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CHAPTER NINETY

I WATCHED HIM sleep.

Not because I was in love. Please. That ship had already sailed, crashed, burned, and sunk straight into hell with no survivors.

But there was something about watching Jason in the low light, his breathing steady, his muscles tense even in sleep, tattoos wrapping around his skin like war paint carved by vengeance. It made me feel something. Not tenderness. Not comfort. Power. Like I was finally the one in control.

What we’d done an hour ago—rough, wild, violent in its rhythm—wasn’t about connection. That wasn’t love. That was two people setting fire to their wreckage and pretending it felt good. Two sinners playing god with the lives of others.

He lay on his side, one hand tucked beneath the pillow, the other a breath away from the pistol on the nightstand. Always armed. Always ready. Even in rest, he never really let go.

I stayed beside him, still bare, skin buzzing from the aftermath. The kind of glow that only came from chaos and control. The plan danced in my mind, Kain shackled, Zeynep gutted from the inside out, and me, finally seen. Not passed over. Not forgotten. Jason was supposed to be the reward at the end of it all. The one who didn’t leave. The one who didn’t look through me.

I slid closer to him, letting my fingernail trail a slow, delicate line down the curve of his spine. “You’re sexy even when you sleep,” I whispered, voice still husky, thick with the memory of what we’d done.

His eyes opened instantly, cold, sharp, alert. No grogginess. No warmth. “You watchin’ me sleep now?” he muttered, his expression bored.

“Maybe.” I smirked, draping an arm around him, pressing my chest against his back like we were something real. “You remember what we talked about? After it’s all done?”

He didn’t answer. Just reached for his cigarettes and lit one, exhaling smoke like I wasn’t even touching him.

“You said we’d leave together. Disappear. Just us. You said you’d take care of me.”

Still nothing.

He smoked in silence, and with every drag, the air between us turned colder.

“Jason?” I said again, a thread of need slipping into my voice before I could stop it.

That’s when he pulled away.

My arms slid off him like water circling a drain. I stayed still, watching him move across the room, every muscle flexing under skin inked in black. He grabbed his jeans and yanked them on with a kind of finality, like every second he spent here now was a mistake he was trying to undo.

“That wasn’t the deal,” I said, heat rising in my throat. “I helped you. You needed me.”

He turned to face me slowly, cigarette hanging from his lips, eyes flat and mean. “I said a lotta shit,” he said. “Doesn’t mean I meant it.”

The words hit like a slap. I blinked, laughing once, too sharp to sound sane. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

He shrugged, buttoning his pants with no urgency, no shame. “You were convenient.”

My chest tightened. “No. Don’t do that. You—” I stepped toward him, voice shaking. “You said we were in this together. That you cared.”

He snorted and shook his head like I was a dog begging for scraps. “You really don’t get it, do you? I used you, Chelsea. You got me close to her. That’s it.”

My stomach twisted.

“But we—” I stopped, because I saw it now. The shift in his eyes. The absence of anything human behind them.

Jason wasn’t broken.

He was hollow.

“You needed me,” I said, but the words came out thin, weak, smaller than I meant them to.

He picked up his gun, not pointing it, not even looking at it, just holding it like an extension of his hand, an afterthought.

“I don’t need anyone,” he said, calm and detached. “And once she’s dead, and your little war hero bleeds out tryin’ to save her, my debt’s paid.”

I stared at him, mouth dry, heart thudding like it was ready to break bone.

“You promised—”

“I said what I had to say,” he cut in, his voice louder now, crueler. “You think you’re some kind of femme fatale? Some dark widow who bends men with sex and sympathy?” He took a step closer, eyes locked on mine like he wanted me to see just how little I meant to him. “You’re just another snake who thinks her pussy’s a weapon.”

I flinched, and he smiled.

“You gave me what I wanted,” he said, quiet now. “You wanted revenge. You got it. He’s suffering. She’s about to die. But don’t start thinkin’ that buys you anything more than silence.”

He took another step, closer still, the gun in his hand.

“You push me, Chelsea? You won’t walk away from this either.”

My breath caught in my throat.

He turned his back on me like I was already gone. Calm. Collected. Dismissing me without another word.

And that’s when it hit me.

I’d never been the one pulling the strings.

I wasn’t holding the leash.

I was wearing it.

And he’d just started to tighten it.