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Me? Calm but deadly. It’s not a combination you want to see from me.
And the one looking for an answer he probably doesn’t want to know? Me. Roan Sawyer. Hell-raiser, determined, liar. Oldest brother of three insane freestyle motocross legends. At this point, I don’t think I need to explain too much.
The girl? Ophelia Hadley. Once you hear the name, you’ll never forget her. I can’t. Black hair, piercing green eyes, sinful, off-limits, and I wish she was fucking dead. Harsh? Yes. But when you love someone so fucking much you’d rather they be dead, that’s when you know you’re fucked beyond repair.
I blink and draw in a breath. I’m not really sure what else to do. I think if I move, if I make an attempt to say anything at all, I might blow up on her. We sit there, neither one of us saying anything since she admitted to sleeping with my brother over an hour ago.
Finally, she sighs and wipes the tears from her cheeks. “Roan, say something.”
Say something? I’ve known this girl, and that’s all she is, a girl. She’s eighteen years old and knows nothing about the way the world works or the dirty fucks willing to take advantage of her. My brother included. For about a minute longer, I stare at her. The dryness in my throat puts a strain on my voice. “You don’t want to hear what I have to say.” I swallow and then stand from my place at the edge of the bed.
She backs against the door, as if she’s afraid of me. She should be. “H-H-How did you find out?”
I raise an eyebrow at her apprehension, the stutter that seems to form out of nowhere. I reach for a bottle on my nightstand. “Did you really think you could fuck someone at my house and me not find out about it?”
Her eyes move from mine to the bottle. “I don’t know. I—”
“Don’t you dare tell me another lie. I knoweverythingthat happens in this house.” I take a drink straight from the bottle, my eyes never lifting from hers. Do you notice the shake of her hands? What about the bloodshot eyes pleading with me to see her side of it all? Where’s the problem? Ineverwill because when I’m this high on adrenaline, much like the rush of my lifestyle so close to disaster, I strive on insanity. I crave it like the next hit. I get off on pushing her to the redline and seeing where it gets me. Up there, she comes to life and I taunt her until I get her there. Why do I do it?
Because I know when I get her there, she gives me what I need. She gives herself to me completely. Truly. Entirely. That feeling, if only for a moment, it’s unchained and exactly what I want from her.
“So that’s how this works? You can lie to me all the time, but God forbid I don’t tell you the whole truth?”
I smile. “That’s exactly how it works, sweetheart.” It’s not entirely the truth. She has no idea what she’s talking about. She thinks she knows, but she’s also eighteen. She’s got no fucking clue.
I can put together what I think happened, because like I said, I’ve known this girl since she was a kid, and I know my brother. Even though I have an idea of what probably happened here while I was in Athens, I want details. Ineeddetails. Fucked up, I know, but I want to knowwhythey felt the need to betray me like this.
It takes me a minute to ask the question. But when I do, her eyes snap to mine in sudden shock, as if she can’t possibly believe I’d ask, “So why’d you fuckhim?” I demand an answer. I always expected a fucking answer, yet she never gives one. After everything she puts me through I deserve one, don’t you think? Now, hold your judgment. Before you go thinking the “Big Bad Wolf” is trying to act like some victim here, you don’t know any of what she’s put me through over the years. Soon you’ll understand. “Of all the people you could have fucked, why my brother?”
You might be thinking, your brother? Christ, why would he do such a thing? Apparently, bros before hoes means absolutely nothing to him. But this is Tiller Sawyer we’re talking about. He’s a mean fuck who only cares about himself and I’m the last person he’s loyal to. Brother or not.
Instead of answering my questions, Ophelia delivers one of her own, cutthroat and ruthless. “Why’d you fuck that slut?”
There it is. I knew it’d circle around to this. Women are vindictive. Maybe it’s in their nature, because every one of them I’ve ever known has been that way. Even my publicist, Willa. You piss her off and she makes damn sure you pay the price. It might be weeks later, but there is always payback in some form.
Here’s where I lose it. For many reasons. “Here we go again. Fuck this,” I holler back at her and send the bottle in my hand toward the window. It crashes through it and onto the patio below. Screams from those below follow, but I hear none of it. Not with the madness inside my head and the storm in my veins that my own brother, my fucking blood, took this from me. “Just because I made one lapse in judgment doesn’t mean you go and fuck my brother.”
“I don’t see how it’s any different, Roan,” she screams back at me. “You expect me to be perfect, yet you can do whatever you want when you’re on the road.” Ophelia shrugs one shoulder and wipes away tears. “You can’t expect me to just sit around and wait for you.”
She has no idea what she’s talking about or what I do when I’m away from home. “So because you were bored, you fuck my brother? Or was it from loneliness? Revenge?”
“Stop saying it like I did it on purpose.”
I laugh at that one and invade her space like she does my mind and heart. She reaches for the handle, blinking rapidly. “I know you did it on purpose. You’re a vindictive bitch.”
Too far? Maybe. But until you’ve been in my shoes, don’t pass judgment on something you don’t understand.
Her mouth opens in a gasp. “And you’re a fucking asshole.”
“Get out,” I spit at her, nodding to the door.
She looks at me, her brows drawn together. “What?”
“You heard me. Get out.”
Her eyes drop to the dark floor beneath her feet where she’s left my heart to dry up and die. “I hate you.”
I reach behind her and open the door, nodding for her to leave. “That makes two of us.”