Page 276 of Forged in the Fire

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Those two sentences made my organs feel like they were being ripped out of my body.

My mind was quick to add through the clues.

D: Dereck

Change of plans: The promise Silas had made.

He has to go: Death.

Silas wouldn’t though. I knew him. He would never do that to me.

I was jumping to conclusions. I had to be.

I clicked into the next, not even sure who was saying what, but somehow knowing this was a shared folder and two people were having a conversation.

Are you sure? Intel says he’s a go.

The next.

It has to happen. Too much liability.

Hand barely cooperating, I flicked into the next.

This isn’t normally the way you play.

I know, but there’s too much riding on this. The guy’s a liar. A rat. And you know what we do with those.

Trembles rocked through me as I clicked into the last.

Understood. I’ll see that it’s done.

A blade of misery stabbed through my middle, and I nearly bent in two. A sob clung like a blob of poison at the base of my throat.

How could he? How could he do this to me?

I thought…I thought…

I beat the agony back into submission.

I didn’t have time for a broken heart. Besides, I was the idiot here. He already told me he would ruin me.

Throat closing off, I tossed my head over my shoulder, almost certain I’d find a beast behind me, ready to strike and end me, too.

The way I knew from the beginning Silas would do.

When did I become so complacent? So blind? So freaking stupid?

Nothing but a doormat who’d been used again and again.

Manipulated so I’d be thrown off track.

I mean, I’d fully stopped looking for clues. Stopped listening. Stopped asking.

Because I’d fallen into a trap and trusted Silas Mercer.

Bile rolled my throat, acid clawing at the back of my tongue the way it always did a moment before I puked.

This was no time to be sick.

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