Page 22

Chapter 22

Elijah Grant

Benji sat across from me at my dining table.

No, not Benji. NightOwl.

I couldn’t believe it. Didn’t know what to feel. Whiplash, mostly. There was no denying the fact that I was developing some strong feelings for this man, yet I didn’t even know who he really was. He betrayed my trust. Infiltrated my life before I even knew who he was, and then he kept that a secret.

“Fucking hell,” I let out with a whoosh of air. “Really, Benji?”

He dropped his head, looked down at his hands. Such sexy fucking hands. Damn it. Why did he have to turn out to be a liar? We could be having some of the best sex of my damn life right now, and instead, I was just focused on wrapping my head around this.

“I couldn’t keep it from you any longer.” He sounded remorseful, but my guard was about ten miles high right now. He’d need a very tall ladder to scale over it. “I should have told you right from the start. I’m sorry.”

I dropped my head in my hands, rubbed at the bridge of my nose. “With everything going on in my life, I really needed someone who I could fully trust. I thought that was you.”

“It is me,” he said. “I never lied to you. I just…”

“Lying by omission is still lying.”

He shut his eyes. His beard was growing in, scruffy and dark around his jaw. I was always such a sucker for the rugged look.

Not today. No. I had to stay strong. Benji betrayed my trust. I had to let him know how much that hurt me. “With everything going on, you still led me to believe that we had no previous connections before I went to Stonewall looking for help. But you manipulated me into meeting you. Instead of just saying it outright—‘hey, I’m a detective, I can help out.’ Why?”

Benji shook his head and managed to meet my gaze. I tried not to crack under the sad stare he gave me. “I wasn’t thinking. I was just… just not thinking.” He sighed, and I was instantly hit with the sharp scent of tequila. I knew Benji drank occasionally—he was never shy about offering me a shot or a glass of wine—but had he gotten drunk before meeting with me?

“Are you drunk right now?”

His eyebrows pulled together as he vigorously shook his head. “No, no. Absolutely not. No, I had a drink just to kill the nerves, but that’s it.”

I searched his face, looking over the landmarks and features I had found so entertaining trying to memorize only a day before. Now, I was searching for clues, hunting down more signs that he was lying to me. I didn’t want to believe it, but I had to keep my eyes open and make sure I wasn’t making any naive mistakes. “It smells like you had more than just one drink.”

“It was two.”

An unreasonably hot burst of anger flared through my chest.

“Two drinks? You had two drinks just to talk to me? Am I that fucking intimidating, or are you just always drunk when you’re confessing your lies?” The venom was out before I could reel it back in. I’d always been a hothead, but that side of me had never come out around Benji.

First time for everything.

“Eli, come on, it wasn’t?—”

“Wasn’t what? Wasn’t planned? Wasn’t intentional? Because from where I’m at, Benji, it looks pretty fucking intentional.” I stood abruptly, my chair scraping harshly against the wooden floor. My heart pounded, pulsing an angry rhythm in my chest. The walls of my apartment started to feel tight, like they were slowly inching toward me.

He exhaled slowly, eyes shadowed with a guilt I desperately wished I could ignore. “It wasn’t like that. I didn’t mean for it to happen this way. I was just… lost. I saw you, and I wanted to protect you.”

“Protect me?” My voice rose, edged with disbelief and sarcasm. “By stalking me online, chatting me up anonymously, pretending we’d never interacted before? By manipulating the situation until I landed right on your doorstep needing help?”

He didn’t have a response to that. Another thought hit me like a bullet to the head. “The masquerade party. Did you know I was going to be there?”

The silence between us was as heavy and thick as freshly dried cement. He answered me with a single nod.

The anger blossomed into something twisted, nasty. It clouded my vision and obliterated my thoughts. “How fucking dare you. How did you know I would be there? Who told you?”

“I didn’t…” Benji slumped in the seat. I felt like I was watching a man disintegrate right in front of my eyes. He was breaking down. Part of me hated myself for wielding the hammer, and the other part of me wanted to keep smashing it down, getting to the real truth of the matter.

“How?” I pressed.

“The cameras we installed… they were still logged in on my phone. You were talking to Zack.”

My eyes went wide. He might as well have grabbed a kitchen knife and sunk it down into my heart. I took a few steps back, my entire world spinning wildly on its axis.

“Jesus Christ, Benji, you watched me through the fucking cameras in my apartment! What the fuck ? Seriously, what the fuck ?”

“It was once,” he admitted, his voice tight. “Only once. It was just a few minutes—I swear, Eli.”

His confession twisted in my gut, sharp and acidic. My mind instantly flashed to the masquerade. To how intimately he knew me before he ever touched me in that crowded room.

Benji’s gaze dropped to his lap, his fingers clenching into fists. “I needed to make sure you were safe,” he finally said, his voice rough. “I didn’t mean for it to become?—”

“Become what? Real? Emotional? Did you not mean to trick me into actually fucking caring about you? Because congrats, Detective, mission fucking accomplished.”

My chest burned as if I’d been tossed out of a moving vehicle and slammed across the pavement. The betrayal sliced through me deeper than I ever expected. Every laugh, every conversation, every kiss, and every shared moment of intimacy now felt tainted. Poisoned. Manufactured. Benji had manipulated this entire situation. The relationship I thought we had been developing was all smoke and fucking mirrors.

My stomach lurched, tying itself into a tight knot.

“I fucked up,” Benji whispered. “I’m sorry, Eli. I’m so fucking sorry.”

His apologies meant nothing. They couldn’t fix the broken shards of trust scattered in my chest. My hands trembled, fists shaking at my sides as I stood there, trying to hold on to my rage rather than surrendering to the overwhelming hurt. I had a habit of losing myself to the sea of red before logic could take hold.

I wanted to shout at him. Curse him out. Make him feel the pain he’d caused me in this moment. Anger like I’d never felt before colored my vision a crimson red. I had to work to keep my breathing even. “With everything going on in my life, how could you? You’re almost as bad as Nomad.”

He winced at that, as if I had physically reached out and decked him across the jaw.

Good. Feel it, Benji. Hurt like how you made me hurt.

“I can’t make excuses for my behavior. But there… there are reasons.”

“And I don’t need to hear them.” Was I being cruel? Possibly. But that veil of crimson red grew more vibrant with every passing moment. As if I could see the capillaries in my eyes pulsing every time my heart beat. “You were my safe place, Benji. I had really started to feel like you were my—” one. I swallowed my words. “I was wrong. About everything. I should have never even gone to Stonewall.”

Another wince. He gripped his hands tight, squeezing them between his legs. “No matter what happens, I want you to know I’m dedicated to finding Nomad. If it’s the last thing I do. I swear it, Eli.”

“How the fuck do I even know you’re not Nomad? Huh?”

His head snapped upward, his hazel eyes locked with mine. That comment appeared to have hurt him more than any other.

“You have to believe me when I tell you: I am not Nomad.”

I wanted to believe him, but after all the revelations tonight, I found myself having a difficult time even looking at him. “Just… get out,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. It took every ounce of strength I had left.

“Eli, please?—”

“Get the fuck out, Benji. Now.”

He opened his mouth, ready to protest, but one hard look from me silenced whatever excuse he was about to make. He stood slowly, shoulders slumped in defeat, his expression hollowed and racked with guilt. For a split second, I wanted nothing more than to rush into his arms and forget this all happened.

But I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.

“I’m sorry,” he said again.

The door shut quietly behind him. I stood frozen in the peaceful emptiness of my apartment, suddenly feeling more alone than I ever had before. Chaos raged inside my skull. Tears I’d stubbornly held back broke free in a silent stream down my cheeks.

I’d let Benji into places inside of me I didn’t even realize existed. Trusted him more than anyone I’d ever been with. Allowed myself to feel vulnerable and hopeful, like maybe this time things would finally work out. Like I’d found something genuine.

But none of it was real. He’d been NightOwl this entire time. He’d played me like a piece on a chess board, moving me to where he wanted, setting up the game so that we were always meant to cross.

I sat on the couch as the tears exploded. It was all fake. Every connection, every touch, every whispered promise. A cruel illusion orchestrated by a man who claimed he only wanted to protect me.

And the sickest part of it all?

I had fallen for him.

Harder than I’d ever fallen for anyone.

And now, that fall shattered me into a million tiny little pieces.