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I entered the bar car, eyes turning up at me as I walked in, Will following me. “We should go back,” I told everyone. “To Blackchurch.”
“What?” Kai blurted out.
Michael scowled. “Excuse me?”
The door slid closed, and I made eye contact with all of them. “We should go back and get the ones we left behind.”
“We can’t go back,” Michael said.
“We can.” I nodded. “The locomotive goes in reverse.”
He rolled his eyes, and Kai stood up, his wife climbing off of him. “A security team will already be there. Going back puts Will at risk.”
“First of all, Aydin and Taylor are loose ends,” I told them. “You rescued Will under the assumption the other prisoners wouldn’t care. They do. I promise. And second, Taylor Dinescu can go fuck himself, but Aydin would be a useful ally. We need him.”
“You need him,” Alex retorted. “Aydin Khadir doesn’t deserve us. That’s the difference between you and me, Em. I can sacrifice what I want for the good of others.”
“And what do you think I did?” I fired back.
I wanted Will more than I’d ever wanted anything. I wanted it all.
I just didn’t want him experiencing the stress of my life. I was embarrassed. And I needed to protect my grandma. I fucking sacrificed.
I held Alex’s green eyes, seeing the pain in hers that I always felt in mine. She thought it was easy for me, because it was easier to believe that.
She knew better.
She pursed her lips, and I could see her trying to swallow, but she couldn’t. After a moment, she downed the rest of her drink and swiveled in her chair, looking over at Michael and Erika as she set her empty glass on the table. “Do you remember that pool party Michael and the guys took you to when you first moved to Delcour?”
Erika nodded, hopping off the stool and walking over to sit in the chair next to Alex.
“Aydin was there that night,” Alex told us. “He went to Yale with one of Michael’s teammates, and we hadn’t seen each other in a long time.” She paused, and I could see the memory playing behind her eyes. “The more I drank, the more I hated him, and the braver I got.”
Why did she hate him? I’d gotten pieces of a story at Blackchurch. He wanted her. He denied it, because of family pressure. She survived without him.
Alex looked over at me. “I was roommates with his girlfriend in college, you see?” she told me. “We played together one night while he watched us over Skype. That’s how we met.”
Played? I couldn’t imagine that. I couldn’t imagine Aydin in college. Experiencing youth like a real human.
I could see her, though. Performing for him. Taunting him.
“You should’ve seen his eyes.” Alex closed hers for a moment as everyone listened. “It was like he was in pain or something. I could almost feel his breath and the heat in his arms.” She opened her eyes, lost in thought. “And then a few nights later, he wanted me to himself, but when push came to shove, he couldn’t step up, and he chose her.”
I remained in my spot as Will dropped down into the sofa on my right.
Alex shrugged. “It was okay. He wasn’t mine to begin with. I had no right.”
Setting her glass down, she exhaled and continued, glancing at Erika. “The night of the pool party, I’d heard they weren’t together anymore, and when he couldn’t stop looking at me across the room, the stronger I got,” she told us. “But I wasn’t going to let him win. I wasn’t a dog, sitting there waiting for his affection.”
“What did you do?” I asked.
But it wa
s Will’s voice I heard next. “You let me take off your top in the pool.”
Another man taking her top off in front of him…
“And he was watching,” I said.
