Dulce

Neither of them jumps when I speak, but they both look at me with wary puzzlement on their faces.

“What’s all this?” Griffen asks.

“Your bacon is burning.”

“Fuck the bacon. Why do you have these? Who are these girls?”

“I don’t owe you anything, Griffen,” I snap, going on the defensive as I move toward the pan on the stove, but he intercepts me.

“Tell me you’re not working for my father.”

I rear back at that, surprised that’s where he went.

“What? Fuck no. I’d never work for an asshole like him.”

“So he raped you?”

I whip my head around at the ugly question coming from Hunter.

“No. Why would you think that?”

As soon as the words are out, I wish I could take them back because I know that he knows. This was all a setup. He still hates me. He just wanted to rip the veil from his friend’s eyes. He wants Griff to hate me as much as he does.

“Don’t,” I tell him softly.

His expression morphs to one of anger.

“Don’t what? Don’t tell Griff you were fucking his father too?” he snarls.

Something inside me shrivels at his words.

I’ve always been good at my job, and I know what I do makes a difference. I save lives with the information I gather and deal out vengeance for all the lives I couldn’t. It never felt dirty or wrong in any way, but with how they are both looking at me now, I realize I was deluding myself.

I’m a whore.

But it’s my fucking body and I owe these two less than nothing.

“You think you have everything all figured out, huh? You can think what you want about me, but what you just did… That was just to hurt Griff. He’s not my boyfriend. Hell, he’s not even my friend. I haven’t seen him in months. I’m just a girl he used to screw, a girl he used to like, but alas, things didn’t work out. I’m not making a play to get him back. You didn’t need to do this.”

“You’re the one who got away. He can’t leave it alone. Maybe now that he knows the truth, we can all move on.”

“Give me my things and I’ll go. You’ll never see me again. You don’t have to worry about that. Congrats, Hunter, you got exactly what you wanted.” A look of something crosses his face when he looks at Griff. It takes me a second to figure out what it is, and when I do, I laugh.

“Maybe not everything, huh? What, were you hoping you’d help him get over his broken heart? Newsflash, Hunter. Griff was never in love with me. He doesn't even know the real me. Nobody does.”

“What are you talking about?” Griff steps back from me to look at Hunter when the smoke alarm goes off.

“Fuck.” He jumps up and grabs the bacon pan and tosses it in the sink while Hunter waves a towel under the smoke detector.

I stand there looking at them, then look around the kitchen for the first time and wonder where the fuck I even am. Is this Hunter’s place?

The alarm cuts out, but somehow the silence is much louder.

“My stuff. Where is it?”

“Everly,” Griff starts, but I’ve had enough.

“Fuck you, Griff. Where is my stuff?”

He stalks forward and reaches for me, but I back up, not realizing before it’s too late that Hunter has moved behind me.

His hands grab my arms and pull them behind me. I lift my leg and kick him. He stumbles, but he doesn’t let go as he shoves me toward the counter and bends me over it, my face pressed against the photos.

“What the fuck do you want from me?” I scream as Griffen moves to sit on one of the bar stools and strokes my cheek.

“I want to know why,” Griffen tells me softly.

“Fuck you. Or better yet, fuck Hunter. I bet he’s just dying to feel you inside him.”

Griffen looks up sharply at Hunter before his eyes move back to mine, a more calculated expression on his face.

“What makes you think I haven’t? What makes you think I don’t know exactly what Hunter feels like or what he sounds like when he comes?”

I pant, surprised to find myself a little turned on at the thought.

“Who I fuck is of no concern to you now, is it? You’ve said as much, and I’d have to be pretty fucking stupid to not take the hint when my girl gives my father a blow job in his office.”

My eyes close in defeat. “You knew.”

“Of course, I knew. He sent me the live feed. I especially liked the part where he asked you whose dick you liked best, and you told him his.

“I was so fucking pissed. I watched it over and over, and you know what I noticed once I got past my anger? I noticed the dead look in your eyes. They were never like that with me. When I was inside you, you’d come alive.”

A tear runs free at his words.

“You hated every second of it. I know it, you know it, so I’m going to ask you one last time. Why?”

I swallow down a sob and speak before I can hold it back. “Because he was my mark.”