Page 137 of Threaded Lies

It’s the first real smile I’ve given in days. Leave it to Audrey to know what to say and do to snap me out of my funk.

Because she’s right. Rowan deserves better than this. Than me. And I can’t give that to her. I can’t bend on who I am and what I’ve set out to accomplish.

She stood there and begged me to have a heart, to show her my heart, and I showed her who I am at heart instead.

A man with a goal she doesn’t understand.

A big brother fulfilling a promise to his little brother and mother.

A person who needs to carry out his own definition of justice since no one thought his brother mattered.

A man willing to torture himself and his own scarred heart to carry all this out.

Even to his own detriment.

Chad’s excited chatter snaps me from my thoughts. From the never-ending circle of regret over hurting Rowan and then realization that this is how it has to be.

I got too close.

I let my guard down.

I fell in fucking love with one of my marks.

That’s all on me.

I’d like to think her absence is because she’s plotting how to stab a knife in my back. That’s very Rowan.

And yet, all I can think of is the look in her eyes when she stormed out of my apartment. The hurt. The betrayal. The everything that floated through her eyes that I put there.

Complications.

You said no to them and walked head-fucking-first into them, didn’t you, Knight?

But the show must go fucking on.

I rise from my chair and move toward the conference room where I’ve watched Chad and Rhett come and go over the last few hours.

They are negotiating with Bob over the WillowBend details.

Little do they know I’m Bob and I’m literally sitting fifty feet from them making their lives miserable.

Good.

They deserve it, and right now, of all times, I more than enjoy having someone to toy with to keep me preoccupied.

“Gentlemen,” I say when I walk into the conference room. I rather enjoy watching them inconspicuously try to cover up the paperwork scattered on the table. The WillowBend offer.

I’m met with steely glares just as I expected. Rhett is still livid with me and Chad is still humiliated by me.

Fucking perfect.

The saddest part of this whole thing is that Rhett is more upset with me because his sister hurt his best friend. He doesn’t give a fuck about his sister. Not in the least.

“We’re busy,” Rhett says.

I rest my ass against the console table and fold my arms anyway. “What seems to have the two of you so busy? Work stuff? Scheming again on how to gain more kickbacks? Or is it election stuff? Have the palms you greased not stayed slippery enough, because from what I’ve overheard you guys talk about, you were a shoo-in to win?”

“We don’t have time for your bullshit right now, Knight,” Rhett says.