“Yeah,” I say sheepishly. “Well, he knows how I feel—” I catch my faux pas — “felt about you. It’s the reason he broke up with me.”

Jase’s eyes light up at that, his eyebrows practically touching the ceiling above us. “He broke up with you because of me?”

“I kept calling out your name in bed,” I explain. Jase laughs a low, throaty sound that makes me blush as I realize what I’ve just said. “Not like that.”

Jase is still laughing and choking on a mouthful of vodka at the same time. “Are you sure?” he manages in between laughing and coughing.

I roll my eyes. “Nightmares, Jason. Not the other thing.”

His smile vanishes and he straightens again, any bit of humor or lightness completely wiped from his face. Idiot! I fervently wish I hadn’t said what I said.

“Aw, fuck,” he says, frowning again. “I’m sorry.”

“Stop saying sorry,” I admonish him with a small smile, trying to diffuse the tension that’s once again settled on us like a pillow held forcefully to the face. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

Only me, and my lies on top of more lies.

He doesn’t seem convinced. “I do.”

I shake my head. “No, you don’t. You almost got killed by your own family trying to save me. There’s no shame in that.”

There it is again. We’ve been dancing around that day, that day when I almost died, that afternoon of horror and pain.

“I should have fought harder,” he said, his shoulders slumping. “I go over it in my head all the time, you know. I could have taken the gun and shot him. I could have gotten us out somehow.”

I place a steady hand on his knee. He’s wearing thick denim jeans, but I can still feel the warmth of his skin radiating underneath.

“There was nothing either of us could have done differently.” It’s taken me years and many breakdowns to realize that neither of us were to blame for what Dornan orchestrated that day. I’ll forever regret that I couldn’t somehow save my father and the woman he loved, but I forgave myself for being powerless in the wake of our collective destruction around the same time that the doctor was sucking the remnants of a product of rape from my womb.

I’m momentarily transported back to the past, to the moment the mask was lifted from my face a little under six years ago, the moment the doctor smiled underneath her surgical mask and told me it was done. I’d been emptied of their sins, painfully absolved, but it was still many years before I’d been filled again with the hope of my vengeance against them.

So when Jase clamps his grip on my hand and squeezes tightly, it’s almost as if I’m falling, tumbling back into the present to sit beside him, my hand at his knee, an angry film covering each of his eyes.

“I should have killed them all the first chance I got,” he says, his face twisted into a mask of rage and pain.

I lean forward, placing my hand on his hot cheek, and when he doesn’t recoil, I smile.

“There’s still time,” I whisper softly, to the first boy I ever loved.

The roles reverse sharply—Jase is completely fucked, both physically and mentally. He hasn’t moved from his spot on the floor in hours. About an hour ago, I found a frozen pizza and shoved it into the oven, guessing it was cooked when the cheese started to bubble furiously on top. I gave it to him, and he ate it mechanically, until it was all gone. Then he resumed his listless staring into space.

Which brings us to now.

I’m lost. Up until now, I’ve always had a plan. A destination. People to fuck and people to kill. But now? I’m wandering around Jason’s apartment like a lost soul¸ wondering if I should go, or if I should stay. Finally, I decide to busy myself with cleaning up the glass from the vase and cell phone.

Three thoughts on repeat in my mind.

Dornan’s in a coma.

I just kicked Elliot out.

I think Jase hates me.

I crouch in front of Jase, who’s polished off half the bottle of vodka and all of the pizza I left for him. He’s still staring into space.

“Hey,” I say gently. “Earth to Jase? What’s going on in there?”

I’ve never seen him like this, and it’s freaking me out. Because I know I’m responsible for turning his life into a living hell. At least, today I’m responsible. Dornan brought him into hell with the rest of us the moment he killed Jase’s mother all those years ago.

He raises his watery brown eyes to meet my gaze and I have to force myself not to flinch underneath the weight of his stare. His jaw is clenched so hard I’m surprised his teeth haven’t started cracking. His fingers are curled around the neck of the vodka bottle like it’s a life raft and he’s afloat in an icy sea.

“What’s going on in here?” he echoes, tapping the side of his head. “You really don’t want to know.”

Probably not.

I kneel in front of him and rest one hand on his bended knee. “You should still tell me.”

He smirks, an expression I never want to see on his face. It makes him look like his father, which is a comparison I never, ever need to be reminded of. But he can’t help who his father is any more than I could help who my father was. Born into treachery, raised among darkness so vile, so toxic, our souls are unlike any others.

He might have escaped the first seventeen years of his life in blissful ignorance of the Gypsy Brothers’ life, but I’m pretty sure he’s all caught up and then some.

“I’m thinking about you and my father,” he says, and my heart sinks. “I’m thinking about all those times you were—” he struggles to get the next part out, “— with him, and it makes me want to kill you both.” He reaches up his spare hand and places it on my cheek. I don’t dare move, frozen to the spot, as he lets his hand trail down ever so gently to rest around my throat. He doesn’t squeeze, just lets it rest there as a not-so-subtle gesture.

“Let me guess,” I say, blood roaring in my ears as anger joins the shame already blanketing my being. Anger that we were ever put in this situation by our fucked-up families and the club that controlled us all. “You want to strangle me? Go ahead. I probably deserve it. Just promise me you’ll kill him as soon as you’re done with me.”

He drops the attitude and his hand from my throat; my skin burns where his hand rested, craving his touch once more. Which is all kinds of screwed up. But still. I’d much rather a threatening hand on my throat from Jase over a violently possessive lust-grip from his father.

Dornan. Why won’t you just die, motherfucker?

“I’ll never be done with you,” Jase mumbles, taking a fresh swig of vodka and grimacing as it no doubt burns his throat. “Even when you were dead, I wasn’t done with you. You haunted me for six fucking years. I’m still not sure you’re really here.”

I reach out my arm and trace the black circle under his uninjured eye. “When’s the last time you slept?” I ask, echoing the question he asked me a few days ago.

He shrugs.

“At least get off that floor and come sit on the sofa. I cleaned the glass off it.”

I stand and offer him my hand, which he takes, getting to his feet. He keeps ahold of his bottle of vodka but quickly drops my hand, reverting back into his own little universe. I frown, biting my lip.

“Do you want me to go?” I ask. There’s no malice in my tone, no hurt. If he needs his space, I’ll happily give it to him. There are a thousand fleabag motels in the greater Los Angeles area where I could hide out while I wait for Dornan to either wake up, or die.

God, I want him to die so badly.

Jase shakes his head. “No. Stay.” He doesn’t look at me, but his words are forceful enough that I believe he’s being genuine. I can forgive the dude for not being able to deal with all the shit I’ve stirred up in a very short time.