Page 137 of Ink Deep Devotion

“Nova isn’t who you think she is.” Damian shouts in a warning.

Glancing over my shoulder, I give him a head-to-toe look.“No one in our world is.”

Chapter 48

Damian

My muscles stiffen, tighter than the brakes that just brought the car to a screeching halt.“Are you sure we shouldn’t have Dash here as backup?” I ask Titan. My nerves are heightened, taller than the building shadows now blanketing us.

Despite countless missions, a strange unease sits in my stomach today. Titan’s icy gaze and unyielding silence suggest he shares the same sentiment.

I did as Titan asked. I stalked Nova in the shadows, following her every move.

I discovered Nova was a liar.

She wasn’t Nova Baladan; she was Elsa Stepanov, the girl Titan thought he killed so many years ago.

Titan and I knew she wanted revenge, but Titan had other plans that would uncoil today. Plans we kept from Dash.

I should tell Titan that I called the rest of the guys to warn them about what would unfold. Cillian flew here as backup after Dante suggested it. He’s waiting back at the house, watching over Dash and Mila just in case things backfire here.

Nova thought she escaped from the campus house a few hours ago, but weletit happen, sat back, and watched her make moves like she was a movie we knew the ending to already. It was time to call out a liar. Drag a ghost from the past into the spotlight.

“Dash would sooner shoot Nova.” Titan lowers his head, looking down at his shaking hands.

It feels wrong without Dash here, but I understand.“Mila is going to be crushed,” I add. Another person close to her was a liar.

“Mila forgives too easily.”

My mouth goes dry.“I think that’s changing. She’s angry.”

“She’s been angry before.”

“This feels different.” I lick my lips.

Titan’s nod looks more like a stone that was forced to skip along the waterline before it sank.“Mila will forgive Nova because Nova hasn’t burned her before. For some, trust is like a block of granite; each betrayal is a chisel hitting against it. It takes time to fall apart. That’s how Mila’s trust is. She gives everyone the benefit of the doubt; everyone is a slab of stone that is either broken down or remains whole. This won’t ruin her and Nova’s friendship, Damian. Future betrayals will. She’ll forgive Nova for now.”

Why do my hands feel like a hammer and chisel are resting within them? Each time I protect Mila, it aids Dash, but whittles down my friendship with her.

“True.” As for Dash, I think Mila might finally be pissed enough to want to hurt him back. That’s what keeps me up at night. I want my family whole.“I don’t know how to fix Dash and Mila.”

“Sometimes you have to let a mess sort itself out, Damian.”

“It’s hard to look at a mess for a long period.”

“I know, but at least we get to look and have them in our lives.”

“Dash is going to be pissed when he finds out we kept this from him,” I mutter, clicking off my seatbelt and letting it snap back into place. It seems like everything else is jerking away and resettling where it always belonged.

If only removing Isabella from my chest was as easy as the damn seatbelt.

“Do you think your father will keep his word?” I ask Titan. After Titan and I started investigating Nova, Titan’s dad confessed to him that he knew who Nova was all along. The bigger bomb shell was that his father made a deal with Nova's uncle to have Titan and her marry.

Backhanded moves were a trait the King men dominated in, but our dads didn’t make alliances for our benefit.

There had to be something else Titan’s dad wasn’t telling him.

A sickening feeling churns in my gut, one that points to the people controlling our fathers. That last conversation with Uncle Marcus plagues my mind. Why couldn’t he just tell me who they were? He looked so scared and exhausted.

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