Page 38

SHE FOUND ME

ALEX

“You were there?” Mila’s voice cracks. “It was you?”

Tears spill down her cheeks. Emotions pour out. And for the first time, I wonder if that’s why I prefer to take my time killing people. Because I’m trying to figure out what it is that breaks them.

For some, it’s ripping off their fingernails. For others, it’s broken bones.

For Mila, all it took was a quick strike to that soft heart beneath her ribs.

Nothing more than a sentence, and everything she believes is shattered. It morphed until fear became the least horrible emotion brewing in her eyes as she stares at me.

Disappointment and disgust are written all over her face.

While my back was turned to the office door, my father must have seen her out of the corner of his eye. He said what he did on purpose, knowing the truth would force my hand. He laid my lies bare for the girl with the tear-stained, green eyes, and now she’s fracturing in front of me .

Manipulation and control are what Dad is good at. It’s something I’ve always respected about him because he taught me to wield them as a means of control. But as Mila takes another step back and the crevice widens between us, my loyalty to my father frays around the edges.

He has buried bodies for me.

Taught me how to reign in the darkness.

He gave me guidance where my mother failed. Protection where the House failed.

He taught me what it means to be Sigma Sin.

I trusted him.

But when Mila turns and walks away, something slips. It cracks. If I’m destined to become like my father, is letting her go for the best?

If only I could.

The tether between us is taut, and her next step pulls me out of my chair.

From the corner of my eye, I see my father wave toward the hallway. “Go deal with that before she causes more problems than she already has.”

Problems .

Problems we created.

Problems the House bred.

Problems that put Mila in my path long before she realized it. Long before her first visit to Montgomery.

Problems he made worse by not letting me be the one to confess my secrets.

Dad turns, not bothering to dismiss me or acknowledge the mess he’s made. He leaves the office first, heading in the opposite direction from the library.

While I follow her.

The girl with the heart I broke.

My angel of death, come to take me home .

The front door clicks behind Mila, but she can’t get far since she didn’t drive here, and I have the keys. I’m only a moment behind her, and when I step outside, I find her tugging at the car handle, trying to get in.

Her angry gaze meets mine as I approach, and she tugs the locked door again.

“Fuck you, Alex.” She slaps the roof of my car and immediately grabs her hand because it probably stung like hell.

I try to reach for her hand without thinking, but she pulls away.

The distance stretches even more.

“Don’t.” The tears that stream her cheeks are now a mix of pain and anger. “I don’t want anything from you.”

“Mila—”

“Tell me it isn’t true.” She cuts me off, pulling her shoulders back. “Tell me you weren’t at the carnival the night Remi died. Tell me that’s not what your father was talking about when he mentioned Oregon.”

“I can’t.”

Mila flinches at my answer, and I think she really wanted it to be different. I wish it were because that would have saved her from all of this.

“You—” Her sobs turn to anger. “You killed her?—”

“It’s not like that, Mila.” I step forward, but she steps back.

“Don’t touch me.”

“You don’t understand.” I tuck my hands into my pockets to stop myself from reaching for her again.

“You’re right. I don’t understand anything—least of all you.

I thought we were being honest. Or, at least as honest as you’re capable of being.

I knew what you did to Oxy, but I was willing to look past it because you were trying to protect me in your own fucked-up way.

I ignored all the warning signs because I didn’t want to see them.

I wanted to believe you cared. But I was wrong about everything, wasn’t I? You really are a monster.”

Monster .

He crawls up in my chest now. The beast never quite at bay. Always restless.

I’ve been called many things.

Psychotic. Insane.

But never from her. Never from Mila.

Monster .

It vibrates between my temples. Sticks in my ears. It’s tar in my throat, and I can’t swallow. I can’t think. Because she’s not wrong.

“You’re just like them.” She takes another step back.

“No, you’re worse than them. Remi was my best friend, Alex.

Do you have any idea how hard it was growing up there?

How little my parents cared about anything more than using me as an act?

Remi was my family. The only person who understood.

How could you not tell me it was you?” She clutches her chest like she can’t breathe. “You killed my best friend.”

“I didn’t.”

“Stop lying!” She screams so loud that anywhere else, people might worry what’s going on.

Not here, where all that stretches for a mile in any direction is the Lancaster property. Dead, dark night. Blood and secrets.

“You have it wrong.” I dare to step forward when she’s shaking so violently, I’m worried her body is going to shatter. “I didn’t kill Remi.”

“Don’t say her name.”

“Okay.” I nod, treading carefully. “I was there that night, Mila. You’re right about that. But I wasn’t the one who hurt her. I was the one who pulled you out of the fire.”

To anyone else, I might expect relief. After all, I didn’t kill her best friend. But knowing Mila, I’m not surprised that my confession has more tears spilling down her cheeks.

She’s all heart. That soft, sweet organ that beats inside her chest.

And I’m the person who grabbed her when she tried to run into the tent to save her best friend’s life. I stopped her.

“No.” Disbelief colors her cheeks.

“Yes.”

“You pulled me out.” The realization makes her voice crack. “You stopped me. Remi is still dead because of you.”

“And you’re alive.”

“I don’t care.”

“I do.” It’s nearly a whisper, and it’s not enough.

It’s never enough.

That’s one of the many reasons I stopped using my voice. It has no power. Not like action. I wanted to show Mila what she means to me, beyond words. Now she’ll never see it. She’ll never believe it. Because all she’ll hear are the lies echoing. Piling up and masking what was real.

“What you’re saying doesn’t make it any better.” A tear slips down her cheek, over her lip, into her mouth. “What do you expect me to do with that?”

“I don’t know.” The truth.

Her arms are slack at her sides. Defeat blows out any hope in her eyes. The smoke of what once burned leaks out of her, shrouding her gaze in something so deeply painful she becomes the center of a black hole.

The black hole I stepped in.

“You lied to me.” Her words crack, even on a whisper. “You might not have been the man who hurt her, but you didn’t let me save her either. You knew all along, and you just kept quiet.”

I want to argue, but I can’t speak.

I want to touch her, but I can’t move.

I’m paralyzed.

Monster .

He holds me in place when Mila turns her back and walks away.