Total pages in book: 150
Estimated words: 148434 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 742(@200wpm)___ 594(@250wpm)___ 495(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 148434 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 742(@200wpm)___ 594(@250wpm)___ 495(@300wpm)
“What do you want me to do?”
“Go back in time,” Akara says coldly. “The moment you started fucking your client, you come to me and tell me you crossed that line. That’s what I want, but we’re too late for that.”
I grimace. “I didn’t want to put that on you—”
“I’m your fucking lead.” He steps away from the window in hot angered movements. “You, out of everyone, should understand what that means, but instead of giving me the same respect I would’ve given you, you decided to shackle me and dump me on the bottom of an ocean. We could have come up with a solution together because that’s what friends do. But you and me, we’re not friends, are we?”
Hurt claws down my back.
I can count on my hand the amount of real, honest and good friendships I’ve made over the years. Ones where people don’t treat me and my brother like one person or an object or something to poke fun at.
Akara might have been the most real friendship I’ve ever had, and I feel it slipping through my fingers, already obliterated to dust.
“I blew it,” I tell him, my chest on fire. “I didn’t know how to tell you about Jane without implicating you.” I inhale sharply, bottling a stronger emotion. “Akara, I thought I was sparing you the blame.”
“You’re on my Force. You’re one of mine.” He removes his baseball cap and bunches it in a tight fist. “Your mistakes are my mistakes. What you were trying to do isn’t even possible. And I feel like such…a fucking idiot.” He sighs in frustration and throws his cap onto the mattress.
I’m rigid, muscles strained. “Are Price and Sinclair still giving you hell?”
He glances over at me and raises his brows. “That’s what we’re not going to do. You lost the privilege to talk with me about that shit.”
“You’re really going to shut me out?” I lower my voice. “Banks isn’t here. Who else do you have to talk to about that shit?”
It was always him and me. My brother couldn’t give a rat’s ass about the lead position, but Akara and I were bred for this.
“No one,” he says. “But lucky for you, we don’t have to spend another minute together.” He bends down and grabs the strap to his duffel. His eyes ping to the bathroom door. It’s a Jack & Jill style that leads to another bedroom where Jane, Sullivan, and Luna sleep.
I shake my head, fucking confused. Maximoff and Farrow handed out room assignments, and they intended for me and Jane to use the bathroom as a way to secretly switch during the night. They also put O’Malley, Tony, and Will on the furthest side of the house, so they wouldn’t overhear Jane and me.
But that plan involved Akara agreeing to it.
He didn’t.
“I don’t understand.” I rest my hand on my taut shoulder. “If I remember correctly, you said fuck no, I’m not letting you get laid every night.”
He nods. “You don’t deserve it. But I realize in this moment that I don’t deserve having to share space with you. Have whatever sex you want, I’m out.” He aims for the door.
My pulse hammers, and I take a couple strides to intercept him. “Wait.” I grab onto his arm.
He stares at my hand and then at my eyes.
I don’t move. “If I had told you I was sleeping with Jane, do you really think the outcome would have been different? There was no way out of this, Akara. You: on this shit-end of Price and Sinclair’s judgment, and me: axed from her detail.”
His face breaks into pity, and it’s like being swallowed by a black hole. Endless nothing on the other side. “You spent less than a year on Jane’s detail,” he says, his voice softer now that we’re closer to the door. “Do you realize that I spent more than three years as a bodyguard to a Cobalt? Two of those were on Connor’s detail. And you know what I learned from that time?”
My stomach twists, a sickening feeling surging all at once.
He looks up with that same pity. “There’s always a way out. You don’t have to fall on a sword because it’s sitting in front of you, waiting. You put together the team that’s going to find the right exit. You sidelined me. That’s on you.” He pushes my hand off his arm. “Move.” He reaches the door, gripping the knob, and leaves.
* * *
Akara just cock-blocked my mind.
When he leaves and Jane enters, I wrestle with two conflicting sides. I want to fuck my girlfriend, to please Jane how she needs and deserves to be pleased, but it doesn’t feel right to be happy or satiated after everything I’ve done and everything he said.
I untie my boots while Jane lights candles around the room, a tartan blanket warming her shoulders like a shawl, and we sneak these smoldering glances that burn my soul into blistered pieces—and I’ve craved to tear off her jeans, her shirt, her bra.