Sinners' Playground (The Harlequin Crew #1) - Caroline Peckham Page 0,111

tonight than ever. Because they were soon going to be painting our lighthouse red while we damned them right to hell.

"Did you tell Rodriguez to man the back door at the house?" Fox asked JJ, twisting in his seat to look at him.

"Yeah, man. Don’t worry, Rogue's not getting out tonight," JJ replied and I fought an eye roll. "But like...maybe she should be able to come and go as she pleases, because you can’t just keep the girl prisoner like you’re some caveman with a club."

"So you think I should just let her run off again?" Fox scoffed.

"Yeah," I said the same time JJ did, though there was a harder edge to my voice than his.

Fox stiffened in his seat and I received the brunt of his glare seeing as I was right beside him. "I'm not gonna let her go."

"I get it," I said and he frowned at me, clearly surprised those words had come from my mouth when I'd made it clear the stance I'd taken on this. I refused to meet his eye and could feel JJ's gaze on the back of my head as they waited for me to go on. "We all wanted her back. But you can't lock her up in the house. Frankly, I think we should drop her off in the next state and never speak of her again, but I'm aware you guys aren't going to go in for that, so at least let her make the goddamn choice to be here."

"But-" Fox growled, but JJ piped up in the back.

"She wants to be here, dude. She came back. You don't need to lock her up. But maybe she'll reconsider staying at all if you keep forcing her to do whatever you want."

"On second thought maybe she should stay at the house," I said with a smirk and Fox punched me in the arm.

"What's your problem with her?" Fox demanded of me and I locked my lips, shaking my head. "You were heartbroken when she left just like we all were, so what is this really about?"

I didn't answer and the silence pooling between us became insufferable. I didn't know why I couldn't voice what I'd seen the night before she'd left. We'd been such idiots, fawning all over her, begging to be chosen. Well fuck being chosen. Being chosen meant gutting everyone else in our group, and that's what she'd been planning to do. She'd been on a path to destroy us long before we'd banished her from Sunset Cove. And with a little time, that had become as clear as day to me.

"Chase," Fox snarled. "Speak your damn mind."

I gripped the steering wheel tighter. "I just don't wanna see you all getting hurt. That's all."

"That's clearly not all," JJ said, shoving me in the shoulder. "Come on, what is it dude?"

"I don't wanna make shit worse for you," I muttered.

"We don't keep secrets from each other," JJ said in outrage.

"I know…but I kept this one," I said, kinda ashamed of that fact. "I just didn't wanna hurt you both more than you were already hurting back then."

"What is it?" Fox pushed, giving off his king-of-the-world vibe.

I sighed, grappling with telling them this. But it had been a decade. Maybe it was time to set it loose into the world.

I snatched a cigarette from the packet sitting in the cup holder and lit it up, needing the nicotine to get through this. The weight of this truth had hung from my heart for ten years. I'd never breathed a word of it, hoping if I just ignored it, the pain would finally go away. But it never had. And maybe letting it out was the only way to really let it go at last. I just hated to think how it might hurt my friends, but maybe it would make them see that she had never been meant for us. That her being back here most likely had nothing to do with us three.

"She never wanted any of us," I expelled in a wave of smoke. "The night she killed that asshole Axel, I saw her. Before any of that happened. I saw her doing something…with someone.”

"If you don't spit it out right this second-" Fox growled and I spoke over him, just blurting it the hell out.

"She fucked Maverick. I saw them together. They were naked at Rosewood Manor in the summer house."

"What?" JJ gasped but Fox's stony silence was worse. I could hear my pulse in my