Page 29 of His Fury

“This really is me collecting on that favor, Is.”

I turned to look at him and he was right behind me. “I owe you no?—"

His eyes had a hint of amusement as he watched my indignation. “Now Isla, why do you always lie to yourself?” He stepped closer. “You owe me, Isla. You know you do.”

God, he was dick sometimes.“I was sure the stunt you pulled at the gala made us equal!” I snapped at him, and the bastard grinned.

“But you owed me twice, little Isla,” he murmured.

He held my gaze, even though I was glaring at him. I knew the night that I dragged him from a girl’s bed at a college party would come back to bite me. I turned away from him. “Fine.”

Rye stood. “I’ll take you. I’ll stay with you, see you settled.”

Who would have thought my safe harbor in all of this would be Rye?

“Is that okay?” I wasn’t asking Rye. I was asking the man behind me, whose tension I could feel radiating off of him.

“For now,” Zayn confirmed softly. “But not for long.”

I turned to face him. His eyes were fierce with anger, but I never backed away when he reached out to run his thumb over my cheek. Because the truth hit me the second I looked into his eyes this morning.

Zayn McCabe wasn’t just my past anymore.

He was my present.

And worse?

I wasn’t sure if I could stop him from becoming my future.

CHAPTER 8

ZAYN

The momentthe door closed behind her, the tension in the room shifted. The air which had been thick, almost suffocating, as I sat in silence and listened to Isla tell her story, settled into something sharper as I locked my attention on Julian.

I watched him exhale. Shaky and unsteady, he ran a hand over his face, the first to break the silence. “What a fucking mess.”

I didn’t respond because what was there to say? She’d spoken the words out loud, and we all realized the truth of them.

They said Zayn McCabe would pay any price to get her back, and I hadn’t disputed that. No one had. Least of all me. Because it was true. I was ready to wipe the floor with all of them.

“What’s your plan?” Julian asked as he watched me warily. He gestured to the door. “Will you deal with it? With the fact that Delaney knows she’s more than what he thought she was?”

“And what did he think she was?” I asked him slowly. Ihadn’t moved from where I stood, observing the way he practically vibrated with tension. If this was how he played cards, no wonder he lost all his cash.

Julian shrugged. “I guess some people who don’t know us that well could think she was my girlfriend or something…”

“And do you dissuade them from this misconception?” Jealousy surged within me, which was ridiculous because I knew they were nothing like that. Iknewit. I had witnessed it. Fuck, it was my name she screamed when she was coming around my cock, not his.What the fuck was wrong with me?

I looked away from him, my jaw tight, the muscles in my shoulders tense. “I’ll deal with their belief that Isla is worth more to me than what you owe.” I saw him flinch at my flat tone.

Julian made a sound that could have been a huff of laughter or a snort of disgust; it was hard to say. “Sure, you will. It’s what you do, right?”

I ignored him because I didn’t have an answer to that. I shouldn’t need to answer it. This was his mess. Not mine. He was still sitting, but he was avoiding eye contact, and I could feel his guilt radiating off him in waves.

I still wanted to hit him. I wanted to cross the room, slam my fist into his jaw, and remind him that she was takenbecauseof him,notme. But I didn’t because I had spent too many hours thinking about something worse. Thinking about what they could have been doing to her.

Being relieved in a way that it was Delaney who took her just emphasized how fucked up this was. He was scum, but he was scum who was only interested in money. There were worse out there who would have done a whole lot more than stick her in a dark room.

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