Page 97 of His To Erase

“Wait—What do you mean Lauren?” My voice cracks mid-word. I swallow, but my throat stays dry. “Don’t you mean… Sloane?”

Her name barely makes it out, before my eyes start to blur, but I blink the unshed tears away.

Steven’s chest rises and falls like his entire body is coiled around a decision he hasn’t made yet. But it’s not rage I feel coming off him, it’s restraint. What is going on and what the fuck is Sloane doing here?

He doesn’t lower his weapon and she doesn’t blink. She just stands there, completely unbothered.

“Steven—” I twist toward him. “Don’t shoot her. That’s—she’s—she’s my friend.”

He doesn’t lower the gun and neither does the man pointing his right at her.

Sloane—Lauren—whoever she’s pretending to be—just stands there. Watching me. I can’t tell what’s in her eyes, but I know what’s in mine. Betrayal. Recognition. And the sinking, sick feeling that this whole story just cracked open wider than I ever wanted it to.

Steven’s eyes cut to me—still black with rage, but now there’s something else brewing underneath. Confusion.

“How the fuck do you know each other?” His voice is low, but it vibrates like a warning shot.

The woman doesn’t flinch, she just tilts her head with the faintest trace of a smirk on her lips.

Steven takes a step toward her. “How are you not dead?”

She shrugs one shoulder, slow and infuriatingly casual. “Sorry to disappoint.”

My pulse kicks hard in my throat. Nothing is making sense. Not her. Not Steven. Not the way Frank looks between them with smug satisfaction.

“That’s the real reason he’s here,” Frank says, and his voice is smooth now. Confident even. “To finish what he started. Or die trying.”

Okay, I’m starting to get pissed. I don’t know if I’m going to laugh or cry, but I want to know what the fuck is going on. My head’s spinning. There’s something massive I’m not seeing here—and Steven’s jaw clenches like he’s seconds from snapping.

“What does any of this have to do with me?” I snap.

“Everything,” Frank says, his voice sharp enough to cut glass. “You were the bait.”

My breath catches. Bait?

“I only needed a signature. That’s it. But when I found out Stevie here was snooping where he shouldn’t be, I figured—why not kill two birds?

” He doesn’t turn—but I feel his grin as he shifts just enough to press his mouth near my ear, voice dripping with cruel satisfaction.

“See, I paid your ex to sell you to me, but you were also an investment. I just needed to get you on his radar.”

He nods toward Steven. “I needed time to get your grandfather out of the way. So I gave you a job to do—distract him. While I lured him in and made sure he stayed long enough for me to finally finish the job.”

I think I’m going to be sick.

“You fell for him. Hook, line, and fuck-me eyes.” His voice drops, and I don’t know if I want to hear what’s about to come out of his mouth. “The second he thought you were mine, I knew he’d use you. That’s who he is. I would know, I trained him.”

His smile is slow and smug, like he knows exactly where to hit—and fuck, it hits hard. It lands straight to the part of me I didn’t realize I’d handed over.

No. That can’t be true.

“He didn’t come to save you,” Frank goes on, chuckling. “He came to find me. You were just the shortcut.”

“Shut your fucking mouth,” Steven snarls. His voice is lethal, but I can barely hear it. My ears are ringing, and my eyes start to sting. I’m furious. Betrayed. Terrified. And so fucking confused, it’s not even funny.

“Steven,” I whisper.

Behind him, another man moves further into the room, keeping their weapon trained on Frank and Sloane. Or Lauren. Or whatever the hell her name is.

When he finally speaks, his voice softens—but his aim never wavers.

“Ani.” His voice is rough now. He steps forward, one hand still raised, not in surrender—but something close. “Dear, look at me. Please.”

Frank tightens his grip around my neck, “Not another step.”

“Yes, I used you. That’s the part he wants you to hear. That’s the part I can’t take back.” His eyes flicker, behind me so fast I almost missed it. “I came for Frank, yes. I thought you were just leverage. I told myself you didn’t matter.”

I now feel like I want to puke. God, I feel stupid.

Every look. Every touch. Every time I thought maybe this was real.

Some part of me still wants to believe he gives a damn and that I wasn’t just a convenient way to bleed the man who bought me.

Who also, turns out, didn't actually even want me like I thought either.

“So I was just a job.” I don’t even mean for it to come out loud, but it does. “All of it. Just part of the plan?”

I don’t cry. I’m too far past that.

“If Frank hadn’t told me, would you have ever said a damn thing?”

Steven’s jaw clenches. “No. Because I wanted to destroy him more than I wanted to save you. But now, there’s no world where he walks away and you don’t come with me.” His voice is rough. “I told myself you were leverage. That none of it mattered.” He shakes his head. “But it did. You did.”

There’s a blur of motion, and then I feel a shift in his balance, a sudden jolt—and Frank screams. A guy’s already got him in some kind of brutal choke from behind, dragging him backward with a forearm locked across his neck and a knee jammed into the back of his thigh until it snaps.

Frank buckles, and when he does his grip on my throat slips just long enough for me to tear free. I gasp as I stumble forward—but Steven pulls me against him. One hand curls around the back of my head, the other anchoring around my waist, and I melt into him before I can think better of it.

The world sways, and I still can’t breathe, but I’m free. And he’s looking at me with nothing but heat in his eyes.

He tilts his head, dropping his voice. “I didn’t fall for you. I fucking drowned in you. And if you think I’m walking out of here without you—you haven’t been paying attention.”

Tears slide down my cheeks before I can stop them. I knew the risk. Knew what he was. And I still said yes. Still handed him the knife. Even when I knew better, even when I swore I wouldn’t fall for a man who lies like it’s love.

My throat burns. My heart cracks. And I realize—I’m not crying because he ruined me. I’m crying because I let him.

And then Frank’s voice cuts through it all. “He’s lying to you, that’s what he does. It’s all he knows how to do, Anianne. He’s a killer.”

Steven’s eyes don’t leave mine. There’s something in them now—something raw and pleading beneath the fury. A silent question I don’t know how to answer.

Slauren interrupts. “You can’t trust him.”

It lands like a slap and I jerk toward her, stumbling as I tear myself out of Steven’s arms—nearly falling over.

It’s like waking up from a trance. My skin’s still buzzing where he touched me. My pulse still tuned to him like it forgot how to beat on its own.

“What the hell are you even doing here, Sloane? Why are you with him? What the fuck is going on?”

She smirks, shrugging one elegant shoulder like this isn’t the end of the goddamn world. “He needed a reason to keep fighting.”

But for the briefest second—so quick I almost miss it—something flickers behind her eyes. It’s gone before I can name it, swallowed by the cold steel in her voice.

Steven’s voice cuts through, and he’s pissed. “Don’t listen to her.”

I look back at him again and his eyes… they’re still on me. And I hate that I still feel it. That hollow ache. That pull.

After everything—after what he did, what he didn’t say—I should want to spit in his face. But all I can do is stand here, wanting the monster who walked through hell for me.

He steps forward—just an inch—the veins down his arm flex where he grips the gun, and his eyes are darker than I’ve ever seen them. And fuck me, even now—after everything—I feel it. That slow ache in the pit of my stomach that would still crawl to him.

“You’re mine,” he says. “And I’m not leaving this room without you.”

His words are the only thing anchoring me in this nightmare.

And stupidly, I believe him. How did I end up in the middle of a live-action soap opera directed by Satan?

Bleeding everywhere and trying really hard not to fall apart in front of the man who sold me, the man who made me feel safe just so I’d never see the knife coming, and the girl I thought was my friend but was apparently in on it the whole fucking time?

Not to mention there are guns pointed in every direction.

And what the fuck’s up with Slauren. My friend? My fucking coworker! The woman I’ve had coffee with. Laughed with. Shared pieces of myself with, not realizing she was more tangled in this mess than I ever was.

My chest caves in so fast I almost miss the breath.

They’re in love. They have to be. The way he looks at her. The way her voice cracked when she said he needed a reason to keep fighting.

Unless…

My ribs burn, but it’s the bruises across my jaw that throb and I’m still tasting blood every time I swallow.

Steven turns on her then, and it’s the first time I’ve ever seen his expression crack into something other than anger or control.

It’s heartbreak.

“I’ve loved you since that first job together.”