Life Through a Lense

Chapter Twenty-Nine

"Fuck," I screamed when someone tapped me on the shoulder. 

I channeled my adrenaline rush from fear to anger as soon as I saw that the intruder was Mason. Somehow he had gotten into the locked studio and snuck up without me noticing. I punched him in the shoulder as hard as I could without straining my ribs. 

"Language!" He exclaimed mockingly. 

"You're about to get a lot more if you don't tell me why you're here," I warned. "Scaring the shit out of me." 

"That wasn't my intention," he defended. "Although, it was a perk." 

"Ugh," I sighed, "What do you want?" 

"I just wanted to see you in person when you saw this," he said, handing me his phone. 

At first, all I thought I was looking at was Jack and a bunch of his friends at a party, but as I looked closer, I saw a familiar face, Charlotte.

"How do you know that's my sister's friend, Charlotte?" I asked, handing him his phone back.

"What?" He responded. "I don't know anyone named Charlotte. I'm talking about your sister." 

"What about my sister?" 

He handed the phone back to me so I could take another look. It took a minute, but under the gobs of makeup and the skimpy clubbing dress, sure enough, my sister was in the picture right next to Charlotte. A second wave of adrenaline hit me as my face was heating up and I started seeing red. After the story that Tristan told me the other day, I didn't want Ivy in the same city as Jack let alone hanging out together. 

"What the hell?" I snapped. "When was this taken?" 

"This weekend," he answered. 

So when Ivy had Tristan take me instead of her because she had 'homework', she was actually out clubbing with that shit excuse of a human being. 

"I'm going to kill her," I seethed. "Actually I'm going to kill your little brother." 

Mason's smirk was wiped off his face. "Jesus, I didn't know you were going to react this badly." 

I shot the death look at him. "I don't want Jack anywhere near my sister after what he did." 

Any hint of mischievousness was now gone. "Tristan told you what happened?" 

"Yeah, so?" I muttered. 

"Wow." 

"What?" I snapped, my temper somehow rising even more while he beat around the bush. 

"When Jack does something like this, it usually stays in the family," he remarked. 

"Oh, I'm sorry," I said sarcastically. "Sorry that your brother's secret was leaked to me, whose little sister happens to be hanging out with him."

He crossed his arms. "I'm not mad, just surprised. Usually Tristan is all 'keep it out of the public', so I'm just surprised he told someone outside of the family. If it were up to me, I'd take it to the media in a heartbeat." 

"Why don't you?" I asked. 

"Daddy would probably cut off my trust fund and I like money more than my own principals," he admitted. 

"Jesus fucking Christ...how often does this sort of thing happen in your family?" I asked. 

He shrugged. "Once or twice a year?"

So that made me think of the question...why didn't Tristan take it to the media? Did Tristan like money more his principals? I shook off the question...it was more complicated than that, right? What else was the Kingsley family hiding?