Wrapping a towel around my own waist, I carefully dry her skin while she stands still and just allows me to take care of her. If this wasn’t the most fucked-up situation ever, I’d be loving the way she’s giving her trust to me.

When we’re dry, I grab one of my T-shirts for her and pull it over her head while she pushes her arms into it. It falls to her knees, but I still grab her a pair of my boxers and offer them to her. She shakes her head, sitting down on the edge of the bed.

“I don’t know what to do,” I admit, feeling useless.

“I’ll be okay, he scared the shit out of me, but he didn’t actually do anything before you found me.”

Exhaling a slow breath, I try to stay calm and not let the rage that’s still simmering below the surface boil over.

“How did you find me, Sebastian?”

Exhaling slowly, I think about what to do. I could lie to her, tell her that it was all just chance. I could use this to my advantage, twist this awful night into another game, but that doesn’t feel right. I love her and tonight she was almost hurt, almost raped because I played games with her and sent her spiraling into the arms of a rapist. I don’t deserve her, I never have. It’s time to tell her the truth and then actually let her go, it’s the only way I can stop hurting her.

“I lied when I told you I called off your security detail. I didn’t.”

“What?” she asks.

“I lied. There’s been someone following you all the time since you got here, they never stopped, even though I told you they had.”

“Why?” she breathes.

“Because I couldn’t bear giving up that control over you,” I confess.

“So they found me?”

I shake my head, “No, they had eyes on you when you first went into the house, then when you split from Sammy, they lost you.”

“Then?” she trails off.

This is it, this is the moment I make her hate me forever. “Can I touch you?”

She nods and I reach for her hand and then bend down, placing her fingers on the back of my neck right at the base of my hairline. “Do you feel that?” I ask, moving her finger back and forth over the microchip about the size of a grain of rice beneath my skin.

“What is that?”

“When I was a kid someone tried to kidnap me, Evan, Clay and Hunter. They knew our families were close and that we traveled to school together every day, so they planned to hijack our car, take us, then ransom us back to our families.”

“Oh my god,” she gasps.

“Somehow, our families found out and the person was stopped, but afterward, a doctor came to the house and injected tracking devices into us. We all have them, our parents too.”

“Okay,” she says slowly.