Page 99 of Ride With Me

It was a distraction I’d been trying to avoid.

“Why are you here?” I bit the question out as I turned, pulling my hand from my jacket to reveal my own blade. My knife was slender, something easily concealed, easily sharpened. I’d intended for Mitchy to see it up close and personal a few seconds before I drove it into his eye, but now…

Well, everything was suddenly going sideways, and I wasn’t sure what to do about it. I could play innocent. I could keep up with the story that I’d fed Warren about Mitchy coming after me because I’d hurt his brother…

It wasn’t like it was a lie, technically.

Or…

My eyes flashed back to the man standing in the doorway, and I could see it on his face.

He was going to try to help me.

He could very easily end up getting hurt.

It took me less than a second to make up my mind. I felt the innocent expression melt from my features to leave behind something cold, something calculating. I didn’t havetimeto playwith Mitchy now, and that darkness inside of me was going to have to live with it.

I just hoped Warren would be able to do the same once this was all over.

“Hey, Mitchy?” I called in a sing-song voice to draw his attention back to me, because the thought of him looking at the man in the doorway made my blood boil. “Your brother cried like a little bitch when I killed him. Are you going to cry, too?”

That was all it took. All of his rage redirected to me, and he charged again. This time, I wasn’t distracted. This time, I moved with the liquid grace that usually served to keep me untouched.

When Mitchy ran at me with his blade held high, I ducked under his arm and drove my knife upward at the same time. His momentum carried him forward, drove the blade in deep, and my arm jerking upward left the warm rush of his entrails spattering over my hands.

Messy.

Fuck, this was messier than I’d intended.

“Benji, are you—” Warm arms grabbed me, and I jerked. Warren was turning me to look at him… and his hands were getting covered in blood. “You’re bleeding… it’s…”

“Not my blood.” I murmured, and I hated the way my fingers clenched tight on the knife in my hand.

“Did you…” His eyes trailed to the man on the ground—to thebodyon the ground that was slowly seeping blood across the dusty floor. This was going to be a pain in the ass to clean up.

“I killed him.” I couldn’t turn my expressions back on—couldn’t erase the cold look I knew was on my face. I tried to force warmth back into my eyes, and I thought a spark of it lit across my features with my next words. “I didn’t want him to hurt you.”

“You killed him,” he repeated slowly. “You… meant to kill him.”

It was there—another moment where I could lie. A moment where I could tell him Mitchy had lured me out here and I’d just been defending myself.

But…

Something about Warren made me want to tell the truth.

“Yeah, I did.”

He let me go abruptly and looked down at his hands.

Red.

His hands were stained with the blood I’d spilled, and some small part of me felt a surge ofdesirepulse along my skin as he turned without a word and started walking away.

“Warren?” I called after him, and he paused in the doorway.

“I’m… going back to the room. I need a shower.” He sounded dazed, confused. I wasn’t sure if he was in shock, or just trying to process what he’d seen.

And I wasn’t sure if I was going to have to figure out how to deal with two bodies instead of just one. I wanted to trust him.

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