I turned on Rami. “Stay the fuck out of this.”
“I don’t fucking think so,” Haruto snarled. “She’s our friend.”
The microwave beeped, and Cole turned to remove his pizza.
He’d cheated on me. On Eva. Onus. Or used us to cheat on his fiancée.
And Carter still had Eva’s father’s debt to hold over Eva’s head. “You’re right,” Cole said quietly, setting his pizza down on the counter carefully, the way drunk people did when they didn’t want anyone to know how far gone they were. Because of course he wasn’t sober. When was he these days, even with all his fucking promises to the contrary?
He turned on his heel and walked out of the kitchen, back toward the front door, swiping his keys off the hooks in the entryway.
“The fuck you are,” Rami snapped, lunging for the keys. “You’re in no shape to drive.”
Cole whirled then stumbled, elbowing Rami in the gut.
Shit.
Shit!
The two men squared up, ready to fight.
I could not take another moment of this team tearing itself apart.
“Cole, you are the biggest asshole I have ever met.” I turned to Rami, pointing an accusatory finger at him. “And you, do you think this is helping?” When Haruto opened his mouth to speak, I shoved him backward. “Not another fucking word.”
I snatched the keys out of Cole’s hands and strode out to his sports car without looking back.
“How the fuck do you know where I was going?” he shouted.
Haruto cackled from inside the house. “There’s only one place you’d go as fucked up as you are right now.”
Eva’s.
Cole didn’t say a fucking word as he climbed into the passenger seat of his car. He sat in silence as I adjusted the seat, started the car, then drove through the streets of Yorkfield.
It wasn’t until we hit the first light that he slurred something, too soft for me to make out.
I slammed on the brakes, taking childish joy in watching him slam forward against the seatbelt and knowing it’d leave a bruise.
“What the fuck did you say?”
“The engagement,” Cole said. “It was to protect her.”
“Protect who?”
“Eva, you dick.”
I slammed my palms against the steering wheel.
“Sure, Cole. Like blackmailing her was to protect her. Like making her suck our cocks was to protect her. Like you have this grand scheme in your head, and somehow, it’s all going to fucking work out because you’re a master manipulator. Guess what! You fucking hurt people, all the fucking time, and then you tell people it’s for our own good, all part of some fucking plan. Get fucked.”
Cole fell silent as we drove through Yorkfield, the neighborhoods turning shabbier as we wound through the city on our way to Eva’s house.
“I can’t believe I stood up for you,” I continued, wanting to hurt him as much as I was hurting. “I can’tbelieve I believed you. I can’t believe I hooked up with you.”
A sharp intake of breath was the only response he gave me. Finally, he said, “Why are you driving me to Eva’s?”
“Harm mitigation,” I snapped as we pulled in front of her house, the warmth of the lights inside glowing through her curtains. “And if you hurt her again, I’m going to tell everyone what we did to her.”
