Page 130 of Tempting Fate

Every man I’ve ever trusted has let me down.

Every man I’ve ever loved has betrayed me.

“It’s simple, really. Marcus is busy getting rid of your dead babysitters, so it’s just you and me, angel, all alone once again.”

My mouth drops open as I realise that Weston and Toker, maybe even the perimeter guards are likely dead. As my head spins and my pulse whooshes in my ears, I try to talk myself into believing that Alex is wrong.

“No way.”

“Yes way,” Alex mocks me. “How do you think I got in here? How do you think I left that present on your bed for you?”

As he confirms that he’s behind the photos, every ounce of hope I’ve been trying to hold on to evaporates.

I’m on my own.

Zeke is busy double-teaming Honey with Slash.

The guards put in place to protect me are dead.

My father has failed to keep his “safe” house secure.

With the promise Zeke made to kill Alex for me null and void, it becomes clear that I need to rescue myself.

The only way out of this is death.

Mine or Alex’s.

At this point, I’m not sure I care which one of us perishes.

Submitting to his depravity again, playing another game in order to stay alive, searching for an escape that may never come is a fate worse than death to me.

As I battle my dread, Alex seizes hold of my upper arms and drags me to my feet. I swing wildly with punches and slaps. I scratch at him. Kick out at him. He absorbs every strike without making a sound. When I jam my fingertips into the spot on his shoulder where I shot him, he doesn’t even flinch.

He’s healed.

Any advantage I had over him is gone.

When that knowledge makes me pause, Alex scoops me into a bridal hold. “Up you come, Jezebel.”

He carries me through the house without doubling back or entering the wrong room. Alex has done his homework. He has the layout memorised, bringing me straight to the master bedroom and placing me gently on the bed. I curl into a ball as far away from him as possible while he leafs through the photos he left for me.

“I was very surprised by how easily they threw you away when their precious club was threatened.” Insanity gleams in Alex’s eyes as he tosses the photos onto the floor and directs his full attention to me. “Cherishing you as I do, I expected a bit more of a fight from Zeke, but he simply sent you away and walked straight into my trap… Truthfully, he doesn’t love you as much as you think he does, angel—not half as much as I do. And don’t get me started on Slash… that behemoth has proven verifiably unworthy of you.”

Knowing that any argument I mount will only set him off, I stay quiet in the face of his harsh assessment of my relationship with Zeke and my friendship with Slash.

I mean, I’m not exactly in the position to deny anything he says.

He’s holding the proof in his hands.

“I’m here to take you away from your worthless existence, away from the trash you associate with. But before we leave this all behind, we have a few minor issues to sort out.”

At Alex’s mention of taking me away, Zeke’s warning about keeping a weapon on me bursts into the forefront of my mind. I carefully slide closer to my nightstand. Of course, Alex notices, so to avoid drawing too much attention to my movements before I can reach the handgun I keep in the top drawer, I pick up my steaming cup of tea and take a sip.

“What trap did you set?” I ask as minutes tick by without Alex speaking.

“Oh, just the one where I forced him to fuck my informant’s trashy sidepiece to prove his loyalty to the faction trying to take down his brotherhood.” He smirks when I gasp at his confirmation that Zeke has indeed slept with Honey, probably more than once. I swallow some of the hot tea. It goes down wrong. While I’m coughing, he continues. “I knew what he was doing. Trying to find his so-called rat, so I threw down challenges to see where his loyalties lie. You or his club? And Lily, angel, I hate to tell you, but you came second by a long way… for both of them. Because, let me assure you now, Slash didn’t bat an eyelid when Zeke dragged him into it with him.”

I grip my mug tight when Alex crawls up the bed to straddle my legs. When he tries to remove the tea from my hands, I allow him to take the cup. I even offer him a smile after he places it on the bedside table, and his distraction allows me to lean a little closer to the weapon that I need to get my hands on.

---