Why is he asking me such a stupid question? Who else would do that? No one moves in this city unless I say so.
Of course this was Lucien’s order. Or his father’s. Same thing.
My hands are tied. Lucien Devereaux is too powerful and his stupid snaky son is doing whatever the old man says. If he finds out she’s here and alive, he’ll question my loyalty and everyone will be in danger.
Fucking hell, I need a plan.
“You know, if he finds out, we’re dead,” Adrien basically repeats my thoughts.
I could just kill her and get rid of this problem once and for all.
“She’s dead to me anyways,” I mumble.
Adrien is watching me and a smile is tugging on his mouth.
“You made more than an hour-long trip into the city toJoey’s coffee cornerfor someone who’s dead to you.” He mocks me, smirking.
I lift my gaze at him and give him a warning look to stop messing with my nerves.
“I had to take care of something in the city anyway.”
That’s true, I needed more acid. Rodrigo is a big piece of meat.
My response doesn’t convince him, but he just lets it go.
His dark curly hair falls into his face as he shakes his head and laughs under his breath. He loves to tease me—and he’s good at it, so I let him. I catch myself smiling at him too.
For the last six years, he’s been the only person capable of shutting up the noise in my head for a moment. He has this sweetness that warms something inside me. When he’s not around, it’s just pitch black.
But the smile dies the second the flashbacks cut through my mind.
Warm blood on my hands. The way she looked at me—like I was already a monster.
I wasn’t the monster.
I know I wasn’t.
I just stopped pretending I wasn’t capable of becoming one.
And she left. She ran. She didn’t even look back. Not once.
She had me. All of me. And she just took it and ran away with it.
Whatever hope I’d been holding onto like an idiot, whatever stupid belief that someone like me could have something pure—it died the second she slipped through that gate.
I finally stopped pretending I could claw my way out of the dark if I just tried hard enough. Letting it swallow me was easier. It was honest. Because there’s nothing left to lose when the only good thing you ever had is gone.
She made her choice.
Now I’ll make mine.
And I’m going to take everything from her. Exactly the way she took everything from me.
“Kas, you’re—” he wakes me up from my trance. “You’re gone again.” He looks at me apologetically.
I rest my elbows on the table and drop my head to my palms, rubbing the scarred fingers on my face to get the hell out of the spiral I got in.
I don’t know what to do and I don’t want to admit it.
