Page 24 of Hate Me

And then he looked back out at me, regret all over him, before he turned away and climbed into his car.

He was driving away in the next moment.

What the hell?

I’d known he was back. I’d known for a while now.

Caspian had informed me that he’d been back for the last two months.

He’d also informed me that he’d laid down some heavy-handed threats to make damn sure the bastard kept away from me. He wasn’t to contact me in any way, to interfere in my life at all.

And so far he hadn’t.

This was the first time I’d seen him in over two years since Cas had run him out of town.

Unless he’d been watching me longer and this was just the first time that I’d noticed it.

I wasn’t exactly on guard against that sort of thing anymore. I hadn’t really needed to be with the intense way that Cas had been looking out for me. I guess I’d gotten comfortable with it. Or, maybe, complacent. Letting my guard down. That was usually when Damien showed up. Either then, when I’d let down my defenses, or when I’d found a sliver of happiness that he could swoop in and snatch away.

Was that what was happening now? Had he found out about me being on the cusp of dating again? Did he know about Ashley? Did he somehow know about Professor Harding offering me that position?

I mean, yeah, he was standing at a distance now, but he could’ve used others to get close, he could’ve had eyes on me.

“All the shit that you’ve done and you’re still standing! How many times have you ruined my life? How many times have you come at me? No matter what, you keep coming, keep destroying any good that I manage to find! You won’t stop! You’ll never fucking stop unless I make you!”

I gritted my teeth at the memory of laying into him that day at the Thorn estate.

Rage, pain, and despair had trapped me in its grasp and removing him permanently had seemed like the only solution to a chief source of all of that. Seeking out that relief had transcended everything and the added fuel of that white-hot rage had infected me to the nth degree, making me incredibly dangerous. I’d almost fucking killed him. I’d been ready to. I’d just wanted him gone. Hell, I’d wanted it all gone.

But it hadn’t been the right way to go about it—any of it. Especially ending my brother’s life. I would’ve regretted it for so many reasons. Unlike Cas and Caleb, I’d never actually taken a life. Not even with our work as The Jackals. I’d been Rein, the guy who kept that shit under control. In the heat of the moment, though, and with the nature of that work, it hadn’t always panned out that way. And in some cases, lethal justice had been necessary, but Cas and Caleb had been there to make sure I hadn’t gone that route. Cas, especially, was capable of handling the weight of taking a life. Caleb relished it—too much. But for me it was different. And they had both been worried that, with my addiction issues, killing could become another for me, giving birth to an unhinged and rampaging murderer situation.

Cas had found another way to remove Damien from my life. He’d exiled him and tied my mom’s hands so there’d been nothing she could do about it without losing everything, including Rossun Real Estate, which he’d had a plan in place to utterly decimate if she’d interfered. Cas had set him up at another college far away where he’d continued his Business Management program. And now enough time had gone by, he was back, but immersed in starting up a nightclub he was calling Haywire, that had just opened its doors a couple of weeks ago. Cas had given him a timeout and a focus to take Damien’s attention off me, to kill his obsession with bringing me down and proving he deserved to be the heir apparent to the Thorn estate.

I forced myself to finish my food, but I was no longer enjoying it, going through the motions, rather than savoring it as I’d come to with the special dishes I relished each day.

Seeing Damien again and all the negativity it infected me with, all I could taste was that toxicity.

The urge to swallow it down, to bury it like I used to, was right there.

But I didn’t allow myself to go there.

That had all backfired spectacularly.

I couldn’t shut down anymore.

Fortunately, I did have other outlets now. Much healthier outlets.

All I had to do was get through the remainder of my classes today at Luxe, and then I could see to it.

It was a whirlwind of fists, feet, elbows and shins.

Luke tried to get in a hit, but I was in the zone and I saw it coming, ducking, then coming up with an uppercut that clocked him beneath his jaw and had his head snapping back, him stumbling back.

I went to move in, to do more damage, to take him down like he was used to doing to me with all those well-learned jujitsu moves of his, but he made a time-out gesture, pulling me up short.

“Fine,” I grunted. “Just five minutes, though.”

“Nah, we’re done for today,” he said, stepping off the mats and wiping sweat off his brow with his grappling gloves.

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