Page 101 of Hate Game

If I steal the purse money, I’ll harm my brother’s reputation and his crew. Not to mention the disappointment on Malice’s face every chance I see him, which is never.

I never want to see the cheating jerk again. Except did he cheat? We never talked about being exclusive. My head throbs. Unshed tears obscure my view. I look down at the floor, not wanting anyone to see me cry, and run across the gym and past the crowd.

Near the door to the theatre, I run into someone. The person jerks back. Another body brushes against my back. Two pairs of shoes. I look up and gasp in shock.

Narrow face. Honey-colored eyes. Baseball cap pulled low.

Like me, Olivia is hiding her face and identity, but her honey-colored eyes are a dead giveaway for me. I spent a lot of time looking at pictures of Olivia on Red’s cell phone. He liked to talk about her as he scrolled through her Insta pictures.

“She has beautiful eyes, doesn’t she, Rue?” he would say. “Golden, like sunlight.”

I’ve never heard romantic words from Red’s mouth except for when he reminisced about his time with Olivia.

“Olivia? What are you doing here?” I look at the guy next to her. “Johnny? Shouldn’t you be with Isaac?” As I look from Olivia to Johnny, the truth hits me. Same honey-colored eyes and facial bone structure. Alone, no one would make a connection, but standing next to one another… “You two are related. How?”

“She’s my half-sister. No one knows, and you better not tell, Rue.”

“I won’t.” I turn to Olivia. She has a familiar looking magenta cloth bag clasped to her chest. “Put the purse money back.” She shakes her head. Crap! I direct my next words to Johnny. “How could you? Isaac loves and treats you like you’re his blood.”

“It’s not what you think.”

“How else am I supposed to think? How did she get it out of the safe anyways, other than with help from you?”

“She’s her own woman. I’m here to talk sense into her. I left her for a few minutes to deal with two dudes fighting over a girl in one of the classrooms, and she took off on me.”

“You left the safeunguarded?”

“Isaac wanted it that way. He suspected you would crash his event, cuz he was, you know…” Johnny waves his hand.

I narrow my eyes. “He was testing me.”

“Yes,” Johnny admits.

I growl low in the back of my throat. First, I catch Malice kissing a girl he said meant nothing to him. Second, I run into, literally, the girl Red’s been hung up on. Finally, I find out my brother’s been testing me. For what? Does he want me to steal something for him? He uses his fists to hurt, and now he wants to use me for more destruction? What else can go wrong tonight?

“Well, well, what do we have here?”

Deep voice. Menacing tone. I recognize Sawyer McCabe’s voice from watching too many social media videos of him proudly talking his admirers through his workout routine, followed by the raven-haired devil with the jade-green eyes kissing each bicep as he flexes his guns for arms.

I grab the bag from Olivia and whirl around with the bag behind my back.

Olivia is Johnny’s half-sister. Johnny admitted to making a mistake by leaving her with the safe. The safe was left unguarded to test me because Isaac believes I’ll never stop stealing. Isaac is a jerk for thinking I can’t change my ways, but I won’t let him get in trouble with the McCabes. I have to save him from himself.Save him from himself. Do harm for the sake of doing good, like when I tried stealing Colton’s vape pen. I cause destruction with my habit of stealing when I could do good by talking instead.

When have I ever shared my thoughts with Isaac that he could do better with his smarts and influence? When have I ever told Colton that I care for him and so does my brother, and it kills me to see him destroying his health for a bad habit? I should open up, talk more, and steal less.

Sawyer steps into my space. “Answer the question, kid. Whatcha hiding?”

I push back the hood and remove my baseball cap. My hair falls around me in waves. “I am not a kid, and it’s none of your business.”

But first, I have to save Olivia from her mistake.

He laughs, and it’s not the friendly kind. “Feisty, aren’t you?”

He snatches the bag from my hand and tosses it to another giant who looks like him. Before I can curse him out for taking what’s not his, he throws me over his shoulder and storms back toward the gym.

“Where are you taking me?”

“To my truck for fun times.”

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