Page 83 of Hate Me

And that was that.

They didn’t say another word.

They just let me be.

With them.

18

~Caspian~

Like clockwork.

There he was, just like every day without fail.

At least once he would come here, sometimes twice.

He’d remain in his vehicle for an entire hour in order to observe what he was so desperate to.

Well, not only just his vehicle now.

He’d added variety with numerous rental cars, foolishly believing that would dupe my surveillance team and render him seemingly invisible. Impossible. Those I employed were seasoned experts in their fields.

He was flirting with the boundaries I’d given him by continuing to come here for his daily voyeuristic activities.

And, while he hadn’t actually broken those rules, he had come at me through other means. As his irreversible nature dictated, those forging and enforcing rules were seen as not only unsavory obstacles to him, but also targets. When it came to me, it was too great a feat to openly challenge me.

So he’d gone the underhanded route and struck at what he perceived to be my point of vulnerability—my sentiment for Caleb. He’d unwittingly been given an opening to do so when Caleb had strutted into Haywire that night in a state.

I ground my teeth. I still couldn’t get the image of him spread out naked, drunk, and so vulnerable beneath that sick bastard.

“Damien had already agreed to shut it down just before you barged on in there.”

In Caleb’s mind, that had made it okay and nullified all the rest.

It was because he couldn’t admit the truth.

“It was sexual assault, Caleb.”

“No!”

I hadn’t really expected him to. I’d hoped for it. With some of the changes I’d noticed in him since his return, notably his strength and his much stronger independent streak, I’d hoped that this would be one such point that he’d evolved with too.

But it clearly hadn’t been. Things ran too deep for him there because of Hayley Rowland.

It was a blind spot for him. And, despite him no longer requiring my protection in the many ways that he had before he’d left and grown, this was one such way where he still did.

“Don’t retaliate, all right? It’ll just make everything worse—for all of us. Especially Bastian.”

Caleb had been right about that. If I retaliated—at least in an overt fashion—it would make things worse. However, not in the ways he believed. Not for Bastian. He was already well-protected by me from his older brother. So long as he didn’t pay any more mind to that one moment of sentiment he’d had for Damien a few weeks back, things would remain stable there with them kept apart.

No, the detriment in retaliation would come from losing him as an asset when it came to Jett Bane. While I could always force him to continue in that vein, it would invite the very real possibility of him double-crossing me and even allying himself with Jett, rather than working to undermine and keep tabs on him, something I couldn’t currently do using my own people because that sort of invasiveness would be picked up on too easily by Elijah. In this case, however, it was believed that Damien was my enemy. His unfortunate participation in that despicable sex tape scandal at Jett’s behest had seen to that, and I’d worked to solidify that belief so that it was actually public knowledge.

But, in spite of all of that, I couldn’t simply let it go either.

And I couldn’t loosen the slack on the leash I had him on. The last time I’d done that following me removing him from The Jackals, he’d turned and escalated all too quickly.

Some new information regarding his activities had also come to light, so I needed to ascertain his intentions there too. With Damien, the only way to do that effectively was face-to-face. He had the same tell as Bastian when he was lying.

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