Page 159 of I’m The Worst

Drunker.

Anything to quiet the part of me that still feels trapped under somebody’s hands.

I wake up sweating half the nights, still feeling fingers wrapped around my throat. And every time I close my eyes lately⁠—

I’m chained to a bed with a collar around my neck, waiting for the door to open again.

Gage rubs the back of his neck awkwardly. “Dad’s just worried about you.”

I roll my eyes. “No. He’s worried I’m embarrassing him.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Isn’t it?” I press, shaking my head when he has nothing to say.

Inside the house, muffled laughter echoes upstairs before a door shuts. Gage glances sideways at me again, his eyes dropping to the hoodie I’m wearing.

“Where were you last night?”

My grip tightens slightly around the bottle. “Out.”

“With who?”

I shrug, and pain flares sharply between my thighs. I immediately hate myself for noticing.

“AJ.”

“What?”

His eyes narrow slightly. “Was it him?”

He’s always been like this. The weird twin thing. He knew the second I started acting strange about wanting Wolff’s number. He didn’t even have to ask. He just looked at me and saw it.

“No,” I lie.

Gage exhales slowly through his nose, leaning back against the concrete. “Fuck.”

I laugh bitterly under my breath. “Yeah. Pretty much.”

Ishove open the meeting room door, my body thrumming with restless energy I haven’t been able to shake. Generals sit scattered around the long black conference table, conversations low beneath the glow of recessed lighting.

As I take a seat at the far end of the table, other Generals start filing in behind me. Chairs scrape. Whiskey pours. My knee bounces before I force it still.

I worked too fucking hard to get here.

Every promotion. Every mission. Every body dropped for the Sovereign. I fought for every inch of rank in this goddamn organization while most of these bastards inherited theirs through bloodlines and family names. And now I’m sitting at the same table as the men who used to look at me like I was something dragged in off the street.

So why the fuck can’t I stop thinking about AJ?

The way she felt beneath me this morning. The way I slept harder beside her than I have in fucking years—no half-awareness, no listening for every creak or footstep. I didn’t even stir when she slipped out. That alone pisses me off more than anything.

Weakness.

That’s all this shit is.

A weakness I can’t seem to cut out.

“There’s my favorite emotional support animal.” Graves’s massive body drops into the chair next to mine despite half the fucking table being empty.