Page 31 of Cash

But the way he was looking at me was hideous.

I could take anything but that, the pure hatred rolling off of him piercing my chest. If my heart wasn’t already a stone that look would’ve broken it.

With all the callousness I could muster I shook my head. “Nope.”

His head jerked like I’d slapped him. “It wasn’t my story to tell.” I stopped to look at Penny and found that I couldn’t dredge up the cold-hearted bitch even if she’d surfaced, not when Penny looked like her world had ended when she broke Cash. Maybe there was love there. I hoped so. For Cash. He deserved it. “There was a better way to do that. You damn well knew what that was going to do to him.”

“Don’t fucking talk to her like that,” Cash spewed more abhorrence.

Right.

They were blood.

I was no one to him.

Actually, I wasn’t anything to any of these people.

I was nothing.

Meaningless.

Always had been. Always would be.

With that, I headed for the stairs.

Ten minutes later with my shit packed, I went back downstairs, grateful Cash, Penny, and Kira weren’t in the room, and tossed my laptop on the coffee table.

Zane turned with his phone pressed to his ear. He didn’t speak but his jaw clenched seeing me.

Meaningless.

Totally.

“Tell Kira it’s unlocked. All my intel’s on there. You already have my handwritten notes and before you threaten me, I’m out. Totally out. I know nothing. I’ve forgotten everything. And you’ll never see or hear my name again. Right here, right now, Lore’s dead.”

Stella was too.

But I didn’t tell him that. Zane wouldn’t care.

“Out?” he asked.

Like he cared.

“Totally out.”

“Maybe you should wait until⁠—”

I shook my head and headed for the door but paused to turn back.

“I know you don’t like me,” I whispered. “But thank you for being the most honest person in my life. I always knew where you were at and where I stood and in our business that’s rare. So thank you for that respect. Have a good life, Viper.”

With that, I flung open the front door and ran to my rental car.

Leaving Lore behind.

It wasn’t until I was over the Bay Bridge back on the Western Shore of Maryland did it dawn on me, I’d killed off the façade I’d hid behind for the better part of a decade and I didn’t mourn her. I was too busy trying to erase the memory of Cash’s agony.

I didn’t care that his words had gutted me.