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“You’re too close to this,” Reese says.
“You don’t know what I am.”
“I know exactly what you are when you want something.” His voice stays level, which somehow makes it worse. “And you want her too much. They don’t vote for the cutest couple, Edwin. You need to be able to break her. And you won’t do it if she makes you emotional.”
Lucian gives a sharp, humorless laugh.
“That’s the problem, isn’t it? He disappears for months, then comes back obsessed with some girl and expects us to trust his judgment.”
My hand squeezes around the glass.
Reese says his name in warning, but Lucian keeps going.
“You abandoned us.”
I stare back at him, motionless.
He knows why. They all do. Our mother looked straight at me right before she walked off the bluff. They had to live without her. I had to live with knowing she saw me there and stepped off anyway.
His face is tight with anger that’s had nowhere to go.
“You left Reese to hold everything together. Left all of us to watch Dad die while you were off losing your mind somewhere. And now you’re back acting like you get to gamble the family on a girl who doesn’t understand anything about this life.”
I set my glass down.
His words find their mark because there’s truth buried in them.
“I’m fucking here now.”
Lucian steps towards me. “That doesn’t erase anything, asshole.”
I step face to face with him. He thinks his piercings and dyed black hair make him look intimidating, but they just make me grin.
“They should have left you in the bad boys’ home a little longer.”
His expression hardens. “You spent the past year pretending none of us existed. Don’t come back expecting us to give a shit about you.”
Reese pushes between us. “That’s enough.”
“No,” Lucian snaps, trying to look around him at me. “He wants honesty? Fine. I don’t trust him to do what’s right. He’s just going through the motions and secretly hopes he’ll lose so he doesn’t have to deal with it anymore.”
The billiards game stops. No one speaks. Apparently, everyone agrees.
I try to step closer, but Reese keeps his hand against my chest.
My eyes stay on Lucian. “You of all people should understand what it means to have a mental breakdown.”
Pain flashes across his face before he buries it.
“Yeah, I do,” he says. “That’s why I know a breakdown doesn’t magically end with random pussy.”
Marcus leans against the edge of the pool table, smiling in that feral way of his.
“Yeah, good luck with that. She’s a pillow princess if I ever saw one. Has she ever even seen a cock?”
I turn slowly towards him.
He grins wider. “What? It’s an important question.”
