Page 10 of Pretty Little Lies

“I could’ve protected all of you.”

“I didn’t know who you were. I had no idea you were the King of South Shore. You were thefirstperson he mentioned hurting. It makes sense now. You are my best friend, we’re together all the time. Fuck knows that he believes we’re dating or some shit, and I wasn’t called into the gang meeting when it alluded to that fact that you had the Nameless backing you.”

“It doesn’t matter if I had anyone backing me, Astor.” His voice dips, brimming with uncontaminated rage that’s seconds from unleashing. Not even the cigarette between his fingers is going to calm him down. “There would be no world in which I would allow Emilio to threaten you and live to tell about it.”

“And there’s no world in which I would permit you to die for me.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying. I might not rule the universe, but I have the means to kill him before any of this could happen. Before you were dragged out in the middle of the street with Stanton and?—”

“Stop going back to that,” I chide. “It’sdone, Levi. Emilio wasn’t going to do anything to his only daughter when he didn’t know which way I was going to turn. Either for him or still against him. I’d do that again.”

“Do what?” Levi’s face pinches, and it all comes down to this.

“Playing the daughter role until I find a way out of this.”

“You’renotstrolling in his house like this is alright. Not with him. Not with Torin. Not with Reeve or Cairo?—”

“I already have.”

Levi is on me so quick that I gasp at the lightning speed he just performed to make his point perfectly clear. “Do you understand me when I say I willlockyour ass up and figure this out myself? That you will never,everbe in the same room with him again.”

“Levi—”

“And what about me?” His features soften, but his voice is still hard. “How do I keep you free from harm when you hold things from me? How do I keep the girls safe? You can’t do everything alone, Bay. Not only will I not allow it”—he holds my gaze steady, but it’s still sharp—“but you’ve been tellin’ me for years that I’m family, and I’m feelin’ pretty outcasted right now.”

I rock my head back and forth. “No, of course not. You’re everything to me.”

“Thentreatme like it, dammit.” His raised tone makes me recoil a bit as he runs a his large hand down the side of his face. “Fuck, Bay…”

He pivots then, drawing another hit from his cancer stick and starts pacing back and forth.

I don’t speak then, offering him his space to think and digest what I’ve said.

“You’re related to my enemy,” he mutters outloud. “How did you think this was going to go?”

“I dunno.”

He stops in his tracks and turns to face me. “You didn’t think I’d turn my back on you?”

My stomach twists into a knot, but I still force myself to speak, “I was hoping not.”

“Let’s just say this doesn’t end well.” I swallow the lump in my throat and nod. “I run The Nameless and now they’re going to look at you as the spy. The one who got close to me to gain information.”

“You never tell me anything. I wouldn’t?—”

“They don’t know that. And then I’m going to be questioned with my loyalty if I keep you around. If I have the best interest of the group over you. But I can’t have you in the hands of my enemies because I don’t trust what they would or wouldn’t do. So where does that leave me, Bay?”

“I’d never betray you or South Shore.”

“You already have.” I drop my chin into my chest, the immediate burn of tears forming at the back of my eyes. “I could’ve dealt with this. But now they’ve seen the boys around, so that looks too suspicious.”

It does.

Like they were there to gain intel out of me or something.

“What do you want me to do?” I solicit, trying to regain the steady intake of my breathing. “Maybe I should leave town?—”

“You’renotleaving town,” he snarls back. The bite of his tone sinking its teeth into my chest and I feel the pain of everything transpiring through him. How he’s caught in the middle of being protective of me and staying true to the Nameless. “You don’tknow what Ramsey is capable of if Emilio sends his ass off to hunt you down.”

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