Page 134 of Double Standards

Because I’m an idiot.

Because I think she deserves the truth.

“Since Axel left the hospital,” he answers, the words falling quiet and heavy between us.

Cassie doesn’t react right away. Doesn’t blink. Doesn’t breathe. But then, slowly, her head turns back toward me. Her eyes narrow, sharpening like the edge of a knife, cutting straight through me.

“Why?” she asks, her voice soft now. Too soft. “You don’t trust me?”

My mouth opens, and the wrong words spill out before I can stop them. “That’s not what this is about.”

immediately regretting how fast the words come out. Because itsoundslike that’s what it’s about. Itfeelslike that’s what it’s about.

Cassie lets out a low, bitter laugh, one that scrapes across my chest like sandpaper. She shakes her head, that small, disbelieving smile still ghosting her lips. “Oh, isn’t it?”

“Cassie,please—” I take a step forward, but she doesn’t flinch, doesn’t move. Her gaze holds me in place.

Then she says his name like a closing door. “Hunter.”

His head jerks up.

“Can you take me home?”

No.

The word explodes in my head like a gunshot. Panic follows in its wake, hot and fast.

But before I can form the word aloud, before I candoanything, Hunter answers.

“Sure.”

Just like that.

And she nods. Simple. Final.

She walks away from me without once glancing back at me. She doesn’tneedto because her silence says more than anything she could scream.

I don’t stop her.

I want to. God, Iwantto.

But I don’t.

Because if I hold her here now—when she’s this angry, this betrayed—it’ll only make it worse. But she has to know on somelevel that I’m not doing this to hurt her. I’m doing this to protect her. To keep heralive.She’s angry. Hurt. And maybe she has every right to be. I’ll let her walk away this time, but I swear she’ll understand when this is over. She has to.

I’ve got bigger things to deal with now. Like the fact that Aiden Daniels is still breathing.

And that’s a fucking problem I intend to fix.

Chapter Forty-Five

Istare at my face in the mirror, barely recognizing the reflection that looks back. The bruising on my cheek blooms like ink beneath fragile skin, and the cuts on my knees are raw reminders of how serious last night was. I look exactly how I feel; battered, hollowed out and needing sleep.

But I won’t let that break me. Not outwardly, anyway. Keeping my chin up is the only armor I have left. If I let it slip, if I crack even a little, I know I’ll fall apart completely. Beneath the surface, I’m already unraveling. I feel adrift, lost in the wreckage of something I never saw coming.

I hadn’t realized how much pain I’d endured until I woke up this morning and every bone in my body was screaming. Not even the fury I harbor for Axel manages to eclipse the sheer agony burning through every nerve in my face. Every grimace, every twitch, every attempted smile feels like a blade twisting under my skin.

A deep gash splits my bottom lip from where Daniels’ right hook landed. My cheek is tender, but the worst of it—the part that turns my stomach—is the distinct handprint smeared like a violent signature across my neck. It’s visible. Unavoidable. The kind of mark that demands questions, assumptions. And it’sonly a matter of time before someone points fingers in the wrong direction.