“Cole,” he said again, softer this time, pleading. “Please—”
“What is this?” My voice didn’t even sound like mine. It was too thin. Too tight. Too sharp to belong to someone calm. He flinched as if I’d struck him.
“I—I can explain.”
“Then explain,” I said, and the cold in my own tone startled me. “Right now.”
He swallowed hard. His throat bobbed.
“I was—someone—someone paid me.”
Paid.
My stomach dropped.
“To do what?”
The question ripped out of me, claws bared.
I watched the moment Phoenix broke. Watched the fight drain from him. Watched the truth force its way through the cracks he’d tried so hard to keep sealed.
“To get close to you.”
And my world dropped away. The one I'd started to believe in. The one where I thought I had a future. It all vanished.
Phoenix kept talking, words tumbling out so fast and uneven that he had to grip the doorframe to steady himself. His whole body trembled with the effort of forcing the truth out.
“He found me,” he said, voice cracking. “I didn’t go looking. I swear, Cole. He knew you were with the Dragons, knew your father controlled everything around you. He said if I—if I got close, if I kept an eye on you—I’d get paid. Enough to help Ricky’s family. Enough to get us out of that building. I never meant—”
“Stop.”
The word tore out of me sharper than I intended. Phoenix froze immediately—not because he was finished or ready, but because the sound of my voice startled us both into stillness. Something inside him must have cracked, because he looked at me like I’d broken him, when really the cracks around my heart were all mine.
I stared down at the bed, at the money scattered across my blanket like a stain. The dragon inside me recoiled as if burned, wings flaring tight under my ribs, heat twisting up my throat in a sudden rush of betrayal so fierce it made my eyes sting. "It was the day we fought. The day you came back. That was the reason you came back. Not because you wanted to, because you werepaid to." I snarled the last two words.
He nodded, and almost detached, I caught the sheen of moisture in his eyes. Because he'd been caught. “You were spying on me,” I said, and the quietness of the words felt far more dangerous than if I’d shouted.
Phoenix stumbled forward a step, horrified. “No. No, not—not like that. Cole, please—”
“You took money to be near me.”
“Yes, but—”
“You tookmoney,” I repeated, each word tasting metallic, “to be near me.”
His face crumpled. “I didn’t know you then. I didn’t know what kind of person you were. I was desperate. He threatened Ricky’s family, and I didn’t have a choice—”
“You always had a choice.”
The silence after that sentence didn’t just fall between us—it widened. Phoenix opened his mouth, but nothing came out, and in that empty second, something in me shifted. I stepped back. Just a single step, but it felt like the space between us opened like a chasm.
“You could’ve said no,” I said, each word a tremor. “You could’ve walked away. You could’ve told me the truth days ago. Hours ago. Even five minutes ago when I begged you to talk to me. But you didn’t.”
Phoenix’s voice was barely a breath. “I was scared.”
“So am I.” My voice shook, not with anger but with something far more dangerous—hurt. “Or I was. But clearly, you’re not scared of losing me, so—”
“That’s not fair,” he whispered, and the desperation in his voice should have undone me. It didn’t.
