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Please say I haven’t, Kotyonok. Please say it.
She closed her eyes for a long moment. Then, when she opened them again, she focused on me. “You haven’t.”
My heart squeezed.
“But you do need to let me go.”
It took everything I had, but I released her and backed away.
“And I want to know why Karagiani is necessary again.”
Fuck.
“Please.”
Head tipped back, I forced my breathing to regulate. She was right.
I had to tell her.
ChapterThirty
LAINEY
The resistance in his expression seemed to melt away, only to be replaced by resignation. Whatever was going on, he didn’t want to tell me. On some levels, I very much understood his dislike of the inevitable.
“You know Adam—” He paused there, then shook his head once. “Let me begin again. The night of the auction. Do you recall what I said to you?”
He’d said a lot of things, including the fact my mouth was the only one he wanted to fuck. A fact he made reality a few days later. “That my freedom came at a price and neither of us can count on Adam anymore.”
This close, I couldn’t miss the way his pupils dilated or the intensity flaming inside his wild green eyes. The hint of redness around his sclera looked more the result of a lack of sleep, or maybe too much alcohol. I also couldn’t discount the mottled bruises messing up the side of his face.
I hated to see him hurting, but I needed to close off that sympathy. It wouldn’t help either of us in this confrontation at the moment.
“Yes,” he exhaled the word, deflating like someone let all the air out of him. When he moved to sit, I sat with him. Twisting sideways, I ended up resting my knee against his even as he held onto my hand. “Your freedom—from all of this bullshit.”
“What bullshit?” Specifics helped.
“The Royals. King. The fight with the Vandals. The business takeovers…”
I raised my brows. “You and Adam kept me out of the Royals?” That was new. “Was I supposed to be recruited?”
Who else in our circle had been?
“Yes,” he said slowly. “Adam made it a condition of his accepting his place. At the time… at the time, I thought it was the right thing to do. I don’t know what King leveraged initially. Adam didn’t tell me. I only knew that Adam made it a condition once he would join. He would do the tasks and earn his spot—butyouhad to be kept out of it.”
“But not you?” That made me ache for Ezra if Adam has traded my freedom for his place but allowed Ezra to fall. At the same time, that didn’t sound right.
“No, not me and not because of his choices. I can be annoyed with him, but the simple truth was—I made that bed. I chose to lie in it. We didn’t know who he was then. He was a voice on the phone, a letter received, it could have all been absolute bullshit…”
I nodded, that would have been my thought. Like someone was playing a game with our lives. In essence, he was.
“So, the initial approach? Adam told him to get fucked. I can say that he did that, because I was standing right next to him when he took that call. Then you were in that car accident.”
I frowned.
“That was…”
“When you were seven.”
