Page 136 of Where the Wicked Reign

“Fuck,” Milo cursed. “I didn’t want this kept a secret and—”

The door he’d come in through burst open again, and we all tensed until Nico came through. “I saw you come in here, pulling your stealth routine. What’s happened?”

“AndI’mthe security risk,” Julian said, before Milo could respond. “Youdidn’t even lock the door, big boy.”

As the two of them got into it more intensely than they normally would have, the current situation clearly impacting them as much as it was me, I blew past Milo and stormed up to Nico and thrust my knee between his legs.

As he choked and doubled over, I slammed my fist into his gut.

It had him staggering back and painfully lowering himself onto one of the stools by the makeup mirrors. “You know about Levi,” he rasped, reeling and grimacing.

“You’re lucky it wasn’t your fucking face!” Unfortunately, him being visibly injured would invite too many questions and raise suspicion all over the place. “Or harder on your dick!”

“Well, so long as you’re taking it easy on me,” he bit out sarcastically.

I blew out a breath and stepped back.

That burst of violence had certainly helped to cut through the rage that had been building up over the last few days and had then spiked to a whole new level tonight after Levi reaching out, resulting in me putting the pieces together and realizing Nico had stepped out of his own bachelor party to meet with him.

“Let’s try to take it down, all right?” Julian said, coming over to my right side.

“Agreed,” Milo added, settling on my left, and wincing as he watched Nico adjusting his dick in his pants with a grimace as he pushed back to his feet off the stool.

“I was planning to tell you about Levi once Malcolm Lynch was dealt with and the arms deal was thereby killed—literally, really.”

“You’re using and manipulating my friend into doing your dirty work and you were only going to tell me after the fact?”

“Yes,” he hissed. “Because I know what thatfriendmeans to you.Andwhat you’re prepared to do for him. It would have endangered you, compromised your focus here and—”

“You don’t know any of that. You made assumptions on what my reaction and my actions would be. You went around me and decided for me.” I gestured at the main door back into the hotel. “Liketheywould have, Nico.”

He started. “No. It’s not the same.”

“It is. And I’m sure a lot of this was also out of your possessiveness and you hating the fact that Levi and I are close.”

“Undeniable,” Julian said, rolling his eyes.

“Don’t antagonize him when we’re trying to have cooler heads prevail,” Milo told him.

“You didn’t want this secret kept in the first place.”

“Stop,” I said, holding up my hand. “We’re still revealing things to each other. Me to the three of you and then vice versa. I understand that. I still haven’t told you everything. That will come in time.But,Nico, this concerned my friend. You know I don’t make heartfelt connections easily, so when I do, they become very important to me. Doing this, involving Levi, manipulating him, even though it’s working in his favor too in this case… you can’t… you just can’t do that. Not when it comes to him. You know what he means to me, so doing this, it called my trust in you into question. Going behind my back… it didn’t just worry me from an alliance standpoint, ithurtme. I opened up to you, to all three of you. It meant something to me—a lot, actually. And now this has—”

“I’m sorry.”

I jolted at his easy apology.

Milo and Julian looked more than a little surprised too.

“What?”

“I didn’t see it that way, and I’m sorry that it undercut what we’re building between us. It’s the last thing I want, the last thing any of us would ever want. I didn’t intend to disrespect you or break your trust, nothing like that. I just wanted the situation dealt with without complicating it or pulling you into yet more insanity and danger.”

“I’m pulled into whatever the three of you are. We act as one, right? Like we agreed. Nolone wolfbullshit?”

He nodded. “It was because it’s Levi. I guess… I am… there is possessiveness involved, yes.”

“Off the table, going forward. Are we clear?”

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