erased Jason’s memory, but tampering with it now would only put him more at risk. Peter had set the reset button. He’d given him the chance to start over and erase all the suspicion that had built up in Jason’s mind over the last year.
He knew Peter hadn’t done it for any altruistic reasons, but the fact was that Jason was closer to being out of all this than he ever had been. If he didn’t remember anything about ghouls, as long as Colt got rid of Peter, the threats to his life would be minimal. Much more so if he cut himself off from Jason completely.
He’d once thought living without Jason and losing him were the same thing, but now he knew better. Colt had lived without him for years, but in those torturous days Jason had been gone, Colt had gotten a glimpse of what it would be like to actually lose him forever.
There was no comparison.
As the tinges of early morning ate into the navy sky, Colt drove back to the hospital physically exhausted but emotionally resigned. He wasn’t surprised to find that Andrew was there already, waiting in the hallway outside Jason’s room.
“Do you ever sleep?”
“Not much,” Andrew answered, standing and putting his phone away. “How’s the kid?”
“He’s fine,” Colt said, not wanting to admit he hadn’t been back to the estate to check on Ronnie. Ronnie had Stan and Susan, and he probably needed space more than anything right now.
“I take it you came here to talk to Jason.”
“And I take it you came early in hopes of having a talk with him before I did.”
Andrew snorted. “And here I thought you were a numbskull.”
“From time to time,” Colt admitted. He’d had more than enough proof of that lately. “But I do know people. Especially your kind.”
“And what is my kind?” Andrew asked, clearly amused.
“Ambitious. Selfish. Ruthless.”
Andrew considered his words, shrugging. “You’re not wrong.”
“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t selfish, too,” Colt said, looking at the door to Jason’s room. “Selfish enough to think I could make things work just because I love him.”
“You’re going back on your promise to tell him,” Andrew laughed, shaking his head. “I knew it.”
“I didn’t. Not until last night,” Colt muttered. “But it’s different this time. This time, it’s gonna be a clean break.”
“Meaning what, exactly?”
“Meaning I’m done. No more hoping for a relationship one day. No more trying to hang onto our friendship. No more dragging him into a world that’s already taken enough from him.”
Andrew listened intently, but his expression betrayed nothing. He was like his predecessor in that way. “What changed your mind? Peter?”
“That’s part of it, yeah. It’s one thing to give Jason the answers to the questions that have been tormenting him, but if he has a chance to get out? I love him too much not to let him take it.”
“Ironic, for a man who’s taking the choice from him.”
“It’s what I would want someone to do for me,” said Colt. “No matter how I look at it, telling him is only upside for me and nothing but downside for him.”
“And what about the fact that one of your kind killed his brother?”
“Telling him isn’t going to bring Luca back. All it’s going to do is make him even more obsessed,” said Colt. “You know him. Maybe not as well as I do, but enough to know he won’t stop until he finds the ghoul who did it. And as long as there are ghouls out there who think they can use him to get to me, he’ll never be safe.”
Andrew didn’t respond at first. When he finally did, his tone was sullen. “And you want to demand my silence.”
“I’m asking for it,” Colt corrected. “I know you care about him, and as much as it chafes my ass to admit it, you’re the man he needs. Not me.”
Saying those words was like pouring molten lava from his throat, but once he’d said them, he felt freer. Like he was no longer tangled up in all the threads he had to weave to convince himself he was protecting Jason when in reality, their very relationship put his life in jeopardy on a daily basis.
“And what am I supposed to tell him?” Andrew eventually asked.
Colt shrugged. “Tell him I didn’t come back.”
“You’re not even going to talk to him?”
“I was,” Colt said. “Then I saw you here and realized that was just going to be another chance for me to chicken out.