Page 110 of The Sweetest Revenge

Zaiden's gaze shifted, something dangerous flickering behind his eyes as he stepped forward, erasing the space between us. "And I'm obsessed with you." His hands found my hips, fingers pressing into the fabric as he pulled me against him.

My lip curled into a grin, heart racing beneath my ribs. "Like how obsessed?" I tilted my head, voice light.

"Like insanely obsessed," he breathed, forehead touching mine. His words ghosted against my lips. "Like I'd kill for you."

"How did you get to me so quickly?"

"I knew you were going to confront your mom."

My brows shot up. "You did?" Heat crawled up my neck as my eyes narrowed. "How?"

He shrugged, too casual, too rehearsed. "It's what I would have done." His gaze held mine, unflinching. "And I let you because I knew it was the only way we might get a confession from her."

"But you left."

He shook his head. "No." A muscle twitched in his jaw. "I drove the bike out of the driveway and parked just down the road. Waited." His voice dropped. "I was going to follow you to the house."

"So, you saw your mom come home?"

His eyes darkened. He looked away, then back at me.

"No." The word hung between us. "She was already in the house." The implication settled over me like a shadow. She'd been waiting. Planning. All along. "I don't know when she got in the house or how long she'd been there, but she'd been waiting for the perfect opportunity to go after you. She thought you knew more than you did, and it somehow got back to her that you were digging around into Kacie's accident."

"How?"

He shrugged. "I don't know, and I doubt we'll ever know because after we appear to testify against her in court, I don't ever want to see her again."

"How did you find out she was in the house?"

"You didn't hang up the phone, so they knew you were in trouble, but the call was muffled when you put the phone on the bed. So, they didn't know exactly what was going on. Journey didn't have my number, so she called Sterling, and he called me. I didn't know until I was in the house that it was my mom, but I was inside long enough to record most of her confessions."

"I thought I was going to die." My voice cracked. My hands still trembled with the memory of cold metal against my temple.

"She was never going to shoot you." His voice dropped to a whisper. "Too messy."

My throat went dry. "Then how?—?"

"A needle." His fingers trembled slightly as he mimed the motion. "Filled with something. If I had to guess—" He met my eyes, his dark with anger. "The same thing that killed Officer Tanner."

"She'd been working her way through killing off any loose ends," I muttered, the reality of it washing over me in cold waves. "And I was a loose end."

He nodded, expression grim.

"Mila and Journey would have been next." My voice quickened with the terrible logic of it.

"Yeah." The single word carried the weight of how close we'd all come.

Silence stretched between us, filled with all the terrible what-ifs. Finally, I forced myself to ask, "So what happens now?"

Zaiden looked up at the darkening sky, a few stars beginning to appear between the clouds. His posture shifted, some of the tension draining from his shoulders. "Now, we go home."

He reached for my hand, his palm warm against mine. "And we live our lives knowing Kacie got the justice she deserved."

I smiled, feeling a tiny spark of hope ignite somewhere deep in my chest.

Zaiden's thumb traced circles on my wrist. "And you move out of Kacie's room."

My brows pulled together, the spark dimming as I thought we were taking steps backward. Before I could speak, he continued.

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