Page 59 of Overdose

“If I told you Brynn pissed off a fucking drug lord… that she got in too deep and never came out… you’d have nothing left here. No reason to stay. No reason to keep looking. You’d spiral. You’d turn deeper into the drugs, into the noise, the chaos. You’d disappear the same way she did. And I—” My jaw clenches. “I couldn’t handle that.”

I look up at her, and she’s still. Listening. Breathing hard.

“Twice, Blair. Twice she overdosed. And both times I found her. On the floor, cold, barely breathing. And I pulled her back. Iheld her while she seized. I screamed at her to wake the fuck up. And I thought—next time? There won’t be one.”

My hands flex into fists. “So I stopped selling to her. Told my guys if I caught them giving her anything, they’d be dealing with me. I tried to protect her, but it wasn’t enough. And now she’s gone.”

I meet her stare. Force her to feel the weight behind mine.

“So yeah. I lied to you. I kept shit from you. And I’d do it again. Because if lying is the only thing that keeps you out of the ground, Blair, then fuck it. I’ll lie to your face every damn day.”

I sit back, exhaling slow.

“Because I never claimed to be a good man. I’m a selfish prick. And when it comes to you?” I shake my head. “I think I’ve already proven just how fucking selfish I am.”

Her eyes don’t soften. They sharpen.

Like she’s cutting through every lie I told and weighing it against the truth I just dropped in her lap. I don’t move. Don’t speak. Just let her take it in.

Because this part? The aftermath? It’s hers.

She crosses her arms, pacing once across the room, then back again. Her boots scuff the floor like she’s dragging lightning with her. And then she stops. Right in front of me.

“You don’t get to control me like that,” she says, voice low, rough. “You don’t get to decide what I can handle.”

I nod once. “Maybe not. But I did it anyway.”

A bitter little laugh tears from her throat. “God, you’re such an asshole.”

“I know.”

She stares at me, mouth open like she wants to say more, but her jaw clicks shut. Her hands twitch at her sides.

And then she moves.

Blair steps between my legs and grabs my jaw, rough. Tilts my face up like she’s inspecting damage. Or deciding where to strike next.

“You lied to me,” she says.

“I did.”

“You used me.”

“I didn’t,” I growl.

She glares. “Then what the fuck was that night at the motel?”

I grab her wrist, not rough, just firm enough to make sure she hears me with her whole fucking body.

“That?” I murmur, my voice low and wrecked. “That was me losing my goddamn mind over you. That was me proving I can give you what the pills do ten fucking times over.”

Her lips part like she’s gonna say something, but nothing comes out. Just this shift in her breathing. Sharper. Hungrier.

She hates this. Hatesme—what I pull out of her.

But she’s still here.

Still standing in front of me.