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I stop right behind him, staying silent.
I’m a broken man. I was born with a darkness inside me that calls for blood. I kill people, leaving their bodies to be found like a man dying to be put away for his sins. There’s a screaming violence inside me.
But I’ve never wanted to kill my brother.
Until now.
The voice that usually screams in my head is only a whisper right now. So calm and assured.
“She told you the truth about Sawyer blackmailing her and you called her a liar.” I’m not asking. I can put two and two together.
Before the truth even hits him, I grab the hair at the back of his head and slam his face against the window.
He grunts, bouncing against the glass. I’m quickly hit by the cup of coffee slamming into the side of my head. Glass breaks against my face, quickly washed away by burning coffee.
I hiss as I take a step back, wiping away the hot liquid. We stand apart, panting, eyes narrowed at each other.
I tilt my head to the side. “What happened to your shoulder?”
“Logan shot me.”
“Huh.” I shrug and punch him in the face.
He hits me back, and I try to grab the back of his neck, bringing my knee to his nose, but he grabs my leg, pushing it to the side. I have to let go of him to find my balance again.
I take a second to collect myself and so does he, running a hand through his blond hair and flicking back the strands that always fall in his eyes.
Clearly, this is going to lead us nowhere, and our agreement to stop is silent.
“You knew?” he asks.
It takes a lot to surprise Elliot, and it comes as a shock to the man who’s always five steps ahead.
“That Sawyer blackmailed her? Of course I knew. Why do you think I did all those things you’re happily holding over my head?”
“Oh, get over yourself, Ethan. I fucking own your ass. I have for years. Time to accept it. You helped her run away. It’s not the only thing I can tell Kay to get your ass killed.”
My jaw becomes so tight I can barely talk. The buzzing in my fingertips doesn’t announce anything good.
“You own my ass because I made sacrifices for her. It doesn’t make you better than me. It certainly doesn’t make you worthy of her.”
He runs a hand across his face, shaking his head. “No,” he laughs. “No, the first time you ceded to me wasn’t a sacrificeforher. You sacrificedher.”
“Because of you!”
“Yeah. Unlike you, I’d do anything for her. And no matter what offer is on the table, I would never let her go. Not like you did.”
My chest burns from my speeding heartbeat. I let Jade go because of what he offered me. It was his calculating mind that convinced me and my stupid ass that accepted. I was fucking seventeen. I knew nothing back then.
I shouldn’t have let her go. I should have stayed a loser, a reject, bullied and unwanted. It shouldn’t have mattered because I hadher.
I made a deal with the devil, and I’ve paid the price every day since.
His plan didn’t even get him what he wanted so badly. That’s what bothers him the most.
“You can own this entire town, threaten, kill, manipulate…the only person you want doesn’twant you back, Elliot. She’llneverwant you.”
The dangerous rage I see in his eyes does scare me a bit. Elliot becomes deadly when he’s inconsolable.
