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My cousin makes a disgusted noise and grabs a beer from the fridge, spinning off the cap and tossing it towards the sink, missing by a mile. “I don’t know why I bother to tell you guys anything.”

“Because you want to boast about an achievement and you don’t have anyone else?”

The black look he sends my way makes it clear if he weren’t celebrating, we’d be in a wrestling match for supremacy. A fight that he won’t win but might cause some damage. Aidan’s influence might have been bad overall, but it made Ezra rethink his training regimen, taking it far more seriously.

“Just tell us,” Onyx says from the corner, startling all of us.

“Dude!” Tyson exclaims. “Make some noise when you’re skulking about, would you? I had no idea you were there.”

Ezra scowls, slumping into a seat opposite me, taking a handful of walnuts from the centre bowl and cracking them open with the base of the bottle.

“It’s great news,” I say, relenting. After our talk at Zeke’s party, we’ve been on better terms. Never friendly, but I don’t feel the need to score points off him twenty-four seven. “When does it start?”

“In a month. Once we’ve completed the preliminary camp, the clubs will make their picks and if I get selected there, I could be competing at the start of next season.”

I get up, clapping him on the shoulder. “I’m proud of you, man. Will you sign a rugby ball for me before you get too famous?”

He cackles with laughter, answering the questions the other two have about the process. I rinse off my plate and put it into the dishwasher, closing the door with my hip when my phone buzzes in my pocket.

An incoming video call from one of the guards assigned to track Francesca. I press the answer button, frowning at the screen. With the amount I pay, they better not have lost her.

“Hey,” the guard says, looking decidedly uneasy. “There’s someone here wants to talk to you.”

He switches the camera and Francesca appears onscreen.

My heart jumps and I take a seat before I can fall, hungrily staring at her tiny image, hitting record so I don’t miss anything. “Freckles. It’s good to see you.”

“I can’t believe you sent your goons to follow me.”

“Hey!” the man offscreen says, sounding hurt.

Her eyes focus on him, “No offence,” then she stares back into the phone camera. “Since when have you outsourced your stalking? Call them off.”

Before I can reply, she terminates the call. I immediately find the recording and play it back, pausing mid word to make the image bigger, eagerly noting the small changes in her appearance. My heart fills and my throat tightens. I rub my thumb across the screen like it’s caressing her face.

“Was that your girl calling?”

I glance up at Tyson, and reality crashes into me.

A week after she left, I gave in and activated the tracking beacon in her bracelet, sending bodyguards to her location before the battery died.

They’ve been tailing her ever since, with the strict instruction to ensure her safety while staying undercover.

But now their cover’s blown and if she moves again, it’ll be that much harder to find her.

Anxiety overwhelms me until I cover my face, inhaling deeply through my nose. When I look at Tyson again, expecting teasing, there’s nothing but sympathy in his eyes.

“Do you wanna know what that sounded like to me? An invitation.”

“An invitation to ditch the only contact I have left with her.”

The misery invades my soul. She doesn’t want me. Looking back at everything, I realise she was following instructions. Giving me a girlfriend experience just like I asked, biding her time until she had the chance to leave.

I should never have gotten rid of the body, not before developing another plan to hold her in place. And even with the risks at home, I should have kept her in my room.

A text arrives from the guards and Tyson steals my phone, dancing out of reach while he reads through the message with increasing glee. “Get this. She jumped in front of a train and when he lifted her off the tracks to save her, she handcuffed herself to him and threatened to swallow the key if he didn’t make the call.”

He reads it through again before passing the device back to me.