Page 191 of I’m The Worst

She thinks you love her.

There’s no fucking love here. This is just a mission that went sideways. A girl I was sent to drag home and a long string of mistakes I can’t seem to stop making. So why do those words keep scraping around inside my skull like broken glass?

I drag a hand over my mouth and taste blood where Gage’s skin caught under my nails. I’ve shoved her away every chance I got. Ignored her. Hurt her. Gave her every reason to hate me. To forget I ever existed.

She doesn’t love me.

She can’t.

And even if some broken, stupid part of her thinks she does⁠—

“Hate to side with the nepo baby, but he’s got a point,” Graves says.

I turn away and yank my sweat-soaked shirt over my head, dragging in a slow breath through my nose, trying to cool the violence pulsing under my skin.

“Whatever fucked-up thing is going on between you and AJ? End it.”

Grabbing the towel out of my locker, I wipe the blood off my hands. The split skin across my knuckles burns like hell.

“I’m not saying that because I give a shit. I’m saying it because I’m gonna get dragged on your path to self-destruction when David starts throwing his Commander weight around and Weston decides to chop the heads of all responsible.”

I scrub harder at the blood drying between my fingers.

Graves snorts. “And because watching you get pussy-whipped in real time is starting to make me embarrassed for you.”

With a suppressed growl, I slam the locker shut. “You finished?”

“Not even close.” He lights the cigarette hanging from his mouth, the tip flaring orange as he inhales. “Awards ceremony tonight. Wear the gray suit. It makes you look slightly less like a Scab.”

I shoulder past him toward the door.

“And K9?” Graves calls after me. “Fuck somebody else tonight. Somebody who doesn’t look like her. Get your dick wet and get her out of your goddamn head.”

I shove through the locker room doors and don’t look back.

I’ve rehearsed this conversation a thousand times in my head since meeting Miranda in the park. Now I’m standing in a ballroom at another useless Sovereign event, and every single version of it has gone to shit.

My heart is hammering, my palms damp around the stem of my champagne glass, and my brain keeps ricocheting between anger, guilt, and that sick, fluttery feeling I don’t even want to name. Across the room, Generals and Commanders drift beneath chandeliers in expensive suits while Sluts lounge on balconies and raised platforms, smiling like decorations.

And then he walks in.

Even in a room full of men who’ve spent their lives being looked at, he stands out. Broad shoulders stretching the gray fabric of his jacket. Dark hair slightly tousled, beard trimmed close to his jaw. He stops just inside the doors and scans the room with those cold green eyes.

His gaze lands on me.

For one awful second, neither of us moves.

Then his jaw tics and he turns away.

Fucking typical.

I swallow hard and pluck a glass of champagne off a passing tray, even though I don’t drink it. I just hold it like a prop while I watch him move through the crowd, nodding at a few Generals.

I should walk straight up to him and say exactly what Miranda asked me to say. But my legs refuse to move, rooted to the marble floor, because I don’t know how he’s going to react. Wolff isn’t exactly predictable. And I’m too scared to watch him shut me out again.

So instead, I stay where I am, clutching this stupid glass, watching him be everything I’m not—calm, in control of himself—while my pulse tries to pound its way out of my throat.

“Did you look at all the destinations I sent you?” Sienna’s voice pulls me out of my head.