Page 123 of Hate Me

A smile lit her features and I saw that nervousness and awkwardness that this conversation had wrought dissipate.

We both returned to our work then and I focused-up, concentrating on my thesis project. I’d already finished three other final assignments for my other classes and this big project was the last thing I need to complete before it was exam time.

I’d chosen to go with a futuristic conceptual design where I could combine my love for architecture and my love for enveloping myself in imaginary worlds from my many years of gaming and immersing myself in fantastical worlds through the types of high-fantasy books I gravitated toward reading in my downtime. I was also combining that with Caspian’s influence and passion of developing next-gen tech. Going this route was definitely out there and pushing it, but I wanted to take a chance and make a bold move for my final project, to show that this was what I was really about and what I would bring with me into my career too.

As I was getting back into it, something kept nagging at me, something that was determined to be addressed, no matter how hard I tried to shove it down while I was trying to work.

It was because I’d worked really hard not to shove things down or bottle things up.

Dammit.

There was no way that Cas didn’t know about this.

He was monitoring Sky’s communications and he’d told her he would be until Jett was taken down. It was a precaution all around—to protect all of us.

So he would have known about those texts that had come in from Damien.

The timestamp had put them at five in the morning, before he’d left for work at King Tower earlier today. Yet, he’d shown no reaction at all, hadn’t mentioned them, hadn’t pulled Sky aside for a private conversation about it, hadn’t announced it all to us at breakfast.

That meant that he’d known way beyond those texts.

He’d known since the beginning in all likelihood.

Considering his stance on controlling the situation with Jett and him absolutely not trusting my brother, he wouldn’t have allowed him to feed Sky that intel knowing she could’ve gotten to Jett and fucked-up his bigger-picture strategy, or that she could’ve gotten hurt really badly too.

Fuck. He was controlling it beyond just Sky. Knowing him, he was likely having Damien feed her delayed information so she couldn’t have reached Jett, just his lackeys.

Had he actually put Damien in that position of being a line to Jett too?

If that was the case, he’d known Damien was helping all this time and really trying to make amends, yet he hadn’t told me.

I got it, he was worried about me finding good in my brother again and trusting him again, wanting to rebuild our relationship, because he could flip on a dime like he’d done before.

He was trying to protect me.

But at the same time, I needed to be the one to make the choice there when it came down to it.

It also meant he was still so worried that I wasn’t actually better, that I’d relapse at any fucking time.

“Bastian?”

I jolted and looked to see Sky staring at me with a whole lot of worry.

“You’ve been staring off into space for the last ten minutes.”

Ten minutes? “Just thinking.”

“Because of what I told you about Damien? Shit, I’m so sorry. I thought it would be best if it was out in the open and—”

“It’s okay, it’s not that. Not exactly. I’m glad you told me.”

“Then what’s up?”

“Caspian.”

She cocked an eyebrow.

“He knew about this. About Damien helping you. In fact, I’d actually go as far as to wager that he made Damien get close to Jett to get him intel on Jett’s whereabouts too, to manipulate Jett to his liking.”

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