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He goes to take a step closer, but I shoot my hand out in a V shape, pushing it into the middle of his throat and making him stumble backwards. He trips over a body and loses his balance but manages to regain it.

“If you ever talk about her like that again, I won’t hesitate to put a bullet in your head. Best friend or not.”

He recoils at my statement, features softening and recognition flitting over his face. “You haven’t been taking your medication.”

I can hear the hurt in his voice. Hurt that I’ve been lying to him. Hurt that he’s been with me my entire life, helping me through my deep obsessions, just to throw it all away.

“No,” I murmur.

He’s silent for a few heartbeats, then curses, turning away with his hands resting on his hips. He swings his head up towards the ceiling and sighs. “Camila… is she…?”

He’s asking if Camila is my newest obsession.

I can’t gauge him. I can’t be sure that if I tell him the truth, he won’t take her away from me. Drive her out to some place far away where I can’t reach her.

Not that it would stop me from finding her again. It would take killing me first to get her away from me.

But something in my gut won’t allow me to call her an obsession. She doesn’t feel like one.

“She’s not an obsession,” I grit through my teeth.

“I know you well enough to know this isn’t just someone you’re interested in.”

I sigh, kicking at the body in front of me. Noticing a strand of blue hair peeking from underneath the mask, I squint my eyes, dropping down and pulling his balaclava off.

“Holy fuck,” I gasp.

“What?” Jac snaps.

“This is Billy.”

“What?”

Billy. One of our runners.

“And that rat Jayden was in on it too,” Jac muses—as if one of our employees turning on us is a normal thing.

“Jayden?” I recoil.

“That’s who you asked to be taken down into the basement. That was Jayden.”

In a blur of events, I didn’t notice that it was Jayden. I just saw he was the first one leading the lackeys and ordered him into the basement.

But how Jacques is so calm, I don’t know.

“Xander?” the voice that I would recognise anywhere trembles behind me, making my gut drop instantly.

Jac and I both whip our heads towards Camila, who’s being held in a chokehold by none other than Aidan fucking Burns.

I shoot up straight, gun pointed right at the fucker’s head. Jac comes up beside me, pulling his own pistol out and aiming it at him.

“It’s been a while, boys.” He grins from behind Camila. Her hands are clawing at his arms in an attempt to peel him off her, but he’s got her in an iron grip. My heart accelerates at the possibilities of what could happen right now, but I will it to calm down. I need to keep a level head.

Where the fuck is her gun?

Was she too scared to pull the trigger?

“We need to be smart about this,” Jac says from beside me, low enough so only I can hear.