He frowned heavily. “I don’t like this.”
“Come on,” she said. “The other girls distract me too. You want us to do better. This is the way.”
“You’ll do your sprints and weights too?” He was asking both of us.
I nodded.
“You know I already do,” Faith answered.
“I lift with my boyfriend.”
He pointed at me. “You do sprints with him too from now on.”
I stood next to Faith. “I will.”
He waited a minute, staring at us, and then he gestured to the door. “Fine. Go. Our next meet is Friday. Check in with me every day with your progress.”
I followed Faith outside and asked, “What are you doing? What was all that about in there?”
She stopped and turned to face me, cocking her head to the side. “Why do you think that was a charade? Maybe I really am grateful to you for making me a better runner and friend. I’m a better person, thanks to you.”
“You have an angle. What is it?”
“Right.” She snorted, starting to walk backward, away from me. “Because that’s a good battle tactic: declare your intent to the enemy.” She rolled her eyes. “I thought you were better than that.”
I was . . . but no. I wasn’t. That was Mason and Logan’s job. They fought the fights. I just followed behind and reaped the benefits.
“You’re right.”
“What?” She stopped, her forehead wrinkling as she frowned at me.
“You’re right. I’ve never been good at this kind of fighting. Mason and Logan have done everything for me—the plotting, the manipulation, the deceit. I have verbal exchanges. That’s my fighting. And the last time I really went against another girl, she and her friends jumped me in a bathroom. They put me in the hospital.”
Fuck you, Kate, and your old clique.
But Faith was right. She was a female Mason. She was the mastermind. I wasn’t. A sudden, different kind of humility swept through me. I’d judged Mason, getting mad that he didn’t include me with his decisions before, but who was I to be upset about that? Everything he did was to protect me. Everything.
Faith was watching me as if I’d grown a second head. “You okay, Strattan? What’s going on with you?”
“Nothing.” But I was distracted. “Thank you, Faith.”
“Me?” Her eyebrows shot up to where her hair met her forehead. “What did I do?”
“You helped me too.”
I wanted to see Mason. He had practice, and he wouldn’t be done till later in the evening. I promised Coach I’d do sprints and weights with Mason, but that would push us back another hour, and we had our dinner with Helen tonight.
I couldn’t do anything now, and for once, I didn’t want to do the one thing I always wanted to do.
I did it anyway. I went on a run.
MASON
“You won.”
Those were two words I normally would’ve loved to hear from Adam Quinn, but as I put my gym bag into the Escalade, the sight of him standing at the end of my vehicle didn’t give me a good feeling. He was pale, bags under his eyes, and looked like he needed a meal or a good night’s sleep.
“When’s the last time you slept, Quinn?”
A broken laugh barked from him, and he shoved two fists into his baggy coat pockets. “That’s your greeting to me? I just told you that you won.”
“I heard. What are you doing here, Quinn?”
He snorted again, still sounding bitter. “At least have the decency to call me by my name. I’m here. I’m conceding defeat. You. Won. You won. You can be happy now. Right? Because that must be why you destroyed my life.” His voice rose, and he was almost spitting out his words. “Right?” His nostrils flared. “I mean, you did what you said you’d do. You ruined me. Becky wants nothing to do with me, and that video—you’re always going to have that over me, aren’t you?”
My phone was in my pocket, not my bag. I shut the Escalade’s door and faced him squarely.
He kept going. “The case against my dad is bad. He’s going to go away, but it doesn’t even matter. His reputation is ruined.” Another hard laugh. “And that’s what you have against me now. You took my girl. You have my reputation, and I can’t even get mad at you. I set myself up. The video I used against you. I broke into your house. It’s perfect.” He looked down at the ground, shaking his head. “It’s just perfect.”
A sad echo.
He wanted me to feel pity for him? Fury lit a flame inside me. He’d tried to take my life away. He tried it again, and that was after a few years of peace. I clenched my jaw. I didn’t feel pity for this guy. He was a feral animal. Wounded, backed into a corner, but he’d come back fighting. I had no doubt about it.
I eyed him. “Why are you wearing a coat?”
“Huh?”
I nodded at him. “This is California, and it’s eighty. Why are you wearing that coat?”
He looked down at it like he hadn’t realized he had it on. “I don’t know.” His voice was strained again, quiet. “I don’t remember putting it on.”
“Why are you here, Adam?”
His eyes flicked to mine at the mention of his name. I saw something lighten, like he was thankful for that. Then he closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
“I don’t know.” He was almost murmuring to himself. His head hung low. “I think I came to let you know that. You won.” He rolled his eyes up and let his head fall back. “What am I going to do? My dad is furious, but he’s going to prison. He’ll get convicted. The evidence against him is rock solid. Becky won’t talk to me. I have no one anymore.”
The parking lot was almost empty. I had taken longer than usual to get ready because the plan was to meet Sam and Logan at the hotel for Helen’s dinner. I could feel my phone buzzing in my pocket. It was probably Sam or Logan, or both of them, wondering where I was. I could’ve reached in and hit one button to let them listen to the conversation, but then they’d know Quinn was here. They’d come.
They couldn’t come.
If he was going to do something, he was only going to get me. No one else.
“I was going to go to law school, Mason.” His shoulders crumbled before me. He was almost shrinking in size. “I was engaged to a great girl. Becky loved me for me. She was there in the beginning. She was always there for me, and I wouldn’t look at her. Not like that. It was Sam for me.” He cursed softly. “Man, Sam was so beautiful.”
He looked up again, a sheen of tears in his eyes. “I fell for her before Sallaway did. I wanted her first. She was stunning. I tried to talk to her, but she never saw me. Then he swooped in and got her, and she was gone. I started dating Ashley after that, but Sam was the one I wanted.”
That flame inside me was building. I wasn’t enjoying this walk down Adam’s memory lane.
“Then when I heard he was cheating on her, it was only a matter of time,” he continued. “She’d find out, and there was no way she’d stay with him. No way. Not a girl like her. She had spine. Morals. Values. And those stupid friends of hers. Both of them. They were horrible. One was screwing the boyfriend, and the other knew about it. I ended things with Ashley. First excuse I got, I jumped on it. Everything was lined up. It was a matter of time. I was willing to wait, then move in when Sam dumped him, and she would fall in love with me.”
He looked at me again, his jaw hardening. “Then you came along, and I didn’t even know it. That was the thing. I had no clue.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “You would’ve moved faster?”
“Yeah. I would’ve asked her out right away. I wouldn’t have tried becoming friends first.”
“You had since first grade to become friends with her. Don’t put that on me.”
A vein popped out in his neck. “Shut up.”
My eyebrow went up. “Excuse me?”
“You heard what I said.” A growl started in the back of his throat. His hands were in fists again, pressing against his side. He looked like he wanted t
o lunge, but restrained himself. “You and your fucking brother. I had no idea how much I would hate you guys.”
I frowned. “And if you had? What?”
“I would’ve handled it before now.”
What the fuck was this guy saying?
“You want to elaborate on that?”
A car’s lights swept over the parking lot as it turned in, but it parked far away. I tried to see who it was, but couldn’t. The air was thick with tension. If I moved, I didn’t know what Quinn would do.
I was still wondering about that damn coat. Why wear a coat? He didn’t grab it by accident. There was a reason.
“I don’t need to.” He started shaking, but he didn’t seem to realize it. Fury shone in his eyes. “You took everything, Kade. Everything.”
Voices sounded from the gym’s door. It was two football players, but they didn’t come our way. They headed to the section where the other car had parked. Who had that been?
“And Becky,” he started, his head hanging back down.
We were on a loop. I didn’t know why he came here, but he was going to repeat everything he just said.
Then someone appeared behind him.
He wasn’t looking at me, and I opened my mouth to tell them to leave, but the words died in my throat.
Sam looked at me. She saw me, then Adam, and I watched the blood drain from her face. Horror filled her eyes.
No.
No.
Icy dread formed in my gut, but I could only shake my head and motion for her to go.
She started to come forward.
I mouthed, “NO!” I put my hand up in a stopping motion.
She skidded to a stop again, her eyes on Adam. I could see a question in there, but she closed them for a moment.
I breathed a little easier. She was going to stay silent.
I motioned for her to leave.
She shook her head.
I did it again, an abrupt and almost savage motion.
She shook her head again, crossing her arms over her chest.
This woman—
Adam lifted haunted eyes back to me. “Why’d you have to take Becky from me?”
Sam’s frown deepened. Her forehead wrinkled.
“Kade!” he barked at me.
Fuck. He’d been expecting a response. “What?” I rubbed a hand over my face.
This could go from bad to worse. Sam had to get out of there. How the hell could I make her leave without letting him know she was there?
“Monson called her. What did he say?”
My alarms were blasting. This was why he’d come. Not Sam. Becky, because Nate called her. I stilled. Nate never actually talked to Becky. It was a bluff, one that he bought.
“How do you know he wasn’t honest with her?”
His nostrils flared again. “You told your best friend to take her from me. Logan slept with Ashley. You took Sam from me. Now it’s Nate’s turn, right? He’s going to make Becky fall in love with him, isn’t he?”
What?
I was distracted.
Sam was here.
He was talking.
Nate.
Becky.
“Kade!” he yelled, a vein pulsing in his neck.
“What do you want? You tried to set me up, you fucker.” Take the offense. Make him go defensive. I started for him. “That video could’ve put me away for years. My future would’ve been ripped from me.”
He stepped back.
It worked.
“It wouldn’t have,” he said. “You always get off. You and Logan. You get the girl. You get the life I wanted. You get the future.”
“I don’t want to be a lawyer.”
“Logan does.”
“Because of you. Because you and your dad kept fucking with us. He sent Caldron after Sam. He sent him to hurt her, and you were there.” That flame was a full fire in me now. Fuck what I did to his life. He tried to take mine. “You were there, you fucker. You did nothing. You stood there and did nothing!”
“I didn’t know. I didn’t. I didn’t see them, and when Becky told me, I couldn’t stop him. He was there with his friends. All of them against me. It wouldn’t have worked.” Some of his rage left. He sounded sorry. “I never wanted to hurt Sam. That was one concession I made with my dad. I insisted she’d never get hurt. Caldron went rogue that day.”
“Or the first time he attacked me and her? Are you not remembering that time either?”
“That was at your friend’s fight?”
I nodded.
“He wasn’t supposed to touch her. Just you.”
“Him and ten of his friends.”
Adam shrugged. “Whatever it took.”
To hurt me. That was what he meant. Whatever it took to hurt me.
I wanted to hurt him. All over again. I could feel it rise up in me, and I had to remind myself that I had hurt him. That was why he was there, but he wouldn’t go away. This asshole was never going to go away.
“But why Becky? Why her?”
“Because you loved her, and you lost her. You. Not me. And she doesn’t even know about the video.” I grinned, knowing it was a hard smile. “Imagine what she’d say if she knew what you’d done there.”
He paled, but he didn’t respond. He couldn’t. Those were all his fuck-ups, and he knew it. He couldn’t spin it around to blame someone else, and my patience was growing thin. If he was here to do something, he needed to get on with it—and before he realized Sam was here. I didn’t trust him. He claimed he didn’t want to hurt Sam, but I felt no guarantee.
“You lost her,” I ground out. My hands moved into fists. “You did that. Maybe I was pissed after you tried to set me up. Maybe I was even madder after you broke into our house. Who the fuck cares? Or maybe Nate knew she was single. She told Sam she broke it off with you. Maybe he wanted to see how she was doing, and he called once to do that, and that morphed into something else.”
“You’re lying.” His voice was shaking. “Stop lying!”
I moved toward him again. One more step. Come on, fucker. Do what you came to do.
I kept my voice level, steady. “Have you asked yourself why she answered the call? If it was something about you, Sam would’ve called. Or maybe she didn’t answer? Maybe he called, and she waited for him to leave a message?” I waited one second. I wanted his mind following along. I wanted him to imagine her perspective, to understand what I was saying. I was lying through my teeth here, but I didn’t care. I wanted him to act now, not later, not when he knew Sam was here. “That means she would’ve called him back. She would’ve dialed him up.”
His shaking was worse. I didn’t think he could get any paler than he was, but he did. He was almost as white as a piece of