Page 162 of Volatile Obsessions

“Who?”

“Your boy toy.”

His faint snicker widened my eyes.

There’s no way he knew about Rome and I. We’d been so careful…

“You must have me confused with someone else.” I tried playing it off, pulling the top over my head. “I don’t have a—”

“Cut the crap, Lux. I know all about you and Rome. I have for a while now,” he sneered. “Your little performance at Vybewas quite entertaining. Not exactly a convincing one, but very entertaining.”

I nearly swallowed my tongue.

Realization rushed me with such speed, my head almost spun.

He’d been at Vybe…and he matched the stalker description to a T…

“Apparently, the two of you thought I was a fool,” he continued as I stood there processing. “Turns out, the only fool here is you.”

My head reared back in ire. “How am I a fool?”

“I told you, he’s lying to you.”

“And what exactly is he lying about?” I pressed, sliding into my knickers and a pair of denim shorts.

“About me.”

“What do you mean about you?”

“Roman didn’t just magically decide to start a war with you, sweetheart. He came into your life because of me. Might be a newsflash for you, but I’d been planning to take you down for quite some time. Knowing how difficult of a task that would be, I enlisted Rome to lend a helping hand—you know, since we worked so well together on the streets of London as young lads.”

Forget his mention of taking me down—that didn’t concern me. Plenty of imbeciles had tried to overrule me before. All I heard, all my brain could focus on was the last bit.

“Young lads?” I hedged, shuffling over to my bed.

Something told me I needed to sit—stat.

“Indeed. Rome and I have known each other well over a decade.”

Well over a decade…

I let that sink in, let what it possibly meant sink in.

If this was true then…

No, it can’t be.

“So you mean to tell me, this whole time, you knew who Phantom was?”

“Knew who he was, what his next move would be, where to find him,” he chuckled darkly. “Watching you run around like a chicken without a head was quite comical.”

“How do I know you’re not lying?” I pressed, praying like I’d never prayed before that it was all a lie.

Not for his sake, but for Rome’s.

“Why would I lie about knowing the wanker?”

“To fuck with my head.”

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