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And stared at the steering wheel.

The bastard was sneaky, I’d give him that. He always came off as slightly stupid and way too arrogant for his own good. But he was brilliant.

That, my friends, was the problem.

Nothing good came from a multimillion-dollar genius with unlimited resources and time on his hands… A genius who just so happened to think playing with his friends’ lives was an actual hobby.

It all started at my wedding last year.

A wedding, I’ll admit, Max saved me from.

A marriage from Hell would be a generous understatement.

He’d shown up, pretended to be my sister’s fiancé, helped Colton my best friend, finally see the light about my sister, Milo, and ended up almost drowning me in the pool.

By the end of the weekend I had two black eyes, a limp, and on Sunday, woke up drunk in a water fountain, with a frog sitting on my chest and a hangover that pounded my skull for two straight days.

I still think he drugged me.

He still claims all whiskey tastes that funny.

Regardless, somehow that solidified his spot in our family. He went on a dating show, compliments of my own personal revenge for nearly killing me, and I’d been biding my time until it all came back to haunt me.

Never in my wildest imagination did I think he would stoop this low, though.

Never.

With sweaty palms, I put the SUV in reverse, turned around in the subdivision, then slowly crept along, prolonging the inevitable… when I would have to see Ethel.