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I leaned back against the wall, feeling faint. My stomach was doing backflips inside my body. What Damian didn’t know was that I was Silas’s alibi. I was with him for the entire time, trapped in the closet with his filthy mouth. He couldn’t have committed the crime. Damian wouldn’t have known this. Of course, Delane wouldn’t have had a clue either when talking to the officers.

My lies were beginning to catch up to me, I realized. I was a bug caught in my own web, thrashing, trying but failing to escape.

I had a decision to make. But really, it wasn’t a decision at all.

I would fall into a pit of my own destruction before I let Silas take this heat for me. Or worse, be treated like a suspect in this process because I didn’t fess up.

As hard as this would be, I had to tell Damian.

“Damian,” I whispered, “Silas didn’t do it.”

Damian paced around me, a sound of frustration ripping from his mouth. “Noah, you’ve got to understand where I am coming from. He shows up to this event, he leaves abruptly, he—”

I cut him off. “It wasn’t him.”

Damian turned on me then, eyes darkening with more than just worry and impatience. “You cannot allow whatever sort of connection the two of you made to blind you to the truth!”

“I-I was with him. I was with Silas the majority of the party.”

Damian stopped midstride.

“What did you just say?”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath in. Bracing.

“Silas and I were together. At the party,” I repeated, slowly, so that he could process my words.

Damian’s hand went up in the air, as if he had to feel the energy of the universe for confirmation of my words. “I’m not understanding…”

Now it was my turn at frustration.

“For fuck’s sake!” I exclaimed. “Don’t make me spell it out for you, Damian. I am telling you…I was with him.”

There was a moment of silence as my words finally hit.

Damian pressed his hands to his face, palms covering his eyes. “Jesus Christ. Noah. You— You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

That familiar panic was slithering up my spine yet again, its piercing claws stabbing into my shoulders, neck, face. I started rambling to try and explain myself.

“I’m telling you because you’re my brother, and…and…we’ve got to figure out something to tell the other cops. They can’t know the truth. But I need you to understand—he’s innocent.”

For some reason, those words didn’t feel right leaving my lips.

Damian closed the remaining distance between us, entering my breathing space. He was practically snarling.

“You’re telling me you had sex with that motherfucker in our house…again… and two minutes ago I catch you fondling Delane on the back of our car? What the fuck is wrong with you, Noah? What are you doing? Do you ever think with anything other than your dick?”

A slow burn crept up my neck and to my cheeks. The embarrassment was so bad, I wished I could dissolve.

Damian was right. I hadn’t planned on the encounter with Delane. Desire had taken hold of me, and I was never the one to turn it down. Stopping to think about my actions was not a typical process for me, but I saw Damian’s perspective easily. I was a reckless man-whore who didn’t give a single shit about anyone’s feelings.

I wanted to disappear from shame.

“What am I even going to do with you? Are you just stringing both Silas and Delane along, or what?”

My instant reaction was to go on the defensive. “No! Of course not. Silas and I aren’t serious. We—”

“Have you told him that?” Damian’s voice cut in before I could finish.