Page 54 of My Unhinged Alphas
But fear doesn’t mean I get to be stupid. That much is already clear.
I force myself to breathe slower, to think past the panic, to sort through what just happened instead of letting it crush me. Havoc is dangerous. That’s obvious. Not just dangerous in the normal way men like him are dangerous, but in a stranger way. There’s something wrong with him. Something loose in his head. He smiles at the wrong moments. He says awful things like they’re jokes. He looks amused when he should look angry, and calm when he should look guilty.
He feels deranged. Almost. And that should make this simple. Stay away from him. Avoid him. Never be alone with him again.
Except it isn’t simple, because I’m not stupid, and I saw the way he looked at me.
He wants me. That much is obvious too.
And if Havoc wants me, maybe that’s useful. Maybe I can use that. Maybe attraction is the one thing that might make him careless around me, softer with me, easier to read. Easier to steer.
The thought makes my stomach twist. Because using him means getting close to him, and getting close to him feels a lot like stepping toward the edge of something steep and black and endless. Still, it might be better than having nothing.
Voices break through the silence outside. They didn’t go far. I turn my head toward the door, holding my breath without meaning to.
“I know what you were doing with her.”
Knox. His voice is lower now, rougher through the wall, but I’d know it anyway.
Havoc answers, too quiet for a second, and I miss the first few words. Then his voice gets clearer, lazy and wicked and completely unashamed. “I had her against the window,” he says, each word clear enough to make me want to disappear. “Bared to me. Fingers inside her. Tasting her while she came apart for me. Is that enough detail for you, or should I keep going?”
I clap a hand over my mouth.
Oh my God.
My whole face burns. I can feel it, the heat climbing from my neck to my cheeks, and I take an instinctive step back from the door like that will somehow make it less humiliating to hear.
Outside, Knox swears under his breath, and the sound of it sends something through me. Anger, embarrassment, something else I don’t want to name.
Havoc laughs softly. I can picture it without seeing him, that maddening smile on his face, that look like he enjoys every second of making things worse. “You asked,” he says.
“You think this is funny?” Knox snaps.
“I think,” Havoc says, voice turning cooler, “that you care a lot more than you should.”
Silence.
Heavy silence.
My pulse kicks harder. Because I hear it too now, the thing under the fight. Not just anger. Not just Knox being furious that Havoc is reckless or irresponsible or whatever excuse he keeps trying to sell himself.
Something else. Something uglier.
I inch closer to the door again before I can stop myself.
Knox says something lower this time, too muffled to make out, and Havoc answers with a short laugh.
I shut my eyes. I should move away. I should stop listening, but I don’t. Because this matters. Because whatever is happening between them matters. Because if Havoc keeps pushing Knox like this, and Knox keeps reacting, then that’s something I need to understand. A weakness. A fracture. A place to press if I have to.
And I may have to.
Havoc’s voice drops lower, but I still catch it. “She liked it.”
My eyes fly open as Knox says something savage under his breath.
I step back again, flustered and furious now, hugging myself tighter because I don’t know what to do with the mess inside me. He has no right to say things like that out loud. No right to turn what happened into some weapon in his fight with Knox. But part of what makes it unbearable is that he’s not entirely wrong, and that only makes the shame worse.
Outside, Knox says, “Stay away from her.”
