"I'll stay until you're asleep."

Felix stood on the landing, head lowered, back rigid.

As I passed, he caught my shirt. His voice was rough and barely audible.

"Eric."

Finn curled against me, head down, his arms tightening around my neck.

I pulled free of Felix and continued upstairs.

Finn clung to me, holding my hand desperately.

"Don't leave, Eric. Please?"

He was even younger than Felix. His feelings weren't hard to read.

A young man's possessiveness.

I stroked his hair.

"I'm staying. Go to sleep."

Later that night, my boss called. Felix had gotten himself into trouble.

He'd gone out racing in the middle of the night. The other side had tampered with his vehicle, and he'd nearly gone over a cliff.

Then the two groups had started fighting.

"I'm on the north side. Can't get away. Eric, go check on him."

By the time I arrived at Eagle Ridge with my men, the place was chaos.

Felix was holding a knife, about to drive it into Hugo Hale's eye.

I swore, shouted his name, and rushed over to catch his hand.

"Calm down."

The tension slowly left his muscles. He lifted his bloodied face toward me.

"Eric, I almost died."

"Taking one of his eyes isn't too much to ask, is it?"

He smiled and loosened his hold on the knife.

"But if you don't want me getting revenge, I won't."

"See? I'll behave."

He tipped his face up obediently, eyes bright, like a dog waiting for praise.

"You like it when I do what you say."

When he looked at me like that, it was as though I was his entire world.

As though I could hurt him, ruin him, possess him however I wanted.

But it was all an act.

I rubbed my brow, looked away, took his knife, and hauled him behind me.

Then I looked around, found a steel bar, and brought it down hard against Hugo's leg before he could get up.

"We still settle the score."

It just couldn't be Felix who did it.

Frank had hired me to handle the dirty work.

I threw a business card onto the spoiled little heir.

"Call that number. The Sterlings will pay your hospital bills. Get yourself treated properly. Don't end up crippled."

I dropped the bar, grabbed Felix, and left.

4

I'd barely reached the car before Felix shoved me back into the driver's seat.

He came at me like a dog, all teeth and desperate kisses.

His hands moved urgently over me, rumpling my clothes.

I struggled once. That seemed to infuriate him. He caught my arms and held them down, his grip brutally strong.

He wouldn't let me fight him.

There was a difference between the boy he'd been and the man he was now.

Five years ago, overpowering me hadn't been so easy.

Now we were evenly matched.

He kissed me everywhere, talking nonsense against my skin.

"I knew you wouldn't leave me."

"You still love me."

"You're mine."

My mouth. My chin. My neck.

He kissed as though he owned me.

It hurt a little. Felt good a lot.

Just as he'd said, we knew each other's bodies far too well.

Fuck. Let this go on, and he'd have me right back where he wanted me.

When his mouth reached my stomach, I grabbed his hair, dragged him up, and punched him.

"Get off."

Felix licked his reddened lips and drew my hand lower.

"Eric. Feel."

"Feel how much I've missed you."

Through clenched teeth, he said, "I've missed you so much I could fucking burst."

I caught him by the throat and shoved him away.

"Stop playing the devoted lover, Felix. You're the one who left."

5

Back then, I'd indulged Felix past the point of reason.

Looking back, it was almost funny.

That night, he turned around, saw me, and went white.

I watched panic spread over his face. Threw my phone at him.

"I'm done looking after you, Felix. Get the fuck out of my life."

Walking away felt like something had punched a hole through my chest.

Felix ran after me and caught me in a fierce embrace. His hot tears fell against my neck.

"You heard us, didn't you? I didn't mean any of it. I wasn't staying away from home on purpose. I'll behave. I promise. I'll listen to you."

He shook with fear and kissed my neck, my ears, anywhere he could reach.

"Eric, don't throw me away."

He had the nerve to cry. The nerve to hold on to me.

I was the one who should have been crying.

I pushed him away.

"Can you stop fucking with me? I'm twenty-eight. I want someone to spend my life with. I can't afford your games."

I really loved him then.

I knew he was a liar, and I still loved him. But I couldn't crawl at his feet.

I was a fucking person, too. Felix refused to let me go.

He knew how to cling. He'd sit outside my apartment and make himself look pitiful.

Like a dog. No matter how often I chased him off, he came back.

He deliberately drank spiked drinks at the bar. Deliberately let men take him away right in front of me.

He'd watch me lose my temper, fight my way through them, and drag him back. Then he'd smile and kiss me.

"If you hadn't come, I'd have killed them. Then turned myself in."

I shook with anger.

"Do you have to do this, Felix?"

He wound himself around me and kissed my ear, his voice intimate and poisonous.

"If you don't look after me, I'll let them ruin me. If you don't care, you can leave now."

He backed me into a corner.

I didn't leave.

I couldn't.

I couldn't stand watching him with somebody else.

Felix was a drug. Once he got into your blood, getting him out was hell.

I knew he lied. Knew he calculated everything. I walked into it anyway.

Like a man possessed.

At eighteen, he pressed me against the door, hooked my leg around him, and held my waist. With the devotion of a man at prayer, he told me,

"I'll never leave you, Eric. Not for the rest of my life. Will you stay with me?"

I gripped his hair so hard my hands hurt.

And thought, Fine. I can't let him go anyway.

I wrapped up the wounds he'd left in my heart and told myself to trust him once more. Just once.

Then, when I was most addicted to him, Felix left.

Without a word. Simply vanished.

No explanation. No goodbye. Nothing.

Every promise that came out of his mouth was bullshit.

He wasn't going to change.

Not in this lifetime.

6

"I didn't mean to. Back then..."

Felix tried desperately to explain.

I cut him off.

"I don't want to hear it."

It didn't matter anymore.

When I'd wanted his explanation, he hadn't given me one.

Now I didn't want it.

I straightened my clothes.

"I just want to know one thing. Before you agreed to race, did you know there was something wrong with that bike?"

Felix gave a little laugh and admitted it without hesitation.

"Yes."

He'd known and ridden it anyway. Gambled with his own life.

Used himself as bait to reel me in.

Felix knew that trick very well.

He liked placing himself on the edge of disaster and watching me worry. Watching me fight for him.

I'd be scared out of my mind while he stood there looking pleased with himself.

It must have felt wonderful.

One curl of his finger, and he could set my emotions spinning. Watch me run around like a dog while he played me for a fool.

He really was vicious.

"Five years, and you're still putting on the same show. Aren't you bored yet? What are you trying to prove, Felix? That I still have feelings for you?"

I turned my head to look at him.

"Here's the truth. If your father hadn't ordered me to come tonight, I wouldn't have lifted a finger to save you."

"You stopped mattering to me a long time ago. If you want to die, do it somewhere else. Don't drag me into your shit."

The smile slowly left his face.

"I don't matter? What about Finn? You've fallen for him, so now you don't want me?"

His eyes reddened. His anger ran away with his mouth.

"What's so good about him? He's not as pretty as me, and he's a fucking cripple. Can he even satisfy you? Does looking at him actually turn you on? Or do you just like them eighteen?"

"Shut up!"

I slapped him, shaking with anger.

"Finn is your brother. Insult me all you like, Felix. Leave him out of it."

The blow turned his head. Loose black hair fell across his eyes.

He stayed still for a long time.

Then he wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and said softly,