Page 108 of A Smile Full of Lies
Control.
Every good move starts with a lie so clean it feels like truth.
I already knew which one I was going to tell her.
The concrete smelled damp when I pushed through the stairwell door into the parking deck. My footsteps echoed sharp against the painted lines as I pulled my phone back out.
I didn’t hesitate. Didn’t give myself the luxury of second-guessing. My thumb slid across her contact and lifted the phone to my ear.
One ring. Two.
“Hello?” Her voice was soft, tentative. Like she already knew the ground was about to shift under her feet.
I let a beat stretch, calibrating my tone. Then I dropped it — calm, even, almost bored.
“Hey. Something just landed in my inbox.”
Her breath hitched and she made a soft choking sound for a second before she spoke.
“What was it?”
“It was a pretty long email from Nox Obscura, one of the guys who was a performer at The Hollowing. There were DMs between you two, and a transcript of a phone call between you, and a security video clip of you when you were waiting to get in and those girls were talking about me, and then there were the messages you sent Nox Obscura this morning,” I added, letting the name linger, casual as a blade pressed against skin. “He thought I’d find it interesting, but it seems to me like you really pissed this guy off when you told him you were choosing me over him after whatever happened between you two during The Hollowing.”
The silence on the line wasn’t silence at all. I could hear it — the way her throat closed, the tiny scrape of air as she tried to swallow down panic. My chest tightened, hunger and fury curling together in a knot just under my sternum.
“I — I didn’t mean for you to find out like this,” she blurted, words spilling fast, shaky. “I thought it would stay between me and him. I didn’t know he’d really tell you—” Her voice cracked. “I’m sorry, Knox.”
Christ. That voice. That apology. Like I was the one she’d betrayed instead of the one holding every card.
I kept my own voice low, level.
“I’m not mad at you, sweetheart.”
She sucked in a sharp breath like she hadn’t expected mercy.
“No?”
“I’m curious,” I said, slicing the word clean, deliberate.
Her silence was worse than panic. It was waiting. Hoping.
Good. Let her stew in it. Let her feel the weight of what she’d written, what she thought she’d given to a stranger when it was always me.
“Curious about what?”
“Mostly why you let things play out this way. You could’ve told me yourself,” I added quietly. “Instead of letting him send those things to me.”
“I know,” she whispered. “I should’ve. I just — I didn’t know how.”
I closed my eyes for a moment, savoring it. Her shame, her rawness, the way she’d cracked open without me even raising my voice.
Perfect.
“I’m coming home, Ros. I think we should probably talk about this face-to-face. That phone call between you two was really fucked up. I read every word.”
“Knox—”
I pulled the phone from my ear and ended the call, without another word.
