Page 97 of Knot A Chance

“I know this is complicated,” Felix said, “but let’s just talk about what happened and maybe Wyatt can help with the charges against you.”

Ryder scoffed. “Yeah, right. There are probably so many I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

Ryder held up the gun again and bright blue eyes appeared behind his calves. I breathed a sigh of relief, watching Ally box him in from the back. He hadn’t noticed her yet, his eyes still locked on Felix.

“I don’t want help, Felix. That’s the thing you’ve never understood about me,” Ryder said, crying as he bit his fist, the gun shaking in his other hand. “I thought I could fill the void you left behind three years ago with more drugs, work my way up with Vargkung, but it was all a waste. I never had what it takes.”

“You can still make a different choice,” Felix said.

Ryder raised the gun and pointed it at Felix, who froze with his arms in the air. “I don’t want to make a different choice. It’s you or me. That’s always been the ultimatum, and I chose you over and over again. I should have just done what you wanted and broken the bond. We wouldn’t be in this mess at all. But I loved you. I don’t want to erase what we had.”

“We’re not erasing anything, Ryder. We’re moving on with our lives. That doesn’t mean we forget who we were or what we meant to each other at the time.”

Ryder cocked the gun and pointed it at me. “Just tell me the truth. Did you ever love me?”

Felix’s throat bobbed as he swallowed and I could feel his hesitation. “Yes,” he lied. “We loved each other. I loved you.”

Even without the bond I would have been able to spot the lie. Ryder must have known him well enough too because he shook his head. “You’re lying to me.”

“No,” Felix said, “I’m not. I loved you in the only way I knew how at the time.”

Ryder looked up at the sky, then stared at me with hatred. “And now that you have him, you know it wasn’t real love. Right?”

“Ryder,” Felix said, stepping closer again. “You’re making me really nervous with the gun. Can we please put that down to talk about this?”

“There’s no point. You’ll never come back to me as long as he’s around,” Ryder said, staring into my eyes. I saw the resolve in them. He was going to the pull the trigger and there was nothing I could do about it. “He has to go.”

A gunshot rang through the night, and Felix screamed “No” at the top of his lungs, panic and terror flowing through the bond as he raced to my side.

“Bennett!” Felix yelled, grabbing my shoulders.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Felix

June

In the seconds that it took me to reach Bennett, I felt every single emotion that he must have felt when I was in the hospital.

Fear.

Despair.

Panic.

Anger.

Desperation.

The truth was, I would have sold my soul to the devil himself if it meant that Bennett could live.

I gripped his shoulders, searching him for a wound, completely unable to process how he was still standing. Where’s the blood? Am I hallucinating? What’s happening?

Bennett enveloped me in his arms and pulled me against his chest, holding me tighter than I ever thought possible. “I’m fine, handsome,” he said, directly against my ear. “He didn’t shoot me.”

I looked up at him, relief filling every inch of space in my body as I realized he was telling the truth. He was fine.

But the gun!