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I look up in horror to find Eden staring at Annabeth and me with wide, watery eyes. The hurt in her expression is clear, her mouth open and her cheeks bright red.
I push Annabeth away and stand, already starting toward Eden. “Wait!”
Eden turns and rushes off, leaving me no choice but to follow.
“Eden! Eden, I saidwait!”
“I can’t believe it,” she says around a sob.
I catch up to her easily thanks to my long legs. When I reach out to take her hand, she bats me away. “I can explain,” I insist.
“There’s no need. I saw enough.”
I grasp her by the shoulders and spin her around. “Are you okay? Why did you leave the hospital? I’ve been trying to reach you for hours!”
“I had to turn my phone off,” she says around a whimper. “Hunter, those pictures… They’re everywhere.”
“I’m going to fix this, Eden. I promise.”
“You promise a lot of things. Look how well that worked out for me.” Her bottom lip trembles, heavy tears streaming down her cheeks. “Everybody knows about us. Have you seen the things they’re saying? Half of Los Angeles thinks I’m a gold-digging slut!”
“That isn’t true. We both know they’re wrong!” I try to pull Eden into a hug, but she steps away. “Eden… Please, I can make this right. I can protect you.”
“Protect me? Just like how you supposedly protected my mom?”
My mind blanks. “What?”
“Annabeth told me you came to her rescue, but you failed to mention that you’re the reason Jack Walton got his hands on her in the first place.”
Something dark grips my insides, a cold bitterness filling me from the inside out. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t lie to me, Hunter. Walton told me everything.”
I clench my fists. “Walton is a fucking liar.”
“Your dragon tattoo,” she says quietly. “You got it because you were a part of Walton’s crew. An enforcer.”
I don’t know what to say. I’m torn between tracking Walton down and tearing his windpipe out with my bare hands and doing nothing at all. What’s more concerning to me is that Walton managed to get to Eden while I wasn’t looking.
But the worst part? She isn’t wrong.
“I was a different person back then,” I say slowly. “I was… lost. I made bad choices. Walton gave me the chance to work for my meals.”
“By breaking people’s kneecaps?” she snaps. “By deliberately trapping people in his loan schemes and then hurting them when they couldn’t pay up?”
“Eden—”
“Don’t fucking touch me.”
“I righted my wrongs. I couldn’t deal with the guilt of what I’d done so I turned him in.”
“And what about my mother?”
“Whataboutyour mother?”
“Did you have an affair with her?”
I snarl. “I’m offended you’d think so lowly of me. You’re just like your father.”
