Page 80 of Cruel Betrayal

“What else is there?”

“You don’t have to go to the fight. You could stay home. We could figure something else out. We could find you a job where you’re not going to die just because you’re too stubborn to want more for yourself!”

“Jade, this is my life. If you don’t like it, there’s the door.”

Her eyebrows climb high, her mouth dropping open. “Excuse me?”

I groan and tilt my head back.

Shouldn’t have said that. Shouldn’t have fucking said that.

Jade nods slowly, getting to her feet. “Well, if this is the way you want to deal with it, then maybe I will go spend the night at my sister’s, and you can call me when you’re done being a jackass.”

“You’re the one who started this!”

She throws her hands up in the air. “Because you won’t even consider another kind of life!”

I shove away from the wall, stalking toward her. “I don’t have a fucking choice! What part of ‘this is my life’ don’t you understand? I don’t have a choice.”

“You’re right,” Noah says as he steps into the room. “You don’t.”

He walks over to me with his hands in his pockets, eyeing Jade.

The hair on the back of my neck prickles.

All I want to do is get him away from her. I don’t want him to be standing this close to her and looking like he’s going to tear her head off.

Jade scowls at him. “Ever heard of fucking knocking?”

Noah rolls his eyes and turns to me. “You’re late.”

I rub the back of my neck. “I know. I should be done here in a couple of minutes.”

“Good.” Noah nods, not bothering to pay attention to Jade as she moves around behind him, eyeing the knife on the counter before opening one of the cupboards and crouching down to look through it.

“Fight’s in a couple of weeks. How much training are we going to have between now and then?”

Jade stands with a gun in her hand, glaring at me. “You don’t have to do the fight.”

Noah turns to look at her, his shoulders stiffening. “Yes, he does. Your family might let you get away with this shit, but not here.”

Jade’s finger wraps around the trigger as I stand at Noah’s side.

Her gaze cuts to me. “You don’t have to be at his beck and call your entire life. You can have a life of your own.”

I want to tell her that I won’t do it. I should tell her that I’m going to stay with her, even if it is just to get her to lower the gun. She doesn’t know the fire she’s playing with or what she’s stepping in the middle of.

“Jade, I?—”

Noah pulls out a gun and whips around, pressing it to my head before she has a chance to do anything. “You want to think carefully about what you’re going to say next.”

Jade fires a shot just to the left of Noah’s head. “Step away from him.”

He laughs. “You’re not going to kill me. I could shoot him before dying, and we both know that. Now, Ezra, you’re going to be at that fucking fight whether you like it or not.”

My gaze locks with Jade, willing her to lower the gun. “I have to do this. He stands to gain a bunch of territory to the north if I win, and right now, we need that more than ever.”

Jade looks at me like she doesn’t know me, and that might be the most gut-wrenching part of this.