Page 208 of Ruin Me Gently

The room was too still.

Fine.

Worst-case scenario here? They called my bluff.

Best case? They outed themselves like complete idiots.

Pushing myself up from the couch, I sighed and stretched my arms over my head like I was already bored of the conversation. “Relax, Silas. I already know.”

His eyes went wide. “You do?”

“Yeah, Finn told me the basics earlier when you were in one of your meetings. It’s fine.”

Finn’s mouth dropped open. “Wait, no, I didn’t, I swear du—”

I spun on Silas, pointing a finger straight at him. “You’re a bullshitter.”

His lips parted, but nothing came out.

I turned the finger to Finn, levelling him with a look. “You. Speak. Now.”

Finn held up his hands, backing up a step. “Graves, I love you, but I’m not dying like this.”

And then, the words tumbled out of him. “It’s Clark.”

The room, the air, the sounds—it all faded to static.

Clark.

My brain tripped over itself, trying to keep up with whatever that was.

“Can you repeat that for me, please?”

He glanced over at Silas who just snapped, “Finn, shut up.”

Nope. No way.

“Thefuckhe will,” I shot back. “Keep going, Finn.”

He hesitated for a beat, looking between us, then blurted, “We’ve been looking for him for weeks.”

I took a step back, a laugh bubbling up before I could stop it. “You’ve been looking for Clark. For weeks. And you didn’t think to tell me?”

They stayed silent.

I laughed again. “You’re joking, right?”

Nothing.

Why weren’t they moving? They just stood there like two kids caught with their hands in the cookie jar—except the cookie was my entire damn life,and the jar was my right to know what the hell was going on.

I let out a slow breath. “No, no, I mean—this has to be a joke. Because there’s no way you’d keep something like this from me.”

Silas ran a hand through his hair, his jaw clenching. “I was going to tell you. You weren’t supposed to find out like this.”

I scoffed. “No, I bet I wasn’t.”

“Lilith, I didn’t want you carrying this. I didn’t want you living with fear every second of the day.”

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