He sighs and discards the paper beside him, leaning back to examine me.
“I’ll tell you what I don’t want, Ten. I really don’t want to tell Senator Winslowe that you’re the girl he has numerous PI’s sniffing around for right now. Because we both know what would happen then. Between him and the Praetorians … I’m honestly not sure which is worse.”
My mouth is dry and my heart’s beating too fast, and I know now, the direction he is heading with all of this.
“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,” he quotes Robert Frost, because he’s a fucking asshole and he knows I used to like that poem and he wants to ruin it for me like he ruined everything else.
“Which one will you take, Scarlett?”
“Tell me what my options are.”
There is victory in his eyes and his smile, but he hasn’t won yet.
“Ethan, Trip, Quinn, and Duke. You remember them, right?”
“How could I ever forget them?”
There is the tiniest of ticks in his jaw, and it’s not quite regret, but something else.
Jealousy?
“I’m sure they want the past to stay buried just as much as you do,” he tells me. “Now that they are well and truly successful members of society. So, here’s the deal. You walk out on me today, and each of them, along with Senator Winslowe gets your name and address hand delivered by the end of the day. Should you be lucky enough to survive the week, I take you in on the numerous felonies the DA will happily indict you with based on my investigation into your activities.”
There are no words left in my mouth or in my head. Only questions. A frantic search for answers. But there is no time for Q&A because he’s not done yet.
“Option two. I think you’re going to like option two better, Scarlett. See in this one… you get to live.”
“And let me guess what you get out of it,” I scoff.
Alexander’s jaw ticks again. His eyes are bottomless pits and he is vacant. There is nothing inside of him but darkness and I want to scream at him because he infected me with it too.
“You destroyed me,” he says. “You were mine, Scarlett. MINE.”
“Is that supposed to be a joke?” I ask. “Because you didn’t see it that way when you let all of your buddies have a go at me.”
He shrugs it off, and he’s back to casual again. Unruffled.
“Give me a fucking break,” he says. “You knew there were sacrifices to be made. I only did what needed to be done. And it worked. I got into the Praetorians and you got into Birds of a Feather. And had you stayed the fucking course like you were supposed to, you’d be a Harvard grad by now with a belly full of my first child. Instead, you’re nothing more than a common street whore.”
He gets up and paces as he rants, and he’s even more fucking deluded than I ever could have imagined.
“Surely you don’t think I’m still going to have a life with you.”
He pauses, a slick smile spreading across his lips.
“What I think,” he answers. “Is that you’re going to do whatever I tell you to. Because what other option do you have?”
There is no argument to be had. He’s a federal fucking agent. Which I don’t doubt for a second was not a strategic move on his part. He’s been planning this for years. A decade, even. And there is nothing I can do right now but get out of here and figure out my options.
“How did you know?” I ask.
He’s quiet for a moment, thoughtful. Unsure how much he wants to reveal. But I need to understand his motives before I can plan a counterattack.
“I went back,” he says. “A few days later. I couldn’t…”
His voice is softer now, and for a second he almost seems human again.
“I couldn’t think of you lying there like that. In that pile of leaves and dirt while the animals picked over you.”
