He glares at me, defensive and unyielding. “She wasn’t supposed to be there. It was supposed to be the alpha alone.”
“Wow, in that case, totally fine,” Dutch snaps sarcastically.
“You’re fucking dead,” Razor says darkly.
“She’s fine,” Ramsey declares. “She wasn’t hurt.”
“But she could have been,” I yell. “Because of you!”
“I’m sorry,” he says, but the sullen look in his eyes says otherwise.
“You’re only sorry we found out,” Mia says. “Ugh. You disgust me.”
“So, you’ve been pulling strings like some fucking puppet master for a year and then what? Then Lexi came to town, and you found a fellow rat to team up with,” I say, my voice twisting with barely restrained rage.
“What? No.” His expression is hard, but his words ring true as he says, “Believe me, Lexi wasn’t my first choice, but Franco insisted. Actually, Dom suggested her, come to think of it, but the old man ran with the idea. I had no choice but to bring her in.”
I’m glad all over again that I killed Dom tonight. “What did you and Lexi tell Franco?”
“Nothing,” he says, shaking his head. “Or nothing that would hurt you.”
“Bullshit.”
“Look, I fed him stuff about Vincenzo for a while but nothing since you got back.”
“Betrayal is betrayal,” I say.
He snorts, shaking his head. “That’s fucking rich coming from you. I know what you did five years ago, and it’s no better than what I’m doing now.”
Anger burns in my veins. “I tried to stop a monster who destroys lives,” I snap. “I never betrayed any of you.”
“You abandoned us for something better. Isn’t that just as bad?”
I take a step forward, but Mia stops me. “Let him finish,” she says grimly.
Ramsey sighs. “Look, when you got back, I stopped telling them stuff, and Franco got pissed. He compelled me, okay? I didn’t have a fucking choice after that.”
“And Lexi?” Mia prompts when I don’t answer.
“They threatened to kill her if she didn’t agree. Matter of fact, she still refused even then. She only finally gave in when they threatened to kill you instead.”
Mia looks at me pointedly, but I don’t react. I don’t know how to feel about what he’s saying. It’s all too fucking much to process.
Ramsey. Lexi.
It’s hard to separate who did what and why anymore.
Even if Lexi was forced, she could’ve come to me afterward. She could’ve trusted me.
“Why didn’t you try harder to tell us?” Dutch demands.
He’s pissed. I hear it in his voice. See it in the way he’s trembling, trying to maintain his control. If he loses it, I won’t stop him.
“I never meant for it to get this far,” Ramsey says. “As soon as I realized something happened tonight, I came clean.”
“You’re still not saying much as far I’m concerned,” Razor says in a hard voice. His hands are fisted, and I can feel the heat emanating from him.
He wants Ramsey’s blood.