Page 163 of Game Night: Truth or Dare

Their relentless attacks have finally unveiled my location, and the power they have over me brings me to my knees.

It hurts.

It hurts so bad.

I don’t want this.

I never healed, and I never moved on.

I’ve dreaded this moment and yearned for it. My phone rings, and I look down to see Lia’s name. The press have been all over the Raines for weeks now. Bethany has returned with a pack that the press is calling Saint Crow. Her return has led to the press hounding Kelly and pouring hours of speculation on why Raider is off his game. Locke leaving Derision hasn’t helped, and though we are the only ones who know, him finally revealing the horror he’s been suffering has changed everything. We aren’t innocent anymore, not that I think we ever were.

Lia and the Mirakill MC finally managed to get their asses into gear and have become a pack, and when she sat down and told me about her mum, I held her, and we cried for hours. The press is calling her the Outlaw Raines, and I love those bikers so fucking much for saving her. And then to add fuel to the fire, Bailey, our newest Raines, Lia’s baby brother, is throwing down and stirring up the Raines clan like a kid using a stick to hit a hornet’s nest.

And I’ve been doing my best to avoid this moment, knowing I can’t outrun it forever, but trying. So hard. It has to happen. It was coming.

Still, I’m not ready.

But this is the start of the end for me. My ultimate play. If I fall, my father will bury me with a pack, and everything about me will fade until I, too, perish.

But if Fate’s Choice force me to do this, I will have no choice but to continue my plan and risk ruining us all.

“You look well,” I say quietly. Everything I planned for leads me back to this moment.

“Get in the fucking car, Beta Raines. We have a contract to discuss.”

I incline my head, following Tyr and his frosty tones to their black SUV. I climb in, noting the scents I thought I’d remembered perfectly are stronger and more intense than my memory allows for.

Time to face the piper.

And try to survive.

Chapter five

Tyr

Loving you is asecret that keeps trying to break me- Tyr Fate

She follows me silently up to the same hotel room we always meet up in, and each step pisses me off even more. Ryn says not one word, but her tension is everything. Everything about her is the same.

It’s painfully the same.

She stands beside me in the lift, and I keep my eyes on my reflection, refusing to even look at her. I can’t, if I do, I might end up just blurting out everything, and I would start yelling, and she would absolutely run.

My eye twitches, and I curl my fingers and then force myself to relax. She doesn’t seem nervous at all. She appears like she always does, confident, calm, and stunningly perfect.

Auryn Raines is an untouchable queen carved of ice at all times. Except, I have these vague memories of our last night together, her dancing on the table with Mako, throwing her head back and laughing as I kissed the inside of her elbow, my tongue flicking out to taste her skin.

I push that memory aside as the doors slide open. She follows me, her heels clipping on the carpet in a way that is familiar and drags memory after memory out of me.

I open the door and hold it, daring her to slide past me. She hesitates. Once, she never would have. Has so much changed?

When she sneaks past, I catch a little something in the air. Coconut, just the softest amount.

Digs folds his arms over his chest and stares at her. Of all of us, Digs was the most hurt by her actions. It took months for him to stop trying to reach her, for him to move on, but he still isn’t the same.

Envy sits with his head in his hands. He doesn’t even look up. I want to go to him and tell him that we have to do this. Explain again. But if Digs was the one who didn’t want her back the most because he was hurting, Envy didn’t want to bring her back because he didn’t want to hurt her. Which completely baffled me.

Mako walks towards her and pulls her into a hug. The urge to peel him off her, shove him away, and scream at him has me mute with rage.