Page 51 of My Unhinged Alphas
Havoc’s voice drops lower. “You don’t get to come in here and start barking orders at me.”
“No?” I say. “Then stop acting like a child and maybe I won’t have to.”
His jaw locks, and for a second, it feels like the whole room goes silent around us. Havoc stands there with that dangerous look in his eyes, and I don’t give him an inch.
“So this is just about the kill,” he says.
“Yes.”
He smiles then, but there’s nothing friendly in it. “Liar.”
He’s not completely wrong.
I’m angry because he was reckless. Because he cost us answers. Because the girl is now caught in the fallout. But I’m also angry because I walked in and found him touching something he shouldn’t.
And Havoc, being Havoc, can smell weakness the second it enters a room.
My voice stays flat. “Back up.”
He doesn’t. He leans in just enough to make it worse. To make it obvious he’s doing it on purpose.
The girl suddenly says, “Maybe both of you should stop.”
Neither of us looks at her.
Havoc keeps his eyes on mine. “You want to tell me what my problem is, or do you want to admit yours?”
I should hit him. Instead, I say, “My problem is that you keep turning everything into a game.”
“Or maybe,” he says, glancing toward the girl for half a second, “it’s that you finally noticed you don’t like losing.”
That almost does it.
I take one step forward. That’s all. Barely anything. But Havoc reads it for what it is, and the room goes even tighter.
He grins, mean and slow, like he’s been waiting for this. “There he is.”
I should walk away. I know I should. We have bigger problems than this. Dead men. Questions. People already digging where they shouldn’t. But Havoc has always known exactly where to press, and right now he’s got his thumb right on the bruise.
“Back up,” I say again.
He doesn’t. Instead he tilts his head, still in my space, still pushing. “Or what?”
I don’t answer. I don’t need to.
Something in my face must give it away, because the girl speaks up again, sharper this time. “Are you seriously doing this right now?”
Havoc’s eyes stay locked on mine. “That’s what I thought.”
Then he gives me a little shove to the shoulder. Not enough to start a real fight. Enough to dare me to.
My hand closes around the front of his shirt before I even think about it. I shove him back hard, and he laughs, the sound rough and ugly as he catches himself against the wall.
“There you are,” he says again.
He comes off the wall fast. For a second I think it’s really going to happen. I see it in the set of his shoulders, in the way his fist tightens, in that wild look that means his temper’s finally caught up with mine. I’m already braced for it, ready to put him on the floor if he takes one more step.
Then the girl moves. She steps between us before either of us can stop her, one hand pushing at Havoc’s chest, the other aimed toward me like she thinks she can hold us apart.
