Sinners' Playground (The Harlequin Crew #1) - Caroline Peckham Page 0,209

just the key to removing the blinkers from our vision. For exposing each of us for who we really are."

"So all I ever was was the girl no one wanted?" I asked, my throat thick as I fought against showing him how much those words killed me. Even now I hated to admit that to myself. But it was true, I'd never once had a person in this world who had chosen me above all else. No one at all aside from...him. He was the one person who hadn’t thrown me away, who had tried to follow me, tried to keep his word to me-

"And I was the boy no one wanted,” he replied bitterly. “The fall guy. The one it was so easy to forget. Who fucking cares? They won't forget me when I gut the lot of them and hang their corpses from Gallows Bridge but I'll sure as fuck forget them."

"I wanted you," I breathed, unable to stop that truth from slipping past my lips even though I knew what I'd get for it.

The smallest flash of something other than all of the darkness and hatred in him flashed within his eyes before he shook his head like he was refusing to believe it and I felt that rejection like a sucker punch.

"Yeah? Well more fool you. I'm just dead weight, beautiful. I'm a sinking ship drowning in blood and anyone who gets close to me now gets dragged to the depths sooner or later. I suggest you run far and don't look back. Sunset Cove is going to burn. All I have to do is kill Luther and the rest of the dominos will fall right behind him-"

"Wait," I gasped, standing up and grabbing his arm. "What do you mean kill Luther? They told me he was dead, that I was safe here now. If he's still alive then being here is a death sentence for me-"

Maverick stared at me for a long moment then burst out laughing, clearly catching onto some joke I was missing. "Dead? You seriously think that motherfucker is dead? Sounds to me like the Harlequins are playing you for a fucking fool, beautiful. Though I don’t know why you’d be surprised to hear they’re a bunch of fucking liars. They always were after all.”

I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me, my lungs compressed and burning. I just stared at him with my lips parted as I tried to process that. Luther Harlequin was alive? Fox's father, the man who had been behind me losing everything I'd ever loved and suffering every day since, the man who had placed a death sentence over my head that expressly forbid me from ever returning to this town or seeing the boys who had once been my entire world again, was alive? What. The. Fuck?

Maverick's phone started ringing and he answered it, tugging his arm out of my grasp.

"Are you in position?" he demanded, dark eyes flicking to me as a smirk tugged at his lips. "I've got it on good authority that the Harlequins are coming. The moment you get eyes on them, call me. I'll be heading over soon. I'll text you with any more instructions."

He cut the call and I was still so full of rage over the fucking lies the others had told me that I just stared at him as he tossed his cellphone down on the desk and tilted his head to look at me.

"Shit, you seriously thought they gave a fuck didn't you?" he asked cruelly, a dark kind of humour glinting in his eyes. "You were starting to think that maybe you could have everything you'd once had with them. Please don't tell me you came here hoping to find the boy you once knew in me too." Maverick laughed at me and I swung my fist into his jaw before I could think any better of it.

He grabbed me by the throat and slammed me down on his desk so fast that I could only gasp as he leaned over me, pinning me down as my heart thrashed in my chest and I grasped his wrist, trying to force his hand off of me.

"Tell me, beautiful, how many of them have fucked you since you got back here?" he asked.

"What?" I gasped, looking into his eyes as he leered down at me, his face right above mine. His grip on my throat was just enough to hold me in place without cutting