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She waves in front of Luke’s face to unlock it, then checks the call list. Her eyes go wide the next moment, but she’s staring right at Loreley. Frozen. Unable to tell her that the one that actually betrayed her, the one whose fault it is for losing what she loved, is the one that sleeps in her bed.
“Morri….?” Loreley’s voice is meek, begging almost, pleading that the reality she sees plastered all over her best friend’s expression is not the same one we presented to her. She pulls the phone out of her hands and looks for herself. “The timestamp… Morri, whose number is this…”
“Answer me!” she rasps when the response doesn’t come.
“It’s Ryan’s number…” It’s almost as if she’s afraid to speak the words that spell betrayal.
We all watch as the soft, broken look on Loreley’s pale features morphs until they settle on one vicious emotion: anger. By the time she turns to her boyfriend, she’s red in the face, a deep crease between her eyebrows, lips tight, and with that phone in hand, she smashes her man right across his jaw, whipping his head to the side with enough force that we hear the crack of the phone screen.
Morrigan goes to pull her away, but I grab her hand and shake my head at her. We’ll stop her if it goes too far, but for now… Loreley needs this. She looks at me, emotions clear in her eyes, but it’s not the time or place to talk about this. Sure… I would like an apology for her belief that I would betray her in such a way, but then again… the man Loreley has been living with for quite some time has done exactly that. The ball most definitely isn’t in our court tonight.
“Why, you goddamn son of a bitch?! You motherfucker!!!” The crack of his nose echoes through the concrete room, as Loreley smashes her fist right in the middle of his face. “Answer me!” She goes again, sinking her fist in his stomach as he spits blood on his t-shirt.
“For you!!! For us! Because I fucking love you!” he shouts as his bloody nose drips into his mouth.
“What?!” she yells, but we’re all confused at this point.
“I wanted that bitch out of our lives!” he spits toward Morrigan. “I fucking hated you since the moment we met. I knew you would get in our way. Too many fucking opinions, too much advice, too much influence you have on Loreley! We would have been more if it wasn’t for you, always in the fucking way, always around, now in business together, living under my goddamn roof, spending our money!”
“Myroof!Mygoddamn money! Not yours,mine!” Loreley pulls his attention back to her. “You’re telling me you did this because you were jealous of my relationship with my friend?”
“I loathe her! She’s a horrible influence, always pulling you down, pulling you into her fucking drama, her issues, and now with the goddamn Sanctum, out of all things?! I wanted to make it look like you lost everything because of her. I wanted you to see what I see and drop her. Send her fucking packing! Away from us! Away from you. You don’t need friends! You have me! You don’t need anyone else to get in our way! I want it to be us two, just us, forever!!!”
At this point, we’re all a bit flabbergasted, watching the ramblings of this man that has a few too many control issues, and they’re not even the good ones. Fair enough, I would be wary of who Morrigan associates with, but… this is weird.
“That’s it… you wanted Morrigan out of my life,ourlife, and your solution was to tell the man forcing her to marry him, the one who abuses her, the one that fucking kidnapped her in front of my eyes, that she’s in business with me?! Then you wanted to ruin things further by telling him that she’s involved with the only people that can help her out of it.”
Luke’s gaze becomes clearer as his eyes widen, the realization that he fucked up only now dawning on him… yet he still seems to have some hope in there as he begins to plead with her. Only Loreley falls into a frenzy of punches, slaps, and kicks, probably hurting herself more than him, and just as I’m about to jump in, Madds closes the distance between them, wraps his arms around her and pulls her away even as she kicks and screams.
“What do you want us to do with him?” I ask Loreley.
“Oh, I know what I would fucking do to him!” Finn pulls a gun and sticks the end of the barrel to Luke’s temple, who just freezes in place. He’s not from our world, so he doesn’t fully grasp our ways. I’m sure he’s never even seen a gun before, let alone felt the cold metal of the barrel against his skin.
“No!” she shouts. “I want him to pay, but no death. Please, no death!”
“Thank you, my love, then…”
“Don’t you fucking dare call me that! You will go as far away as possible from me, from us.” She reaches for Morri’s hand, and she quickly grabs it. “You will never contact me, never fucking think of me, never dare step foot even in the neighboring towns! If you do, The Sanctum will be the least of your problems. You will disappear from my life, unless you wish to disappear altogether.” And with that, she turns on her heels and leaves the room, Morrigan pulling out of my grasp and following her out.
“Do not let him go until we tell you.” I look at my men, as Finn, Carter, and Madds follow the girls out of the room. “When our plan has ended, throw his ass as far away from this town as possible. Got it?” They all nod and I walk out after the others.
He’s a liability, and we can’t risk him going to Holt or O’Rourke before we get to them. And goddamnit, my hands are itching to get to Holt. The gun straps next to my ribs vibrate against my muscles, begging me to just go now and blow his fucking brains out.
Only I can’t. He’s my only in, because if the address he gave me for Boseman is a trap, which I suspect it is, I have to keep him alive until Boseman is found; and dead. Although I suspect I may have to fight with Morrigan over who gets to end Holt.
A smirk pulls at my lips… it sounds like a good fight to have.
* * *
MORRIGAN
We’rein this small room at the end of the corridor, my arm wrapped around Lulu’s shoulder as I watch the man I felt betrayed by walk in. I was almost convinced it was him, and the part that wasn’t sure was merely hoping that it wasn’t true.
I went to the worst-case scenario in two seconds flat, and as his obsidian eyes fall on me, I’m not sure how to apologize.
I realize that it’s not because I can’t find the words, but because I fear that it will not be the only time something will happen and I will automatically throw the blame on him because of past events.
Do I not trust him?
