Page 85 of Sweetheart: Part One

What the fuck did Drake have to do with any of this?

I took too long, and he leaned forward on his seat, resting his elbows on his knees and drinking in my expression like a man parched. “Blowing it up with her means blowing it up with him. And there’ll be no coming back.”

I fixed my mask. “She’s a Sweetheart. He’ll get over it.”

“Is that your read on him?” Rook asked.

A thinly veiled taunt.

Claiming to have a read on Drake might be the most obvious lie that could come from my mouth. Well, a close runner-up behind ‘I’d never leave my mom to rot in a nursing home’, and ‘letting fans touch me doesn’t make me want to burn my skin off with bleach’.

Still, Rook had one thing that I didn’t. Usually, it didn’t matter—in fact, it was the very thing that left him so weak. Except in one pesky fucking area: his ability to understand the rest of my pack.

Drake Jaccard was a void, nested in an already lodged blind spot.

I’dwanted him as a pack mate.

I’d Claimed him.

But I didn’t understand him.

A sneer curled Rook’s lips as he enjoyed the stretching silence. “Drake’s obsessed, mate. He went full to bat to protect her, and it’s your fault she stayed—you know that, right? Gonna bite your precious relationship in the ass.”

Rook wasn’t my claim—nor did he want to be. He was mostly just a pain in the ass and the cost of keeping Love around. But Drake was more than that.

No…

Vex wouldn’t take Drake from me. That was years worth of fucking work, and some of my best.

What Rook didn’t realise, however, was that he’d just made it more paramount that I figure out what he had on her.

When I got rid of Vex, I needed it to look like his fault.

TWENTY-FOUR

Dear Love: You want me for him, not for me.

VEX

Two Months Ago

They toyed with me, and still hadn’t shown their faces. Still, they hadn’t touched me. Still, they hadn’t told me what they wanted.

Today, Alastor entered my room wearing his familiar black mask. I was compelled to cross toward the armchair the moment he entered.

It was part of the routine.

A part of the ongoing commands that lived between us in this bond.Hatefully, I sunk down onto my knees, curling my hands in my lap, keeping my head bowed and gaze down.

This was the fifth time I’d been forced to wait for him like this. The vile hatred I had for it was enough to steal my breath and burn my eyes every time.

But my pack lead liked to take his time before he asked for my attention, and by the time I looked up to him, I’d cleared my expression of all distress.

I didn’t want him having that part.

Sure enough, it felt like an age passed as he sat in the armchair before me.

“Why won’t you show me your face?” I asked, at last.

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