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“She stayed in your room last night?” Did the words come out accusing? Yes. Because she should sleep in my room. Irrational. Possessive. Unhinged. All the above. I can’t fight it.
He glances at her closed door, a soft smile on his bruised face. “It was the best I’ve slept in years.”
“Did you bite her?” I threw the words out as if they were a venomous snake ready to strike.
He laughs and brings his brown eyes back to me. “No. All we did was sleep, you possessive asshole. Not that I should tell you the truth with how you’re acting.”
“He thought she ran,” Felix supplies, unhelpfully I might add.
“I wouldn’t blame her if she did,” Saint says with a shrug. “She’s been through a lot. Speaking of that, Jason is out. He can’t run the mission with us.”
Jason Vanross. The bastard who is rumored to have taken out the head of the De Luca Mafia. Audrey’s father, if she really is one of the twins.
“Jason?” Felix asks.
The door to Audrey’s room cracks open, and she appears dressed in a hoodie and leggings as I reply to Felix.
“Vanross,” I murmur.
She freezes like a bunny ready to flee. Her fingers curling into the cuffs of her hoodie as she crosses her arms, practically vibrating with contained emotion. It is all the confirmation I need to know it’s true. She is a De Luca, worth as much as me and twice as powerful if she took over her father’s place with her brother. She never needed to be stealing on the streets in the first place. Living like a waif. It makes me irrationally angry with her.
If Sidney had tried to take everything from me, Audrey lived that life and lost literallyeverythingshe was entitled to. All because of the betrayal of her father’s inner most circle.
“Did he hurt you?” I ask. Setting the O.J. on the table as I stand up, straightening to my full height.
Something flashes in the depths of her eyes, and she presses her lips together, her forehead creasing with whatever she isn’t saying.
“How do you know Jason?”
The familiar way she says his name has a growl forming in my throat, rumbling like a threat from my lips.
“He was part of the plan to steal the painting back. He knows the layout of the Valentine’s place.”
She abuses her lower lip with her teeth as she absorbs what I admitted. “Was?”
“Now he is a dead man walking,” Saint says.
Audrey shifts on her heels, looking over at him, a softness on her face that wasn’t there last night, only for him. Jealousy for Saint spreads through me like a poison. I need her to look at me like that.
“The contract is void. You can leave. You can keep the apartment with your brother.” Three sets of eyes slam into me, and I straighten my shoulders. The words might have come out clipped and slightly angry, but that isn’t how I meant it. I just want her to know she is free. I can’t hold her here.
Instead, a tenseness straightens her shoulders, and she swipes her tongue over her lips before looking at the other two. They don’t say a word, but I can read their expressions. Neither one of them wants her to walk away, but they would let her.
“Oh,” she says, her fingers curling deeper into her sleeves. “I–”
She sucks in a breath, and suddenly, I can’t breathe until she does. She’s going to leave.
CHAPTER36
Audrey
Whiplash.
That is what I have. Of course, an alpha would toss me away after they got what they wanted. It was a lesson I’d already learned in the past. I bet Austin is only sad he didn’t get his painting first. The pretty lies Saint whispered in the dark last night meant nothing. And his promise of eliminating Jason is just an empty one.
I blink, praying any telltale wetness from their rejection doesn’t show. And I focus my thoughts on the strength I had to have to get this far, hoping against hope that my perfume doesn’t betray me as I get my stuff and leave.
“I’ll be gone before you know it,” I say, ducking my head.
