Kai’s questions start soft—gentle even—like he’s lulling me into some fucked-up sense of safety the way a snake might hum a lullaby while coiling around your ribs. “Favorite color?”
The answer slips out before I can stop it—“Steel grey.” Fuck. Rafe’s eyes.
“Full name?”
“Julian Andrew Reaver.”
“Birthday?”
“May 2nd.” And I’m snarling while I answer, because I feel it now, that chemical truth boiling under my skin, dragging honesty out of my throat like a hook. I twist against the restraints, but they don’t move—they were never meant to—and my jaw aches from clenching.
Kai watches me the way someone watches a time bomb they already know how to dismantle, calm and patient and entirely too certain about the outcome. Then he slips the question in. “Who hurt you?”
It hits like a blade straight through my ribs, and I jerk so violently the entire medical table screeches across the floor while every muscle in my body contracts at once. My teeth snap together hard enough that I taste blood, and I try—try—to hold it in, to bite down on the truth, to stay silent and strong and unreachable.
But the drug doesn’t care.
It wants everything.
It wants the marrow.
And my mouth betrays me.
“Nathan Grant!”
The name rips out of me like a scream.
Silence slams into the room afterward, heavy and absolute, and Kai’s eyebrows rise just slightly—the smallest reaction, barely a fraction of movement—but it’s more than enough to tell me everything.
He didn’t know.
Nobody knows.
Nobody exceptRafe.
And now Kai does.
“Oh fuck,” I choke, breath hitching, humiliation and terror slicing through my chest.
Kai doesn’t blink. He just moves to the head of the table, fingers brushing the leather strap over my sternum, soothing in the cruelest fucking way. “Why are you here?” he asks.
I snarl, the sound ripping out of me like something feral as my shoulders strain against the straps and my back arches off the table. The restraints dig into my skin while my jaw clamps so tight my teeth might crack. “No.” It comes out half growl, half plea, half warning, my entire body trembling with the effort it takes to keep the words inside.
Kai lowers his voice, soft and dangerous, like a surgeon asking a patient if they’re ready to feel pain. “Why are you here, Julian?” His tone shifts—quieter, deeper, more command than question.
And the truth rips through me like a blade. “Because I was blackmailed!” I scream, the words tearing out of me at full volume, my voice breaking as my body bucks violently against the leather straps.
Kai doesn’t move. He just listens. His expression stays completely unreadable, like he’s cataloguing every fracture line in my soul.
“They— they blackmailed me to throw the game!” I choke out, my body contorting against the restraints as my wrists burn and my chest heaves for air. “I didn’t— I didn’t fucking want to! I didn’t bet, I didn’t— I wasn’t— I didn’t do that!” My vision blurs as tears slide down my temples and my throat aches from the force of it.
“Who’s ‘they?’” Kai asks calmly.
“I don’t know!” I sob, my voice cracking open with desperation. “I don’t fucking know! They— they said I— they said if I didn’t—” I’m panting now, shaking so hard the table rattles, the truth clawing its way up through my ribs until it finally rips free. “But he knew,” I sob. “He knew!”
Kai steps closer, slow and deliberate, his eyes fixed on me with the precision of a scalpel. “Who knew, pretty boy?”
I break. “Nathan!” I scream. “Nathan— he looked at the camera and smiled— I didn’t know— I didn’t know we were filmed— I didn’t know— I didn’t—!”
