He gestures around vaguely, seeming to encompass everything about their lives. Then his lips press together and he shakes his head.

“But it’s too late. You’re in it. Yesterday, you got thrown into the fucking deep end. We can’t force you out. We can’t undo what’s happened. All we can do is keep you safe.” His hands clench into fists. “I’ve already seen what happens when we try to keep you in the dark to protect you. When we try to push you away to keep you safe. I’m not going down that fucking road again. So you can come with us.”

My chest squeezes.

Ryland’s face is intrinsically harder to read than Theo’s. He keeps his emotions buried under a solid foot of concrete most of the time. His blowup at Doctor Adelman’s office was the most emotional I’ve ever seen him. It was like a flip had been switched, the feelings he keeps under such tight control bursting out of him whether he wanted them to or not.

He’s back under control this morning, his features carefully blank. But beneath his strong, dark brows, his hazel eyes glint with pain.

All three of the men who stalked me in the shadows for two and a half years did their best to protect me, even if it manifested in different ways.

I wish like fuck I could protect them back.

Nodding, I wrap my hand around the bicep of my opposite arm, fingers covering up the dark red flowers and gray-blue shading that covers my skin. “Thanks. I want to help.”

Theo steps back into the kitchen a second later, glancing between me and Ryland as he picks up his coffee cup. “We all good?”

“Yeah.” Ryland breaks his gaze away from mine and swipes his coffee off the kitchen island too. “We’re good.”

The guys insist on feeding me and getting more painkillers into my system before we go anywhere, and while I eat, they update me on what the hacker they’ve been in touch with has found—which is, unfortunately, pretty much nothing.

It only took a few minutes for him to realize that all the security footage around the warehouses had been wiped, but combing through camera feeds from the surrounding areas is more complicated and time consuming. So far, nothing has turned up, but he’s still looking.

My stomach turns into a ball of lead as they talk, and I have to shove away my plate with the rest of my breakfast half-eaten. Ryland shoots me a semi-disapproving look, but he doesn’t give me any shit for not being able to finish.

The fresh painkillers have taken the edge off my headache, and the bright rays of sunshine that glint off the other cars on the road as we drive over to my apartment don’t hurt my eyes like they did yesterday.

Theo’s driving today, and I’m up front beside him with Ryland in the back. I almost wish I’d sat in the back seat too, but I still don’t know quite where Ryland stands or how he feels about me. I don’t know if sharing his pain with someone would make it better or worse, so I don’t want to push him.

The drive is mostly quiet, broken only by the soft music that plays through the speakers. Theo slows the car to a crawl as he nears my apartment, and my skin prickles as the scent of smoke and ash reaches my nostrils even through the closed car window.

“Fuck…”

Theo’s voice is low, and I’m not even sure he meant to speak the word out loud. But it’s pretty much all there is to say about the burned-out shell of the building in front of us.

The lower stories don’t seem to have gotten hit as bad as the upper floors, but I don’t even think we’ll be able to get inside to check if any of my stuff survived the fire—or that it would be safe to walk upstairs in the fire-damaged building.

Sharp anger cuts through me like a knife.

Carson Purcell did this.

He destroyed not just my belongings, not just my apartment, but over a half-dozen other innocent people’s homes. Did he even care about the havoc he would wreak on their lives?

No.

I’m sure he didn’t even fucking think about it.

My hand tightens on the door handle as Theo pulls to a stop in front of my old building, cutting off the engine. But I make no move to open the door.

“It’s not fair,” I mutter, my voice harsh. “I want to kill Carson for this, but he’s already fucking dead. A bullet through the head was too good for that asshole.”

The vehemence of my words startles me, but I realize I mean them. Because I’m not just mad on my own behalf. I’m fucking furious that Carson treated innocent people—people he didn’t even know—as expendable in his bid to win the game. I have to believe none of the men who became my shadows would do something like that. Marcus killed Devin Brooks, but I can’t believe he would’ve willingly sacrificed innocent bystanders.

Hell, I was an innocent bystander who almost died, and he spent two and a half years following me, watching me, and obsessing over me.

If I’d stepped between a bullet and Carson Purcell, he probably wouldn’t even remember my name two years later.

“Vicious.”

Tags: Callie Rose Ruthless Games Erotic
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