Page 63 of His Every Move

He didn’t have a response to that. Another thought hit me like a bullet to the head. “The masquerade party. Did you know I was going to be there?”

The silence between us was as heavy and thick as freshly dried cement. He answered me with a single nod.

The anger blossomed into something twisted, nasty. It clouded my vision and obliterated my thoughts. “How fucking dare you. How did you know I would be there? Who told you?”

“I didn’t…” Benji slumped in the seat. I felt like I was watching a man disintegrate right in front of my eyes. He was breaking down. Part of me hated myself for wielding the hammer, and the other part of me wanted to keep smashing it down, getting to the real truth of the matter.

“How?” I pressed.

“The cameras we installed… they were still logged in on my phone. You were talking to Zack.”

My eyes went wide. He might as well have grabbed a kitchen knife and sunk it down into my heart. I took a few steps back, my entire world spinning wildly on its axis.

“Jesus Christ, Benji, you watched me through the fucking cameras in my apartment! What thefuck? Seriously, what thefuck?”

“It was once,” he admitted, his voice tight. “Only once. It was just a few minutes—I swear, Eli.”

His confession twisted in my gut, sharp and acidic. My mind instantly flashed to the masquerade. To how intimately he knew me before he ever touched me in that crowded room.

Benji’s gaze dropped to his lap, his fingers clenching into fists. “I needed to make sure you were safe,” he finally said, his voice rough. “I didn’t mean for it to become?—”

“Become what? Real? Emotional? Did you not mean to trick me into actually fucking caring about you? Because congrats, Detective, mission fucking accomplished.”

My chest burned as if I’d been tossed out of a moving vehicle and slammed across the pavement. The betrayal sliced through me deeper than I ever expected. Every laugh, every conversation, every kiss, and every shared moment of intimacy now felt tainted. Poisoned. Manufactured. Benji had manipulated this entire situation. The relationship I thought we had been developing was all smoke and fucking mirrors.

My stomach lurched, tying itself into a tight knot.

“I fucked up,” Benji whispered. “I’m sorry, Eli. I’m so fucking sorry.”

His apologies meant nothing. They couldn’t fix the broken shards of trust scattered in my chest. My hands trembled, fists shaking at my sides as I stood there, trying to hold on to my rage rather than surrendering to the overwhelming hurt. I had a habit of losing myself to the sea of red before logic could take hold.

I wanted to shout at him. Curse him out. Make him feel the pain he’d caused me in this moment. Anger like I’d never felt before colored my vision a crimson red. I had to work to keep my breathing even. “With everything going on in my life, how could you? You’re almost as bad as Nomad.”

He winced at that, as if I had physically reached out and decked him across the jaw.

Good. Feel it, Benji. Hurt like how you made me hurt.

“I can’t make excuses for my behavior. But there… there are reasons.”

“And I don’t need to hear them.” Was I being cruel? Possibly. But that veil of crimson red grew more vibrant with every passing moment. As if I could see the capillaries in my eyes pulsing every time my heart beat. “You were my safe place, Benji. I had really started to feel like you were my—”one.I swallowed my words. “I was wrong. About everything. I should have never even gone to Stonewall.”

Another wince. He gripped his hands tight, squeezing them between his legs. “No matter what happens, I want you to know I’m dedicated to finding Nomad. If it’s the last thing I do. I swear it, Eli.”

“How the fuck do I even know you’re not Nomad? Huh?”

His head snapped upward, his hazel eyes locked with mine. That comment appeared to have hurt him more than any other.

“You have to believe me when I tell you: I amnotNomad.”

I wanted to believe him, but after all the revelations tonight, I found myself having a difficult time even looking at him. “Just… get out,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. It took every ounce of strength I had left.

“Eli, please?—”

“Get the fuck out, Benji. Now.”

He opened his mouth, ready to protest, but one hard look from me silenced whatever excuse he was about to make. He stood slowly, shoulders slumped in defeat, his expression hollowed and racked with guilt. For a split second, I wanted nothing more than to rush into his arms and forget this all happened.

But I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.

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