The Betrayal
I blinked at him, my lashes heavy, my vision swimming in the dim light of the bar. For a second, I thought I’d imagined it—that deep, steady voice offering me something I couldn’t quite grasp.
“Help me?” I echoed, my words slurred, thin. “What exactly… what the hell do I even need right now?”
Lucas’s eyes didn’t move from mine. They were steady, piercing, storm-colored, and they didn’t waver like everyone else’s did when I was in pain. He didn’t look away, didn’t try to comfort me with some useless string of words. His voice came out calm. Strong. Like he had thought this through long before saying it.
“Revenge,” he said simply.
The word cracked through me like a whip.
I blinked again, confusion and alcohol tangling my thoughts together. “Revenge?” My voice scraped raw, caught between laughter and a sob.
His mouth curved at the corner. “Yes. You need to put Cameron in his place. To remind him who you are. To remind him what he lost. And I think I know the perfect way.”
I laughed then, bitter and broken, pressing a hand against my forehead. “Perfect way. There’s no perfect way, Lucas. You don’t just… patch betrayal with a plan. You don’t erase five years of my life because of one clever trick.”
“True,” he said evenly, sipping his drink like we weren’t discussing the wreckage of my life. “But you can make him regret it. You can make him choke on it. And I can help you do that.”
Something dangerous curled inside me at his words, something sharp and hungry that matched the storm in his eyes. “And what brilliant idea do you have?”
He leaned in closer, his voice dropping low, intimate, as if he were weaving a secret only I was meant to hear.
“Let’s pretend,” he said slowly, his lips forming each word with purpose, “that I’m your new boyfriend.”
For a heartbeat, my mind went blank.
I stared at him, my alcohol-hazed brain struggling to keep up. Then a sharp bark of laughter tore out of me, harsh and loud enough that the bartender glanced over.
“My new boyfriend?” I repeated, shaking my head. “That’s your grand plan?”
Lucas didn’t flinch. He didn’t smile, either. His expression was calm, deliberate, carved from stone. “Think about it, Avela. Cameron hates me. He always has. What do you think will happen when he finds out I’m the man standing by your side? The man who makes you smile when he’s the one who broke you?”
The image slammed into my mind so hard I had to close my eyes. Cameron’s perfect face twisting. His control slipping. That smug superiority he always carried, cracked wide open when he realized the one man he despised most had me.
I felt my lips twitch against my will. A dangerous, reckless little smile spread before I could stop it.
“Oh, my God,” I whispered. “You’re serious.”
Lucas’s eyes gleamed, dark and steady. “Dead serious.”
The thought made my stomach flip, not from alcohol this time, but from something sharper—something thrilling.
Cameron seeing me on Lucas’s arm. Cameron realizing he didn’t destroy me, didn’t break me, didn’t leave me to crawl in the ashes he left behind. Cameron finally tasting humiliation after making me swallow it tonight.
The idea was wild. Reckless. Insane.
And it was perfect.
“You really think this would work?” I asked, my voice softer now, my words slower, measured.
Lucas leaned back slightly, the faintest trace of a smile on his lips—mocking, confident, like he already knew my answer. “I know it will work.”
I studied him, my mind turning over possibilities, my heart thundering despite the haze of liquor. He wasn’t polished like Cameron. He wasn’t the type of man my world would accept at first glance. He wasn’t tailored suits and champagne dinners. He was grit. He was strength carved from scars and labor.
But maybe that was the point.
Cameron had always despised Lucas. Always called him a stain. A disgrace. A reminder of the family’s less-than-perfect reputation. What better knife to twist into Cameron’s perfect chest than Lucas Draven himself?
A slow, deliberate smile stretched across my lips.
“Alright,” I said, my voice steadier now, sharper. “Let’s do it.”
His brows lifted, just slightly. “Let’s?”
“Yes,” I said, nodding once, firmly this time. “You want to play this game? Fine. But we do it my way. My rules.”
His storm-colored eyes watched me closely, curious, unreadable.
I leaned forward, my elbow braced on the bar. “You’ll be compensated. More than compensated. Far more than you could ever earn fixing pipes or swinging wrenches. You’ll be paid for your time, your presence, your performance. Consider it a contract. You give me loyalty, and I’ll give you more than money. I’ll give you power.”
His mouth curved then—not a ghost of a smile this time, but a full, slow, dangerous grin that lit something in his expression I hadn’t seen before.
“Deal, boss,” he said, his tone mocking yet playful, as if the words were a joke and a promise at the same time.
Something sparked between us then—something reckless, electric, dangerous.
And for the first time since I walked in here drowning in betrayal, I felt a flicker of something else.
Excitement.
This was crazy. Insane. Completely out of control.
But Cameron had started this war.
I would be the one to end it.
And when I introduced Lucas Draven as my boyfriend, I couldn’t wait to see the look on Cameron’s face.
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