The Revenge Pact Read online

  The Revenge Pact

  Copyright © 2020 by Ilsa Madden-Mills

  Cover Designer: Letitia Hasser, RBA Designs

  Editor: Editing by C. Marie

  Content Editor: Rebecca, Fairest Reviews Editing Services

  Proof Reader: Kara Hildebrand

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  IMM Publishing

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  Copyright Law:

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  If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, this book has been pirated and you are stealing. Please delete it from your device and support the author by purchasing a legal copy. All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the above copyright owner of this book or publisher.

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked statue and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  First Edition December 2020

  Contents

  The Revenge Pact Playlist

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Epilogue

  Excerpt - The Romantic Pact by Meghan Quinn

  Excerpt - The Relationship Pact by Adriana Locke

  Also by Ilsa Madden-Mills

  About the Author

  The Revenge Pact Playlist

  Click below to hear the music that inspired The Revenge Pact!

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  https://bit.ly/revengepact

  Prologue

  See those three boys over there?

  Yeah, the kings of football?

  The ones with their heads in their hands, drinking their beers and trying to figure out what the hell happened to their season?

  They choked.

  That’s right. These All-Americans became the biggest upset in college football and a complete embarrassment to their town.

  Can it really be that bad?

  Yes.

  Former national champions, Braxton College was annihilated this year.

  No, not just annihilated—completely and utterly destroyed.

  Three games.

  That’s it.

  They won three games all season.

  Interceptions. Dropped balls. Missed blocks. Fumbles. Name it, they did it.

  First, there’s River Tate, the popular frat boy. He’s supposed to be a superstar wide receiver but dropped more passes than he caught.

  Next is Crew Smith, the protective one. Once an NFL hopeful, he now holds the record for the most interceptions in a season for a quarterback.

  And rounding out the trifecta of crap is Hollis Hudson, the mysterious tight end who keeps everything locked down. He couldn’t run a route to save his life this year.

  Guys wanted to be them.

  Girls wanted their hearts.

  But at this point, not sure anyone would touch them with a ten-foot pole.

  The truth is, they’ve screwed up their prospective NFL careers.

  Maybe their entire lives.

  There are three stories to be told…

  This is River’s.

  I lie to myself all the time.

  But I never

  believe me.

  The Outsiders, S. E. Hinton

  1

  At half past six, I pop awake, and my first class isn’t till nine. Typical. Once my head winds up, there’s no shutting off the replay reel. Dark and ugly, our last football game rushes at me and my hands clench the sheets.

  The score? Forty-seven to fourteen.

  We got decimated.

  Screw that.

  Jumping up, I stick my earbuds in and listen to “My Own Worst Enemy” by Lit as my fingers wrap around a pull-up bar I have in the doorway. I count out fifty, hop back down, and roll my neck. Blood rushes through my veins, adrenaline kicking in and obliterating the dark thoughts. I check the mirror. My face screams exhaustion and my ‘famous’ lips are in a thin, hard line.

  Good morning, world. River Tate is ready to kick ass.

  Yeah. Keep telling yourself that.

  The older, Craftsman-style off-campus house I share with my teammates, Crew and Hollis, is dead quiet when I walk down the hall to the bathroom. The silence pricks at me, crawling like spiders, reminding me of a funeral home. It brings back unwanted memories of my dad, and I kick those ugly thoughts away. A man can only handle so many losses in his head at once.

  After my shower, I rip back the curtain that hangs around the old claw-foot tub. “Dammit!” Forgot my clothes. Again. My brain truly is the Bermuda Triangle. Info comes in and poof, it vanishes. I have excellent recall for the oddest things. Mating rituals of animals? Check. Football stats? Locked and loaded. Movie quotes? Branded in my skull. My classes at Braxton? Freaking ghost town with tumbleweeds blowing through it. That plane has flown over the Triangle and disappeared.

  My brain goes too fast to focus on small details like underwear.

  I wrap a towel around my waist and open the door, water dripping on the hardwood.

  You’d lose your head if it wasn’t screwed on, Mom says. Then she’ll laugh and say, Now, what the heck was I doing? An image of her pops into my head, glossy brown hair, blue eyes, and the best smile on this planet. My chest tightens. She’s not awake yet or I’d call her. She sleeps until noon, my sister Rae told me.

  A trip to my closet tells me I haven’t done laundry in a while. The only shirt that passes muster is one from sophomore year. It’s purple with our mascot on it, a brown badger on the pocket. Screw the haters who want to judge us for a shit season. Badgers forever! I yank it out and slip it on. “At least I have clean underwear,” I mutter as I shove my legs into a pair of black skinny jeans and zip them up.

  I find the Chucks I’m feeling for today—I have ten different pairs—slap them on, then fish around on the floor for my novel and backpack.

  “Yes!” I call out as I find them under a mound of clothes in my closet. Makes sense. I tore into my room like a tornado on Thursday before we flew to Louisiana for the game. I barely recall packing my duffle and running out the door.

  My head was in a weird place after seeing her on campus. Didn’t talk to her—oh no, can’t do that—but I saw her in the student center. She was…sad? Fuck if I know. Her head was down as she read a book, not laughing with her roommates as they sat in one of the lounge areas. Inexplicably, she looked up (maybe feeling the intensity of my stare), saw me, then her gaze moved on, not pausing. That I can handle. It’s the usual. We’ve done it for a year. But her not smiling? WTF. Girl has the world. Smart. Beautiful. Perfect boyfriend.

  I stop at Cre
w’s door and bang on it. “Rise and shine, Hollywood.”

  Just need to see someone’s face before I head out. It’s a thing. And he knows.

  “Go away,” he groans.

  I tap on Hollis’s door. “Yo, man. You okay in there? Hungry?” Code for Come talk to me.

  “Asshole” is the low response.

  I smirk. We had a few too many drinks last night at our favorite bar, The Truth Is Out There. It’s a fitting name for a college dive devoted to X-Files memorabilia and newspaper clippings from supposed alien sightings that took place in Walker in the eighties.

  Otherwise, Walker, Georgia, is home to Braxton College, a prestigious D1 school with one of the best football programs in the country.

  Not anymore.

  I swallow down jagged bitterness.

  I groan aloud when I see that our cupboards are nearly bare. There’s one piece of bread (I don’t eat the heel), an empty box of Ritz crackers, and a bag of Funyuns. Those disgusting things belong to Crew and he’ll freak if I eat them, not that I would. I have standards.

  In the fridge, I find leftover pineapple pizza (Hollis wrote his name on the box) and a box of pad thai noodles (mine) that have green fuzz on top. Well hell.

  “Trip to Big Star today,” I mutter as I grab the only thing edible, a half-pack of bacon. I’m nuking it in the microwave when Crew, our quarterback, sticks his head out of his room.

  “I just came out so you could see my face. You aren’t normal.” He grabs a hat off the hook in the hall and puts it on his head backward.

  “Completely aware. Morning.” I push up a smile, but it’s more of a wince.

  He grunts his reply as he comes farther into the kitchen. “Jesus. How can you eat?”

  I smirk. “Bacon is manna from heaven. Besides, grease hits the spot after a hangover. I’ll hit the grocery today. It’s my turn.” I pause. “You remember last night?”

  He squints. “Do I want to? Aleve?”

  “Maybe not.” I toss him the pain meds I grabbed earlier for myself along with a bottled water from the fridge.

  We rarely get wasted. Sure, we drink some, but once training camp starts in the summer, we toe the line. Last night was different.

  Our season is officially freaking over—before Christmas. Not even a bowl game.

  He guzzles the water then drops it and looks at me, a furrow on his brow. “Wait a damn minute—did Crazy Carl hang out with us?”

  “Yep.” Crazy Carl is a regular at The Truth Is Out There. He’s in his sixties and a bit wacko.

  “It’s starting to come back…like a nightmare.” He plops down on a stool at the kitchen island and rubs his eyes.

  I nod. “He said you looked sad and wanted to do karaoke with you, a Lady Gaga duet. You had the sense to say no. Hollis, on the other hand, sang ‘Hello’ by Adele. Brought down the house. The boy can sing, can’t deny that, but that’s a cry for help.” I grab a piece of bacon and eat it fast. “The bar was packed. I think people just wanted to see if we’d show up to our usual Sunday hangout. Carl was the only one brave enough to say we needed to get our shit together.”

  I actually dig Carl. He’s nutty but says wise things. Does that even make sense? No, it doesn’t.

  Crew grimaces. “Too late. Football is over, man.”

  I lean on the counter, needing to talk to let out some energy. “He meant our personal issues. Then he rambled a bit and told me a story about an alien he saw once. People in this town really go crazy about that stuff. Did you know he played for the Badgers when he was at Braxton? Defensive lineman. All-American. I bet he was good. He’s big.”

  He lets out a pained groan. “We’re All-Americans. Is it really over for us?”

  “You don’t want me to answer that.”

  The promising chatter about us storming professional football has tanked.

  We’re seniors this year, but unlike Crew and Hollis, I’m considering coming back to Braxton for a fifth year (and another season). I was redshirted my freshman year and only played four games, which gives me another year to play.

  Hollis, our tight end, stumbles out of his room and rights himself on the wall. He’s tall and built with a head of messy dark hair. “Can you assholes please stop yelling?”

  Crew and I snicker. I sing the first line of “Hello” (my voice not nearly as good as his) and he flips me off. “Guess you remember,” I say dryly.

  He grunts.

  I sigh as I gaze at them, and some of the tension in my chest loosens. We’ve been best friends since freshman year.

  I love the fuck out of them.

  The Three Amigos on the field.

  I’m the can’t-shut-up one, Crew’s the mother hen, and Hollis is the mysterious one. We’re gods on campus. Huh…well, former gods.

  Hollis holds up a muscled forearm and blinks at the lights in the kitchen. “God, it’s bright. Water,” he croaks. “My head’s about to explode.”

  “Look alive,” I say and toss him a cold one from the fridge.

  “You’ll need this, bro.” Crew throws the Aleve to Hollis, but he’s juggling the water and misses the pill container. He lets out a juicy curse as he bends and snatches it off the floor.

  “Can’t even catch a damn underhanded throw,” he mutters as he plops down on a stool next to Crew. He heaves out a gusty exhalation. “We suck so hard.”

  “Yep,” I say, my tone grim.

  We’ve let down our school, our team, ourselves. Even Crazy Carl.

  My fingers twist the sterling silver snake ring on my index finger that belonged to my dad. He played for the New York Pythons before blowing out his knee five years into his NFL career. When I was fifteen, he died in a car wreck, leaving a giant hole in our family. Then my mom got cancer. Like the kickass fighter she is, she beat it, but…

  I rub my chest.

  Go away, go away…

  I turn away from them and look out the kitchen window. It’s getting harder to pretend I’m okay. I’m a domino, on the verge of falling and making the whole pile crash down. The elephant on my chest started when Mom’s cancer came back this spring, then that pressure escalated with every game we lost.

  Out the window, a red-tailed hawk lands on a bare tree, looking happy as shit in the dead of winter. His feathers ruffle slightly in the wind as his eyes sweep the area. You need to fly farther south, I tell him but he ignores my mental telepathy and stalks along the branch. He’s a fighter.

  Am I?

  I close my eyes briefly.

  Just get through this semester.

  Come back next year.

  Play better next season.

  Get your degree.

  Do what you can control.

  Mom’s words from Saturday swirl around in my gut. She called me as soon as the game was over, her voice weak but confident. Slay your demons, River. All is possible. I believe in you.

  I get it, but I’m a ship without a rudder and I’m terrified I’m going to sink to the bottom of the sea. I don’t have a future, can’t see what’s coming, can’t get a grasp on what I need to do for the rest of my life.

  And Mom, my beautiful, feisty mother…

  If she dies…

  I kick the dark thought down and think about my first class. Like it always does, a tingle of electricity zips over me, knowing I’ll be close, but not too close.

  Can’t touch her, but…

  Five rows in front of me, she will be there.

  Rainbow Girl.

  Hair like spun silk.

  Green eyes.

  Lush mouth.

  Short skirts.

  Banging body.

  Not mine.

  My unease spikes as I stare down at my copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover. The cover is pristine because I’ve never cracked it open. It’s a bunch of mumbo-jumbo, the words all running together.

  For the hundredth time this semester, I ask myself…

  Why the hell did I take this class?

  I have ADHD, dyslexia, and dyscalculia, a trio of pur
e hell. My attention deficient and hyperactivity make “decoding” even tougher. You know those articles they write about athletes who slip through the cracks academically because they’re talented athletically? Hello, I’m River. I catch footballs.

  My reading level has been tested at… I can’t even say it’s so bad. In a weak moment, I told Blair, my ex, and she laughed in my face. She legit thought I was joking. Yeah, just kidding was my reply, and I swore to never tell a girl again. Let them think I’m just like them.

  Pressing my fingers to the cover, I twirl it on the island. Frustration ripples over me. There are days, like today, when I wish I were like everyone else.

  That boy can’t sound out words.

  Doesn’t know numbers.

  Talks too much.

  My teachers had a lot to say about me in elementary school.

  Then, Dad put a football in my hands.

  Hollis and Crew move to the den and stretch out on the couch, their legs propped up on the coffee table. I follow them, too antsy to sit, so I pace.

  Crew reaches for the remote, sees my face, then eases it back down like it’s a grenade.

  I sigh. “Not worth seeing our faces all over ESPN.”

  He closes his eyes and leans his head back on the couch.

  Hollis has grabbed a Ding Dong—where did he get that?—and eats it in two bites. “When is this godawful semester over?”

  “Two more weeks till winter break,” I say tightly as I grab my backpack and a bag of laundry I pulled together to drop off at the Kappa house where there’s a washer and dryer.