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“Nah, I fucking love your mouth, too.”
Her tiny hand slaps my shoulder. “You’re an idiot.”
“Your idiot?”
“Well, we’re only seventeen, remember? It’s a little soon to be making these life-changing decisions.”
“You don’t want this?” I ask, my heart sinking.
“Honestly, Theo, I have no idea what I want right now. Everything since I got back from holiday has been beyond fucked up. I just need… time.”
I nod at her, pulling her closer once more and resting her head on my shoulder so we can move together. The music around us is fast and upbeat, but neither of us makes a move to keep up.
My heart thunders in my chest as I hold her tighter, unable to shake the feeling that she’s slipping away from me.
I hoped tonight might be the start of something, but I can’t help but feel that the end might be coming faster than I want, that the second I let her walk out my front door, she won’t even look back.
“Five minutes,” someone calls from the other side of the room, and when I look up, I find waitresses flooding the room, passing out flutes of champagne ready for the big moment.
“Hey,” Emmie says, wrapping her hand around the back of my neck. “Are you okay? You look… concerned.”
“Y-yeah,” I say, looking down into her dark eyes. “I’ve got you pressed up against me; what could be better?”
Finding her lips, I kiss her as if we’re not standing in the middle of a room filled with damn near three hundred people, but alone, in my flat, just us.
Before I even realise any time has passed, the music cuts out and people around us start counting down to midnight.
Emmie doesn’t pull back from our kiss until everyone sings, “Three.”
She looks directly into my eyes, allowing me to see everything she really feels within her dark depths. The hope that I’d been quickly losing surges forward. It’s all been in my head. Everything is going to be okay.
“Two,” the room sings. “One.”
“I’m sorry, Theo. I really am,” Emmie says, confusing the fuck out of me as the room explodes with excitement before a series of bangs sound out and Emmie darts back and out of my arms.
“What the—”
Screams and shouts sound out as the lights go up, revealing a series of armed, cut-wearing arseholes around the room.
The fucking Reapers.
“Emmie?” I look at where she was only seconds ago, but she’s gone. “Emmie?” I shout, searching the room of terrified women and the men who’d go to the ends of the Earth to protect them.
When I locate her, all the unease I’ve been feeling tonight begins to make sense.
She was fucking playing me.
All of this, last night… all of it was just part of an act to get to this point.
I take a step forward toward where she stands with Cruz and Xander behind her, protecting her with guns aimed directly at my head.
I don’t have my piece, much like I know the majority of the men in the room don’t. We’re safe here. We’re meant to be safe here.
Seb, Alex, Nico, Toby, and Daemon step up to me as Dad, Charon and Evan emerge from only a few feet away.
Daemon and Evan are the only ones holding guns, ready to take action.
I look between them and Emmie and Cruz, something inside me shattering.
