Page 337 of Master of My Life

the garage was pitch black. And cold. Maybe he’d freeze to death and the agony in his chest would be

gone.

“What happened?” Ethan asked after a few minutes of silence.

Slowly, Chase choked out what he knew. When he finished, the silence rang in his ears. Did Ethan

blame him for what happened?

“How did that happen under Richard’s nose?”

“I don’t know.” Chase blinked back hot tears. How could it have happened under his own nose?

Fabric shuffled and bare feet crept across the room, away from him. A click and bright light.

Chase held up his hand to block the light and squeezed his eyes shut.

“C’mon. It’s freezing out here.” Ethan hauled Chase to his feet.

“I deserve the freezing,” Chase muttered as Ethan pulled him inside the warm house.

Lance was in the living room and turned off the television when he saw them stumble into the

room. “What happened?”

Chase shook his head and collapsed onto the couch. He stared up at the ceiling. Ethan sat next to

him. “Sabrina . . .” he said in a low voice. “It’s Damian. Damian took her.”

“Holy shit.”

The silence grew heavy. Chase closed his eyes. “He’s the one we’ve been looking for this entire

time.” He clenched his fist. “Right under my fucking nose.” He squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed his

chest. His head pounded as the circled doubts and pain echoed in his mind. “I’m sorry, Ethan.”

“Is there anything you could have done?”

“I shouldn’t have let her go.”

“To the bathroom?”

Chase threw his hands in the air. “I don’t know. I should have watched over her better.”

“How could you have prevented this?” Lance asked.

Chase didn’t know how to answer that. He should have been able to. Somehow. “I should have

brought one of you with me.”

Ethan growled. “Why did Richard let that asshole into the Manor? It’s supposed to be a safe

place.”

Chase pressed his fingers into his eyes. “Damian deceived us.”

“Is he that guy Theo warned us about? The reason all the rules were changed?”

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