Page 139 of Corrupt Me

I leap up from the chair, my insides boiling with anger. Blake and the rest of the group follow suit, with their gazes darting between us. Alert and ready to interfere.

A fucking army couldn’t keep me at bay.

“Don’t make it harder for her,” Blake says, his voice tight. “I understand you, man, but this is the only way.”

I slam a fist against my chest. “If the only way is for my woman to be engaged to someone else, then I will fucking raze this world until I find Felix on my own.”

“I’d help you do it if we had the slightest idea where he was hiding. But we don’t,” Kaden sighs, his jaw set in a hard line—some friends I have.

She’s too bloody good, that’s why. Because she would sacrifice herself for every one of us. I just fucking found a reason to live, and that is Bailey. I don’t care if that makes me selfish.

Everything in me screams to go to her and shake some sense into her. I am going to fucking kill Eric. Problem solved, and we’d just have to find another way to get our hands on Felix.

Celine wraps her hand around my elbow as if to hold me in place. “Hunter… don’t act on impulse.”

“You’re one to talk.” I huff.

“Watch how you talk to my woman,” Kaden warns.

I jerk my chin to him, daring him. “You shut up. Because if it were Celine in Bailey’s place, you wouldn’t have reacted any better.”

“This is not a competition. All of you just calm down,” Abi says in a high-pitched tone.

“What else did she say?” Mia asks Blake.

He clears his throat, looking from her back to me. “They’re going to be engaged officially on Friday night.”

In three days. Fuck. Not going to happen.

“How the hell are we supposed to keep him in check till then?” Dane asks the group, jerking his chin at me and raising a brow.

I am surrounded by damn hypocrites. I can’t stand being near any of them right now.

Without another word, I storm upstairs and lock myself in my room, afraid if I’d stayed down there a moment longer, I would have fought every last one of them.

What makes it even harder to digest is Bailey just made the decision without talking to me first, forcing me to accept it. I thought we’d be a team in everything.

I guess I was wrong.

Cramming my fist into my mouth, I muffle my screams so no one can hear my despair.

A soft knock breaks the silence. My door opens, and Celine peeks inside.

“I want to be alone,” I grumble.

“Alone in your head right now is the last place you should be.”

She’s stubborn as hell, so it doesn’t surprise me that she closes the door behind her and approaches me. “Talk to me. Please.”

“I’m not in the mood to talk.”

“Tell me how to help you, then.”

“No one can.”

Only Bailey, but she’s not here, and she’s not coming. I’ve faced loss in my life, but fuck, this wrecks me.

She places a hand on my back, speaking softly. “It’s fake, Hunter.”

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