Page 72 of Beyond Reason

And instead, I’d fallen in love.

Fuck, the revelation was so quick and so sudden that I didn’t have time to pry into what Seth was saying about the man who’d been clever enough to seduce Kade Neil. My eyes drifted to Axel standing in the kitchen, and it only took him a second to realize I was staring.

He could feel me there just as much as I could feel him.

Just as much as I’d always been able to feel him.

Because in the end, I’d betrayed everything that I was, every bit of integrity that I had to be with him, hadn’t I?

And I was happy to do it.

It took him less than a second to realize something was going on, and he turned from Kade who was settling back down at the table and trailed into the living room. At least Seth seemed to realize I wasn’t paying attention to him anymore, because he had the wherewithal to politely excuse himself when Axel stopped in front of me.

“What’s wrong?”

“Did you tell me you loved me for the first time after you realized I’d been sent to betray you?”

The question came out more blunt than I meant for it to, but what else was I supposed to do? I knew it was true, but he needed to know that I knew. Remembering these things was giving me back bits of us that my fucked up brain was holding back from him.

I wanted him to have it all, to have all of us.

All of me.

All of the man I used to be.

There was no reason for it, no good explanation. He was happy with having any of me… but it had to be all or nothing. I needed that.

“You told me you were supposed to—”

“You caught me. You caught me talking to a contact and lying about it, and you confronted me about it over dinner. And I…” I almost couldn’t believe the words coming out of my mouth, because they certainly didn’t sound like the man I could remember. Not like the Xavier who’d worked so carefully and efficiently for so long. “I confessed. I told you the truth, then I pulled a gun on you. I wanted to kill you.”

Axel’s expression went soft.

“You didn’t really.”

“No, you’re wrong. I really wanted to want to.” And it was true. I’d realized then that I was losing myself—that I’d already lost myself to him. That killing him then and there was the last chance I’d ever have to get myself back.

“You didn’t, though.”

He was right. I didn’t.

Chapter 22

Axel

“God, Fetterman. Just tell him what happened. Everyone but him remembers that night.”

Kade’s voice sounding in my ear made me jump. I narrowed my eyes as I turned to him.

“No.” It would be so much easier if I just explained why I couldn’t tell him, but I still didn’t want Kade to have the leverage if he realized he wanted to use it against us. That was the problem with working with psychopaths—it was so hard to trust them, even if I knew we had mutual enemies.

“I could do it.”

“If you open your mouth, I swear to God, I’ll—”

“Threaten me, go ahead. We both know that you can’t kill me, Fetterman. You’ve tried more than once. You tried after that night, remember?”

Of course, I remembered. I couldn’t forget it. At the time, I hadn’t realized Kade was honestly doing me a favor by coming back, that he was showing a rare glimpse of the humanity he usually didn’t seem to possess. I didn’t know what had made him do it, whether it was some sense of honor because he and Xavier ran in the same circles, or if he’d just wanted to see the way I would react to the news. I’d always assumed it was the latter, but the fact that he was still here… that they’d come to help at all made me question myself.

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