sense.” Ares touched his chest, being cocky about it. He grinned. “Because being a Mallick is great, but being my legal brother is obviously the best part.”

“Ares,” Brielle chastised, and I would have said something too if I wasn’t in shock.

Bru was too. His lips parted. “Like adoption? You want to…” He swallowed, glancing at me before his attention returned to the couple. “Adopt me?”

Ramses lifted a hand. “Like I said, I know you’re seventeen, and it probably sounds silly, a technicality, but…” Putting his arm around Brielle, he rubbed her shoulder. “It’s not to us. We’d love for you to be an official part of this family, and if you’d have us, we’d love for that to be the case and for the world to know your place in this family.”

I covered my mouth, no words. We’d really all come a long way since the holidays and everything that had happened. We’d been able to reverse everything with the Mallick shares. Dorian’s father had spotted a provision in everything I’d signed, and with Bru coming back here and moving in, things had started to feel, well, amazing and finally. The scars were still there, and I didn’t think any of us would ever truly move on from what Callum Prinze had done to cast a shadow over our lives, but we were trying. We were all trying.

Bru had been trying too and had been a part of this family. Reaching out, Brielle took his hand. “Of course, we aren’t trying to replace your own parents,” she said, and I think all of us knew that Godfrey and Marilyn Sloane did have a place in all this too. They’d helped Callum steal time, yes, but they had tried to fix things in the end.

And that did mean something.

Ramses put his hand on Bru’s shoulder. “But we’d love to be there for you in their absence.”

Bru looked at me then, his face flushed, but his attention drifted to my twin when he came over. Ares touched his arm too, squeezing it, and if two people had gotten close recently, it was definitely the two of them. Ares had been there for Bru when he’d come forward with the truth, and Bru had trusted him that night. Bru had gone to him instead of against him, and something had happened that night after he had. The two had their own link, a brotherhood, and that went for Bru and the other Legacy boys as well. I always caught them all playing basketball with each other, and in the halls together at school. They all welcomed Bru, along with Bow, the little sister of the group and one of my best friends.

I had too many to count these days.

Bru was in this world just as much as me, and it seemed like now, he knew it. He smiled at Ramses, Brielle, and Ares.

“I’d like that,” he said, scanning the circle. “I’d really like that actually.”

I hugged him, and he laughed when Ares brought the circle in. Ares chuckled. “Another Sloane-Mallick. Definitely like the sound of that.”

Recently, I’d gotten my name changed. I was Noa Sloane-Mallick now, but this was a technicality too. It’d never been about the name.

It’d been about this.

My mother, when she put her arms around her three kids, and my father, when he put his arms around her, embracing us all. That first day Ramses had put us in a huddle the world had seemed so dark, and I wasn’t sure we’d ever get to this point.

We’d ended up traveling so far beyond it.

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