Page 36 of Make Me, Break Me

“No, my friend.” He reached across and squeezed my shoulder hard enough to hurt. “You let her go because you were scared of hurting her more. She left because she’s scared of being compressed. But there is no place safer for her than with you, and she is happier with you than she is any other time.”

A lump lodged in my throat. “And you fucking well know this how, you little stalker?” I snapped, hating how right he sounded, how logical, when my brain told me to let her go and let her make her own decisions.

“Because she came to you last night on her own.”

I stared at him.

Nelson cheered.

“Go find her. I have a brat to fuck. I suggest you leave, too.” Falcon cast a spare glance at Nelson. “It will get loud in here soon.”

“And I’m out.” Nelson darted into his room, the towel dangling off the end of his hard on, baring his pasty buttocks for the room to see.

Falcon snorted, while I covered my eyes. “Ahh, fine. You’ve convinced me.”

“Good. She won’t have gone far.” He nodded, a pleased smile on his face.

I watched him, my heart clenching. “Are you like him?” I asked softly.

“Who?” Falcon turned back to me, his hands drifting to his phone.

“Your father.”

He stilled. “More than I would like.”

I nodded. “Mine didn’t remember my name. She doesn’t know hers. Consider yourself lucky you have family at all.”

He nodded, bowing his head over his phone at the same time as all three of ours lit up.

I frowned, grabbing mine off the edge of the sofa where I’d left the device when I followed Zon out of my room. The picture that came up made no sense at all at first as I struggled to comprehend what I saw.

“Dex,”Nelson bellowed, charging naked and still pasty as fuck from his room as it finally clicked in what I was seeing.

Zin, with a twin standing over her, one with his pale hand extended around her throat, the other kneeling with his head positioned between her spread legs where she was tied between them, her mouth held open, eyes wide and terrified.

Falcon knocked my hand away, breaking the hideous vision. “It’s not real.”

“What?” I stared up at him, but all I could see was the head bent between her open legs.

His hand connected sharply with my cheek, the pain waking me up. “It’s not real. I promise you. They’ve pinned her somewhere, set up the angle, and he’s inches from her. He hasn’t fucking touched her.”

“You know that how?” I stared desperately into my housemate’s tense face.

Falcon held my gaze, not once flinching from whatever he read in my expression—the worry, the fear, the anger.

“Because they know you’ll kill them if they do.”

“The fuck is this.” I threw the picture under Beau’s nose. “We were done.”

He shrugged. “Were we? I don’t remember negotiating those terms.”

Falcon made one of those Italian noises Rose was so fond of at my back from where he leaned against the entrance to the formal dining room in the Kingsman house. “Start remembering. Otherwise you’ll have a new exit hole in the back of your head.” He loaded his handgun in front of Beau, ignoring the two other Kingsman frat boys who also drew similar weapons.

“You won’t get a shot off,” Beau said quietly, his head tipped to one side.

Falcon stopped what he was doing to look straight at Beau. “Do you trust their aim? Because I will not miss.”

Beau inclined his head, and the Kingsman boys lowered their guns, though I noted they didn’t put them away. I felt distinctly underdressed without one but I'd also been sans location for Zin when I left our dorm and Beau was the first person I thought of with additional resources before I called in my own mini army.

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