Page 195 of With Us

Scary and unpredictable.

Holding out his arms, he calmly said, “I’ve got pieces in my shoulder holster and right calf. Knife on the left.”

Niall approached slowly, removing the stated weapons before patting him down to be safe.

“Why?” I asked.

“You didn’t go to war for them. They killed them, and you didn’t go to war.”

My brows lowered, my head jerking back. “I killed them. I’m not bringing everyone down for the actions of a few. But when I found out who was responsible, I made them pay.”

His face twisted with bitterness. “What if it was Dahlia? What if you came home to find her raped, bloody, and beaten to death?”

With a few long strides, I had his back to the wall, my gun pushed to his head. “Don’t you fucking bring Dahlia into this. Her name doesn’t leave your mouth, you hear me?”

There was no flash of fear. No negotiations. No excuses.

His expression was eerily blank, especially considering I had a gun to his head. It wasn’t that he was trying to call a bluff, as if I wouldn’t pull the trigger.

Ben just didn’t care.

“You’d have gone to war for her,” he said. “You’d have set the world on fire and watched it burn if it were her.”

He wasn’t lying.

“So, what? You decided I needed to pay? Ten fucking years later, and you’ve decided I didn’t do enough?”

He shook his head as best as he could the barrel of a gun against it. “No. I decided the minute you told me you only killed three of them that you didn’t do enough. But this isn’t about you paying. It’s about starting a fucking war. With you in prison, Donnelly and the Irish were supposed to poach your territory. They made moves, but you got out too early.”

Donnelly was a selfish bastard who’d been running the Irish for more than fifteen years. He wouldn’t have gone head-to-head with me, but he was an opportunist.

“And the fight setup was your attempt at sending me back,” I surmised.

He gave a jerky nod.

Clenching my jaw, I tried to get a handle on my temper. I’d done a fuck of a lot for Ben, and he’d thrown it in my face while reaching around to stab me in the back. That rage and betrayal ate at my fucking core, but it was nothing compared to knowing how this was going to hurt Dahlia.

“How could you do this to her? Be her friend, then hire someone to kidnap her? Twice!” White knuckling the gun, I pressed it harder against him.

He flinched at the pressure, but made no other movement.

“What were you planning on doing to her?” I growled. “Hurt her? Do what—”

“No!” Ben’s eyes widened, and, for the first time, he showed emotion. Remorse. “God, no. I was just trying to get her away from you. I’d never do that to Dahlia, I love her.”

“What the fuck did you—”

He shook his head. “Not like that. Dahlia’s too good for a piece of shit like me. She’s too good for any of us. You sank your claws into her and pulled her down into our world, but she doesn’t belong here.”

Once again, he wasn’t lying.

But that wasn’t his decision to make.

It must have been cathartic for him to finally talk, because with the floodgates opened, Ben kept sharing. His tone was bland and casual, as if we were discussing the weather. “When I’d heard you’d hooked up with someone, I figured she deserved to go down, too. Then Luc warned me not to say anything about Amato business in front of her. I still didn’t give a fuck. Not until I met her. She’s so sweet. Genuinely a nice person who didn’t expect shit but gaveeverything.”

It took all my control to not tell him to shut the fuck up. I needed to hear it all, even if it was pissing me the fuck off.

“How did you get someone like her?” Without giving me time to answer, he continued. “I wanted to warn her off. I came close to it a million times. But I’d have thrown awayyearsof work. I left clues, though. Like putting on the news while I distracted your mom. I thought once Dahlia saw you’d been arrested, she’d leave. But she waited.”

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