Page 4 of GAF Factor

Not even Jack, Johnny, and Jason could give me that. They’d gone too soft.

The knife clattered to the floor as I released it from my grip.Everyone has a weakness.I got down on my knee and kept my voice low as I spoke to Fox.

“Do you really want me to kill you?”

“Is that what you want?”

“I want my revenge, and if the only way out of here is to kill you, so be it.”

“Do…what you have to do,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

“You’re forcing my hand, Fox.” I grabbed the knife, trailing it over his stomach, up to his neck. “You’re making me be the bad guy.”

“You’re doing that…all on your own.”

I nodded. “Just know, this doesn’t end with you. I can’t just kill you. I have to kill everyone you care about. Because they will come after me, and that would get in the way of my revenge. I will take out everyone at OPS, and when that’s done, I’ll take out that pretty wife of yours. If you think she has scars now, just wait until I’m done carving her up. You won’t even recognize her.”

“Liar,” he muttered.

Maybe he was right. “Are you willing to stake Anna’s life on it?”

His eyes flicked to mine and rage replaced the humor that was there before. “You’re a bastard.”

“The code, Fox.”

“If you touch her?—”

“Give me the code and she’ll be safe. You have my word.”

“Is that even worth anything anymore?”

He might have a point, but he was the one who wanted to go down this road.

“The code.”

His lips twitched in amusement again. “You already know it.”

I already fucking knew it. Leave it to Fox to play games with me even when he was teetering on the brink of death.

I stormed over to the door and entered every code I could possibly think of. Frustration welled inside me as I pulled at my hair, trying to think of all the possible codes. I could hear the rattling in Fox’s lungs. He didn’t have long before he would drown in his own blood if he didn’t get help.

I had entered every fucking code from OPS, thought of every date that meant anything to him. Nothing had worked. Nothing related to him?—

Nothing related to him worked because none of this was about him. I entered the date Rafe died and metal clinked as the door unlocked and slowly opened. I glanced back at Fox one lasttime. His eyes were closed now, but that wasn’t my problem. If he didn’t want to play the game, he shouldn’t have locked me in a fucking room with him.

It was clear my time at OPS was up.

2

FOX

I crankedthe volume up on my phone, blaring the music fromWest Side Story, but the nurse immediately snatched it out of my hands.

“You can’t play your music this loud.”

“Um, I’m paying for this room. I can do whatever the hell I like. It’s soothing.”

“It’s loud and disturbing the peace of the other patients.”

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