“Don’t ever do that again,” he says. “Don’t ever fucking disappear on me again.”
“I won’t,” I say.
He pulls back, holding my face in both hands, his eyes moving over me like he’s cataloging every scratch and bruise. His thumb brushes the split in my lip, and his jaw goes tight.
“Who did this?”
“Doesn’t matter. I did worse to them.”
A ghost of a smile. “That’s my girl.”
Archer is last. He’s at the bottom of the steps, looking up at me.
“You good?” he asks.
“I’m good.”
He nods. Then he climbs the steps, and his arms go around me, his chin resting on top of my head, and we just stay like that for a moment.
I turn and scan the compound. Takes me less than ten seconds to find them.
I have one thing left to do.
Stuart and his father are on their knees.
43
Mo
Iwalk toward Stuart, who kneels in the dirt with his hands tied behind his back. His lip is split, and a purple bruise spreads across his jaw. Next to him, the head alpha and his followers kneel too. But Mark’s posture stays stiff and defiant, chin up as if he still has something to claim in this world.
The guys fall in around me; Darius on my left, Silas on my right, Archer and Elias a step behind.
Stuart hears my footsteps and lifts his head. His eyes widen when he sees me, and I catch a flicker of calculation behind them.
I stop three feet in front of him, close enough to smell the fear leaking from his pores.
“Mo,” he starts, voice cracking. “Listen, I can explain—”
“Shut the fuck up.”
His mouth snaps closed.
I look at him. Really look at him. The boy who told me I was beautiful. The boy who held my hand and kissed me under the stars and made me believe, for one stupid month, that I was special. The first person outside of Sophie I ever trusted. The boy who bragged about it afterward and collected his winnings, while I was dragged into a cell.
“Mo,” he tries again. “Listen, I was just trying to help you find your sister. That’s all this was. I—”
“Shut up.” I step closer. “You don’t get to talk. Not anymore.”
I crouch down so I’m at his eye level. His scent hits me. Fear and desperation wrapped in something oily and rotten.
“You were just a stupid boy,” I say, my voice steady. “A stupid, cruel, pathetic boy who needed his friends to think he was big. And you know what? You’re still that boy. You just got taller.”
Stuart’s eyes dart to Darius behind me, then back. Searching for an exit, a way out, someone to save him.
“The bet,” I say. “Tell them about the bet.”
“Mo, that was years ago. I was a kid. I didn’t know what would happen to you—”