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Neo points a flashlight right at me and I know he’s waiting for the reaction he craves. He wants to see my fear. I glower at him, wishing I could find a way to blame this all on him.
When Crew and Jagger share a cryptic look before focusing their attention on Neo, I lose it. “Would someone fucking say something?”
“Baby,” Crew begins, “there’s something I need to tell you—” Before he can finish, he’s rudely cut off by Neo.
“Don’t you dare tell her,” Neo snaps, now shining his light on Crew.
“Fuck off, Neo. Can’t you see now that Scar isn’t behind this? Someone else is doing this, and it’s not just about her anymore.”
Jagger steps forward, finally having something to say. “Crew’s right. If we’re going to protect Scar and bring this fucker down, she needs to know everything.”
Neo shakes his head in disapproval. His sheer hatred for this situation radiating through the room. Because it’s now that Neo finally realizes he’s been wrong all along. He’s always wanted to blame me for everything bad in his life, and for the first time ever, he knows I’m not to blame, and it fucking kills him.
“Tell me,” I say, looking at Crew, then Jagger, and finally Neo. “Someone tell me what the hell is going on.”
To my surprise, it’s Neo who speaks up. “You want the truth?”
Crew steps in front of me, blocking my view of Neo. “I’ve got this. You two go figure out the light situation.”
There’s a few mumbles before the guys backtrack in the direction of the door. “Holler if you need us,” Jagger says to Crew, but his eyes are on me.
Once they’re gone, so is the light. Crew and I are standing beside my bed with the glow of the moon shining through my window.
He takes the picture from my hands and drops it down on the bed before wrapping his fingers around mine. “I should’ve told you a while ago, but I thought I was protecting you.”
I scowl back at him, not liking where this is going. “Told me what?”
“Remember when I was locked in the tunnels?” he asks, and I nod. “I found a door we’d never seen before. Or maybe we did and it was different then. It had a combination lock on it, and with some help, me and the guys got through to the other side.”
“And?” I press, wanting him to get to the point.
“And we found a room full of Blue Blood paraphernalia.” I can see the disdain in his eyes as he continues, “It was fucking insane. There were newspaper clippings, old artifacts, pictures—”
“My pictures?”
“No. Well, yeah. Once we were in there, we found another room.” He swallows hard, and it makes me do the same. “It was a room full of…you.”
“Of me?” I stretch my neck. “What’s that even mean?”
"It was this fucked-up shrine of you, Scar. All it took was one look in that room to know this sicko was obsessed with you.”
I gasp, feeling like my chest is caving in. “You’re kidding, right?”
He shakes his no and each movement makes me feel more and more dizzy. I step back, bumping into the new mattress, and I sit down. “I knew it,” I say, hardly recognizing my own voice. “I knew I wasn’t imagining all this.”
“You weren’t. Neo’s a damn idiot. Don’t listen to anything he says.”
His words elude me as I focus on the fact that Crew knew—they all did. “You knew this whole time and didn’t tell me?”
“I wanted to tell you, but Jagger and I both thought it was better this way. We didn’t want you to worry. But I swear, I planned to tell you the second we had a concrete suspect.”
“Or Neo didn’t want me to know what you guys found because he was convinced it was me and he wanted to stay two steps ahead?”
“No,” he huffs, “Neo wanted toexpose youfrom the start, but we were able to persuade him to wait. We wanted to find something that could prove it wasn’t you. And now we have.”
My gut wretches. Since when do I have to prove myself to anyone, especially Neo Saint? First he thinks I’m the reason Maddie fell, and now he thinks I’m crying victim from my own game.
I jump up and storm out of the room.
