East Bound by Nana Malone (big ebook reader txt) 📕

"You don't talk to me like that."

"Ah look, finally, a backbone. Where was that when you were with Denning?"

I whirled on him. "You shut up. You know nothing about my life. You're just another in a long line of people who’ve walked away from me my whole goddamn life. You're not the first, and you won't be the last. But I promise you, you will not fucking break me."

"You want to know exactly why I walked away from you? I love how you can't even see your own lies, the things that you do that put you in these positions. It makes me wonder what exactly happened with Denning."

"You don't know anything about me. And that's okay. You're not worth the effort."

Inside, I was screaming. My lungs were burning. I wanted to cry. I wanted to thrash. I wanted to hit him with something, because even though I knew where this was going, even though he'd already shown me the depths of his cruelty, I still wanted him. I could feel it now. Even with the tension in our words, my body was coiled, ready for something to happen.

"Fucking tell me. What did I do to you that was so horrible?"

"It was the hit list in your flat."

I frowned. "What are you talking about?"

He couldn’t know about that, could he? How?

"Okay, you want to play dumb? I watched you last Sunday. Instead of going to your office like you said, I watched you double back and take the tube."

My stomach pitched. "You followed me?"

"Of course, I followed you. Did you think I wouldn't? I have a team to protect, and you were lying to me."

My knees almost buckled. He had seen it. Fuck me. No wonder he didn't believe me. No wonder he had reacted the way that he had. He had told me before how trust was so important to him. How his family had broken that trust. His own father. And now I'd done the same thing. "East, if you’d bothered to talk to me, you would know that it wasn't like that. Amelia was the one piecing it together. I had nothing to do with it."

"Oh, of course you'd say that now."

"You're such an arsehole. I came to the hotel that day to talk to you. Ask your concierge, Thomas. I left a note very explicitly telling you that you needed to be careful. But either he didn't give it to you, or you just chose to ignore it. I warned you. You didn't listen. Meanwhile, Amelia has got me running to the prison to interview Bram Van Linsted. I saw Jameson visiting him. I was the one who warned Livy they were coming for you because you wouldn’t talk to me. You know what? I don't even care what drama you're involved in anymore. I don't want any part of it. I played in your sandbox, and all I got was sand in my hair and dirt in my eye. I have zero interest in repeating the experience."

"You expect me to believe that you had nothing to do with that methodically plotted board full of so-called evidence and connections? That the oh-so-tenacious Agent Nyla Kincade wouldn't be after us, wouldn't be coming for me and my mates?"

"What I told you was true. I believed you. I believed that there was something going on, something I didn’t know. But then you told me about the Elite and that you guys were trying to avenge your friend’s death. I already had all the information, so why would I need to keep investigating if you'd already told me? It doesn't make any sense, East. But oh no, you had a major reaction. You believed the absolute worst about me, which, you know, sounds par for the course. I get it. You are loyal to your mates. They're your friends. You should be loyal to them. Obviously, you’ve been through a lot together, and this is a team that I'm not cool enough to be on. I get that. I wonder what it's like to have a family like that. I had started to care about you. I opened up. I trusted you. The funny thing is, we're standing here talking about trust and belief in one another, and you're the one who betrayed my trust. When you care about people, you talk to them. You engage with them. Ask questions. Instead, you assumed you knew everything. You assumed that I had betrayed you. And God, if that's what you think about me, why did we ever start this? I trusted you when you needed me to. You told me about the Elite. I believed what you were saying about Jameson. I believed you were telling me the truth. But when it came down to it, you couldn't afford me the same courtesy. You were so quick to turn your back on me. So much for that famed East Hale loyalty, right?” And with those parting words, I turned to go. “I don't need you to show me out. I know the way.”

My legs were still shaking as I left him standing in his living room, the lights of London twinkling through his windows. I was stunned that he had assumed that I could hurt him like that. That instead of just asking me about what he saw, he assumed that I could betray him, when in reality, he was the one breaking my heart.

East

About fifteen minutes after Nyla finished verbally handing me my ass, there was a knock at the door, and a rush of hope flooded my veins so quickly that I almost choked on it. I yanked it open, expecting to see Nyla, but instead it was Ben. "Mate, what are you doing here?"

"Liv’s with Telly in my old flat downstairs."

"Is that wise? She was attacked in there last year. I wouldn’t think she’d be comfortable waiting there."

"I know. But she's the one who actually said that she'd wait for me there instead of the