Page 201 of Wreck Me

“It was recently uncovered that Elijah Bane was the mastermind behind the murder of my parents and Bastian’s father.”

I choked. “Oh my God.”

“Yeah, it’s a lot,” Caleb said.

Caspian went on, “I’m masterminding a complicated strategy with an ally of mine that will destroy his empire and take his life. But it’s a time consuming process. Volatile and multi-faceted. If Jett is killed by you—somebody connected to me—it will destabilize everything. Instead of the business rivalry we have now, it will become personal. He’ll lash out, I’ll have to respond with a show of force, and, voila, we’re in the middle of a brutal and very bloody war.”

I sucked in a breath. That was a lot to absorb.

Off my stunned silence as I tried to reconcile it, Caspian rubbed my shoulder. “Exactly, it’s a lot, so you need to stay out of it. I have a plan to deal with Jett in a way that will keep all our hands clean. I just need your patience. For now, we’ll extract Bastian and that’s it.”

“Let me help you find him,” Caleb urged him. “Don’t keep me on the sidelines.”

“So you can go in there and become Wrath, unleashing all over them?”

“Fucking right. We can’t punish Jett yet, we at least need to deliver it upon the people he’s working with.”

“No. Stay out of it. You’re emotional and we both know that’s dangerous where that dark side of you is concerned.”

“Cas—”

“It’s done, Caleb.”

They glared back and forth, and then Caleb threw up his hands. “Fine. I can’t fucking stay here right now then.”

With that, he brushed past Caspian roughly, then stormed off through the house.

Caspian cursed and scrubbed his hand over his face.

Then he forced a smile for me, assuring me, “We’ll bring Bastian back. Everything will be fine.”

Would it?

It seemed like it had already passed the point of no return where that was concerned.

While I didn’t doubt that the almighty Caspian King had the means to liberate Bastian from the clutches of that maniac, there was still so much else outside of that beyond his control.

And I couldn’t allow that to stand.

I couldn’t let them suffer when there was something I could do to alleviate it.

33

~Caleb~

Screw this waiting shit.

I hadn’t needed to wait on Caspian’s people to track Bastian down.

I’d put my skills to good use and found him my own way.

Sure, I’d broken dozens of laws doing it, hacking into things that would’ve surely put me on several watchlists if I’d been caught. Or in a dark hole somewhere.

But the point was that I’d gotten results.

And now I was here at the designated location, a small abandoned textiles factory.

Waiting in the shadows, I watched as my opening finally came in the form of a guy in loose black sweats stepping out of the rear steel door and firing up a smoke.

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