“So this is about revenge?”
“Yes.” Cole crams the pictures into the envelope.
“Her revenge? The woman in the photos?” My stomach caves in.
“Danni, look.” His voice cracks. “I’m sorry you had to see those pictures—”
“Sorry I had to see you with another woman? Had to find out you cheated on me? What a horrible inconvenient shame that I couldn’t just carry on dumb and blind and fucking oblivious.”
“It’s not what you think, dammit.”
“Is that not your dick inside that woman?”
He shoots me an unblinking glare.
I return my own. “Did you fuck her before or after I mourned your death?”
“Don’t do this to yourself.” Trace steps between us and brushes a knuckle against my tear-soaked cheek. “It will eat at you and ruin—”
“It’s already ruined,” I snarl. “The three of us? We’re fucked to hell. There’s no coming back from this.”
“Bullshit.” Cole slams a fist on the kitchen island. “I refuse to accept that.”
I give Cole my back, facing Trace. “If this is a revenge scheme against Cole, why are there photos of you?”
His gaze drifts over my shoulder, locking on Cole. “I can’t say.”
More secrets. More shit piled on shit. My heart labors in my chest.
Trace won’t disclose his involvement, but I know, at the very least, he killed that man to protect me. The question is, how did he know the man was in my house?
“Before I met you, how were you able to watch me?”
“I set up cameras before I left.” Cole’s voice is gentle, hesitant, against my back. “They’re on the outside of your house and in your car.”
Startled, I spin around to see his eyes. “You set them up?” I gasp. “Are there cameras in—?”
“None in the house.” Cole studies me intently, like he’s trying to get a pulse on my feelings.
I don’t know what I’m feeling. The security measures he put in place kept me alive, but it’s a horrible invasion of privacy.
“There were listening devices in your house.” Trace wraps a hand around my wrist, as if to keep me from running. “That’s how I knew when to show up for your date the night we met, with the Bissara deal already in motion.”
“You were listening to me?” Heat blooms beneath my skin, and I yank my arm away. “You heard everything in my house after Cole left?” My mind races, and embarrassment squeezes my stomach. “You could hear my vibrator. And my bodily noises. Oh my God. I didn’t even know you!”
Cole bends toward me. “No, that’s not—”
“How did that conversation go exactly?” I can’t decide who I want to castrate more, but I glare at Cole. “Did you call up your best friend and say, Hey man, I bugged my girlfriend’s house, and I need you to spy on her. She’s a bit of a moaner, so just tune that part out?”
Trace reaches for me again, and I jerk away, darting to the other side of the kitchen and putting the island between them and me.
“Is my house still bugged?” Tremors quake through me, trying to bury my voice.
“No.” Trace rests his hands on the counter, leaning into the five feet of space between us. “I removed them when I started sleeping there. I never invaded your privacy more than was needed. I have software that triggers off certain sounds and words, sending me notifications to investigate.”
I feel violated, deceived, and icky all over. “What you did is illegal. So is killing a man. Are you running from the police, Trace?”
“Men like us,” Cole says, “don’t always work within the boundaries of the law. And we’re very good at staying under the radar.”
They’re manipulators, liars, criminals, and I fell in love with them.
I still love them. I love them more than I will ever love anything or anyone in my life. But I’ve reached my limit.
Maybe it’s hypocritical to resent Cole for cheating or to be angry at Trace for keeping more secrets from me. But they continued their relationships with me knowing I was dating both of them. I wasn’t exclusive with either of them, and I never set out to deceive them.
They put me in this position with their untruths about their jobs and their friendship. They told me they loved me with mouths full of lies. They wrenched me back and forth between them under the pretense that the secrets were behind us. I’m a fucking fool.
Their deceit has warped my love, trailing its toxic, spineless tentacles around the trust I freely gave them. If I don’t untangle myself, their lies will continue to constrict and suffocate until nothing is spared and life is strangled from my body.