I gasped, a sudden thought hitting me. “The maze!”
Three sets of eyes arrowed to mine. “The maze…” Daniel repeated slowly, giving Ryker a wary glance.
Ryker. Who didn’t know anything about me and Jay.
Oh, fuck.
“Um…” I took a deep breath. “Ry. Long story short. At the engagement party, I ended up in the maze. I wanted to, um, talk to Jay.”
“I sent her in there after him because he was having a bit of a hard time,” Daniel interjected. “She’s better with words than me.”
“Yes, so…we were talking, and we heard footsteps. I didn’t want anyone to see me in the maze with him, because…because…it was my engagement party, and if anyone saw me alone with another man…”
There was a flush high on Jay’s cheekbones, but he held my brother’s sceptical gaze without faltering as he picked up my story. “I asked her to hide. It would be easier to explain if someone found me in the maze rather than Nova.”
“Yes, and it was lucky, because it was Anton. Anyway, they left to go back to the party, and I heard footsteps coming from a different direction. I don’t know who it was, but it’s possible that someone followed me or Jay out there. Or Anton, I suppose. Someone who was as invested in staying hidden as I was.”
Jay’s eyes widened as he turned to look at me. I hadn’tmentioned this to him before—it had honestly slipped my mind with everything else that had been happening, but now my brother had explained everything to me, the whole interaction had taken on a new, sinister light.
Rising from his seat, Daniel began pacing up and down. “It was probably Volkov security or something. But like King said, we can’t rule anything out at this point.”
They were right, and I needed to do something about the unsettled feeling inside of me that had been growing for a while now, if I were honest with myself. Now, that feeling was impossible to ignore. I couldn’t articulate it to my brother, and it was unwise to confide in Jay when we were supposed to be keeping our distance.
That left Dan.
I eyed him carefully. Maybe he could help me work things out. If he had any ideas that could help ease my restlessness…
It was worth talking to him, at least.
30
JAY
“Jay. Wait.”
I stopped, leaning against the prison wall as Ryker jogged up to me. The rough stone was cold enough to send a chill across my shoulder blades, even through the thick material of my hoodie. “What’s up? Everything okay?”
He mimicked my position with his back against the wall next to me and shoved his hands in his pockets. Staring down at the ground, he toed the dust beneath his feet with his scuffed trainers. “Just wanted to talk to you about what Dan said about you having a hard time at the engagement party.”
Fuck. We were actually going there. I didn’t want to lie to my best mate, but how could I explain what had happened without dragging up a whole lot of shit that (a) wasn’t my place to share, and (b) he was likely to react badly to. Very fucking badly. Even so, I knew Ryker wasn’t one for talking about emotions, ever, so the fact that he’d chosen to bring this up with me meant it was playing on his mind. He cared in his own way, and so I had tosay something.
“Uh…yeah. It was a weird night. I dunno. It’s nothing you need to worry about. I let Volkov get to me, and I managed to piss Dan off. Yeah.”
“You danced with my sister.”
“Volkov insisted.”
“Jay. Are you…interested in my sister?”
Fuck. I swallowed hard.
“Jay.”
“It doesn’t matter either way, does it? She’s marrying Volkov, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his head whip around. “Fucking hell, mate. I thought you, y’know, hated her or something. I never got it, but she didn’t seem to like you, either, so I just thought you had opposite personalities.”
“Yeah, well. Sometimes what we call hate is just us masking how we really feel.”
