Page 155 of My Three Billionaire Rockstars

Good. Let him feel uncomfortable, for once.

“I know what happened,” he says.

“Oh, do you?”

“Yes.”

“Interesting.” I laugh once. “Because from where I’m standing, you seem real comfortable.”

“That’s not what this is.”

“Then what is it?”

His jaw tightens. “Christ, Xander.”

“No,” I snap. “You don’t get to stand there acting confused about why I don’t trust you.”

Then Gabe says, very carefully, “This isn’t helping. Maybe we should all just talk⁠—”

I turn on him so fast it almost makes my vision blur. “You don’t get to say a thing.”

Gabe doesn’t move.

That’s what makes him different. Most people step back when I get angry. Gabe plants himself harder. He thinks stability is contagious.

Usually, it works.

Right now, it makes me want to throw him through the nearest wall.

“You thought this was a good idea?” I ask.

His expression stays infuriatingly calm. “I wasn’t exactly thinking straight.”

Ugly heat twists behind my ribs, because there it is. The betrayal.

Not Dylan. Him.

Dylan betraying me is old news. Ancient history. Built into the architecture at this point.

Gabe’s different.

Gabe knows exactly where the fractures are because he helped hold me together after everything imploded. He watched me come apart after Josiah died. Watched me bury myself alive in work and contracts and silence because it was easier than admitting grief had hollowed me out so badly I barely recognized myself afterward.

And he still did this.

“You went behind my back,” I say.

Gabe’s jaw tightens almost imperceptibly. “I was trying to help.”

“That’s what makes it worse.”

The room goes very still after that.

Dylan drags a hand through his hair. “This isn’t on him.”

I look at him.

Longer hair than the last time I saw him. More tattoos. Thinner, somehow, despite still carrying the same build. There’s exhaustion sitting under his skin.