But she’d be pissed if I let him die, so.
I rushed him, glaring at him as his eyes bulged. “Threaten me again, and I’ll let you die gasping for breath.”
My hand clamped around his throat, squeezing and holding in my next inhale. What I’d seen him doing with Quinn to help her. I’d learned once how to slow a racing heartbeat.
That had to be the same as getting him to chill the fuck out.
I pressed down as I growled in his face, wishing I hated him enough to do it. Wishing I could be the fucking villain after what he’d said—what he’d done.Three…
He gripped my wrist and forearm, his eyes rolling back.
“This is panic, asshole.”Two...one.“Now, fucking breathe.”
And I released him.
He coughed violently, gasping for breath as he pitched forward. His knees hit the ground, and eyes wide, he stared up at me as he struggled to pull in air.
I knelt down beside him.
“That’s the one and only time I plan to save you, Golden Boy. We’re not friends. I’m not on your side. And if I don’t deserve her? It’ll be a cold day in hell before you do.Murderer.”
His expression twisted with pain, and I got up and wiped my clothes as if he’d dirtied them. I turned away, ready to storm out of the room without another fucking word.
He coughed, voice straining when he spoke right as my hand closed around the door.
“There was nothing…you could’ve done.” He coughed again and pulled in breaths as he tried to get the words out. “Even if you—if you’d gone after her…instead of coming…to me. It was too late.”
My hand tightened on the doorknob, threatening to snap it off with a single twist as he used his breath to spew more lies.
I glared at him over my shoulder as he kept going.
“I—No one could have saved her, Max. It wasn’t your fault.”
His words pressed in on places I didn’t want him near.
I forced them out of my head because his bloodshot eyes told the truth. Guilt still lingered there. And if what he’d said were true, then he’d be absolved, too.
He pushed the hair falling into his face away and shoved up to his knees. “I tried to save her, but by the time I got there, it was already too late.”
I didn’t want to hear anymore.
“And my mother—” He pitched forward, his shoulders shaking. “I’m sorry. I’m so?—”
“Yeah, well…” I clicked my tongue on the roof of my mouth, staring down at him at my feet. “Apologies don’t mean shit to the dead. And yours means even less to me.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Iwoke up in the middle of the night, gasping for breath. Trapped in a prison I’d never escape, the soulless whites of Silk’s eyes haunted my dreams. His final words before I left ringing in my ears as I woke up.
“Our secrets and lies are going to catch up with us.”
“Quinn?”
Kingston blinked away sleep as he sat up beside me in the bed. My body shook, but I didn’t know why. Something was nagging the back of my brain.
Secrets and lies…
Catching up with us.
