Page 84 of Hate Me

What he’d done could either prove detrimental or the complete opposite, all depending on what his intentions were behind such acts.

I approached the sleek Jaguar—his latest rental.

He was so focused on peering through his binoculars, that he didn’t even stir or show any signs of registering my approach.

He’d taken to conducting his observations further back, several blocks from the main Luxe parking lot.

I took in the sight of Bastian sitting on one of the picnic benches with his laptop out, working away while also eating his dinner. He was working late tonight. With Skylar and Caleb back, he’d had some trouble focusing, wanting to spend time with them instead, which had pulled him away from his studies a couple of times. Fortunately, he’d had the wisdom to notice it himself, before I’d had to call him on it. And he’d remedied it quickly, now taking to finishing his work at the library at college, then stepping outside into the reinvigorating cool night air to eat dinner and push through for another couple of hours before heading home to us.

I reached the car, opened the passenger door, then slid inside.

“Fucking shit!” Damien cried, dropping his binoculars in his utter shock. He swung his head toward me, slapping a hand to his chest. “King, what the—you scared the living shit out of me!”

Excellent. He was already off-balance.

“This isn’t breaking your rules,” he followed up quickly. “I made sure of that. In fact, I’m even further back than I need to be.”

“I’m not here about that.” At least, not directly. In the end, however, everything I did always came back to my boys and, these days, Skylar too.

He tossed his binoculars onto the back seat, then shifted to face me, looking unsure.

Just the way I wanted him.

It cut a path through his usual extreme stubborn steak and arrogance.

“If this is about Caleb, I thought we already dealt with that. You know, with you making me your punching bag in my own home?” He gestured to his black eye that was still in the process of healing, and the deep gash beside his left eye that had required stitches. He then lifted his tacky white hoodie with the golden tigers to show me the stark bruising plaguing his ribs. “Not enough for you? Considering I stopped and everything when he wasn’t sure about where things were going and he showed hesitancy even being rock-hard for me, your response was overkill. Then again, jealousy can be a real bitch, right?”

I ignored his transparent attempts to strike an emotional chord with me.

Typical tricks employed by sociopaths, which I was very well-versed in with him.

Instead, I responded calmly, “Why did you stop?”

He frowned for a moment, jolted from the lack of ammunition I was providing him. “I just told you why.”

“You’ve told me what you think I want to hear. What’s the real answer?”

“Fuck, you really don’t think anything of me, do you?”

“No.”

He glared at me, but couldn’t hold it for more than a moment, before he looked away and started tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. “I guess, I knew if I went through with it, he’d regret it once he’d sobered up.”

“And why would that matter to you, Damien?”

“Because.” He sucked in a breath. “I wanted it to be real. I didn’t want him to deny it or brush it off as some drunken mistake.” He tugged at his shaggy hair. “I didn’t want any part of it to be about you for him either. Not some solace because he was hurting over you at the time.” He looked back at me. “And, above all, I don’t want to lose Cal as a… connection. I can’t really call us friends with everything that’s happened, but it’s still something I’m hoping for one day. I didn’t want that night to be something that would always be a barrier to that ever happening.”

Interesting.

“It also occurred to me that it might make things worse for Seb too, if it came out that his best friend had fucked his brother.”

“You apparently demonstrated a lot of foresight and strategic thinking there, yet that seemed to be nowhere to be found when it came to Skylar. Did it not also occur to you that it could make things worse with Bastian through the fact that you were providing the love of his life the means to embark on a suicidal vengeance crusade?”

He jolted. “What?”

“I know it was you who provided her the intel on Jett Bane’s whereabouts.”

He cursed under his breath.

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