Not because of me.
No one can get hurt because of me.
“The money is yours,” I call out.
It makes me sick to say it. But if this goes any further, everything will be worse.
“He’s fucking blackmailing us,” Niko says, and Thorne tightens his grip around Niko’s throat.
“I know he is,” I say. “And he’s going to succeed.”
“Look at that,” Thorne says. “Brotherly love. Didn’t know the legitimate son would be the easier one to get to. Always did seem like a bit of a doormat, Weston?—”
Thorne’s words are cut off as Sev reaches back and clocks him as hard as he can in the jaw.
There’s a cracking sound that accompanies it, and I know Sev broke a bone.
“No,” I call out, lunging over as Thorne collapses to the ground, his knife clattering onto the stone. “Sev, youdon’twant bad blood with this person.”
“Leave me alone,” Sev roars as he pulls back for another punch.
Blood spills from Thorne’s nose.
His jaw is already slack, and he only seems dimly conscious.
The implications of Sev’s actions are already speeding through my brain like lightning.
Sevanwill be the one who gets in trouble.
Sevan could be expelled from Crimson, thrown in jail, or worse.
I don’t know who else Thorne is friends with. I don’t know who still has loyalty to my father after his death, and I stupidly, naively thought that his death meant this was all over.
“All I had to do was pay him,” I tell Sev, trying to yank him backward by his shoulders.
“Nah, Weston,” Sevan tells me, not looking me in the eye. “All you had to do was tell me the truth.”
I feel hollow.
Hollow like I felt every time I lost something important to me.
I swallow past a dry throat. “I didn’t know about the bribery until long after my father died. I only learned about itdays ago. That’s the truth,” I whisper.
Thorne is lying back on the ground, groaning in pain, still bleeding while Sev looks down at him with wild eyes.
Everything is crumbling.
Everything is fucked, and somehow I feel like it’s all my fault.
“And yet you’re still working with Roman, or his family, somehow, to keep the bribery going?” Sev asks.
He still won’t look at me.
“What?” I ask.
“Kieran had his suspicions, but when he asked me to spy, I thought he was nuts. Maybe he wasn’t, Wes.”
My heart is spiraling downward inside me like a sinking stone.