Page 35 of Bane's Beginning

“You mean our conversation before I overdosed?” he deadpanned.

“Yeah, that’s the one,” I trailed.

“I love you, Thea,” he pleaded, getting up from the bed and standing in front of me. I shook my head and simply said, “You don’t.”

“I do.”

“No, this,” I gestured between us. “Isn’t love.”

“It is for us,” he said, stepping closer to me. “You did this to me, T. I wasn’t this type of person before I met you. You say that you’re mine, that you love me, but then you push me away. You don’t open up to me about shit, and then you run off and tell Chase every little fucking thing about your day. The only way Ican get you to show me any kind of emotion is by hurting you by fucking around.”

“That’s unfair,” I pleaded.

“It’s the fucking truth and you know it! The reason you keep coming back, the reason you keep forgiving me, is because you know it, too,” he continued. “You need me to be your bad guy, the villain in your story in order for you to make the ones hiding under your bed and in your closet seem not as bad, but as soon as you feel like you don’t need me anymore then you don’t until you do! It’s bullshit!”

“No, what you’re saying is bullshit!” I yelled, hoping no one could hear us arguing. “You’re painting me out to be some kind of masochist and you are the dutiful servant willing to do my bidding! You’re a cheater and a liar and you can’t use your insecurities as a scapegoat, Marcus.”

“You would know all about that wouldn’t you?”

“I’m so fucking sick of you and Bridgette’s secondhand comments. God, maybe you two are made for each other,” I spit back.

“I’m not with Bridgette,” he quipped. “Of course you aren’t. You’re just fucking your best friend’s sister who is obsessed with you for the fun of it. Everyone is all but just a player in Marcus’ sick game to win my love.”

“Did you forget what just happened?” his voice began to raise. “We just found out that you were pregnant and not even for one second did you think about keeping it, you selfish bitch!”

“That’s not fair, and you know it!”

“No, what’s not fair is my girl of two years not even considering a real future with me for one second.”

“A future?” I mocked. “During the past two years we’ve been together, you’ve fucked half of campus and the other half you just haven’t gotten their numbers yet.”

“What about you? Did you even wait for my baby to be dead before you hopped into bed with someone else, but that’s your specialty isn’t it!”

His words felt like a gut punch to my stomach and my face fell. It was a low blow, one meant to sting and it did. He was referencing our current situation and how we had met not too long after I had left Italy where I miscarried with Matteo’s baby. It was all of my strength not to punch the motherfucker in the face, but before I could get a chance, Chase stormed into the room and pushed him up against the wall, driving his fist into Marcus’s face again and again.

“Okay! He’s had enough, Chase,” Bridgette screamed from behind me. “Shut the door,” I yelled to her.

I took a deep breath in to try and calm down. It was time for us to hash this shit out, right then and there.

“We are ending this now,” I said as I looked at my three friends around the room. “If we don’t, we are all going to end up dead and it won’t matter whose fucking who and why then.”

Everyone nodded in agreement. Before I could get the words out, Bridgette interrupted me. “I lied,” she said, and all of their eyes shot to me.

“About what?” I asked.

“I haven’t been getting calls from Oceanside.”

“What?” Marcus, Chase and I said in unison.

“I know,” Bridgette said with tears forming in her eyes. “I fucked up, and I’m not just talking about the calls. I didn’t mean to hurt you, Thea. You weren’t talking to me, and I knew that you wouldn’t even try to hear me out unless you had a reason to, so I lied and faked the calls from Oceanside, which was pointless seeing as you still didn’t even try to reach out,” she rambled on as tears were cascading down her face.

I looked at her dumbfounded. I didn’t even know how to respond to her. This whole time, I was thinking that Matteo and his mafia were close to finding us and then I learned that it was all a lie. I couldn’t tell if I was relieved or pissed as hell. Maybe a little bit of both.

“Bridgette,” Chase said with a bowed head.

Very few moments in my life do I feel like I don’t have control, but as I looked at Bridgette and her crocodile tears, I stopped seeing my best friend. The woman I went to hell for to save and the one I would quickly go back to protect. I started to see her for what she truly became, a complication. For a split second, I let the anger take over me and I reached into my pocket and grabbed my pocket knife, pushed her against the wall, and pressed it against her neck. She let out a shriek that I was sure the whole house could hear as the boys called my name, begging for me to step back.

“Do you think this is a fucking game?” I spit. I didn’t want to kill her. Truthfully, I didn’t even want to hurt her, but I was tired of Bridgette’s constant battles with the rest of us. Her insistent need to not listen to what we say or follow the decisions we made together and how it kept putting us all at risk. This is the fucking mafia we were dealing with, not some crazy ex-boyfriend, but the leader of the Italian fucking mafia. She needed to bow down or bow out, and I was determined to make her choose.