“I don’t want you to,” he snarled through clenched teeth.

I opened to the start, even though I was halfway through, and started reading.

“Why are you doing this? Why can’t you get it through your thick Russian head that I don’t want you here?”

I went on reading.

He groaned. “Jesus, you think you’re that important? You’re not. Go away. Go back to your family.” He paused for a reaction, but when I didn’t give him one and looked back to the book, he added, “This is my room. I want you gone. You have to listen to me. Fucking listen to me!”

Glancing back to the book, I opened my mouth to continue reading but stopped when West whispered, “Why are you doing this? Why won’t you listen?”

“Because I care for you. As do Lucas and the others. No matter how much you hate yourself, we like you even more.”

His breath hitched. “Please leave.”

“Nyet, West,” I said softly, and then went back to reading. He said no more and eventually drifted off to sleep. There was nothing he could say that would have me leave him, not when his mind would be playing tricks on him, telling him things, wrong things.

He needed me.

He needed us all, and we would be there for him. Through everything.

Chapter Fifteen

Adrik

A week later, I stepped into the living room from being in West’s room early morning. It had been the same the last few days—where I spent my days working on the businesses—but at night, I returned to West’s room to read, talk, and sleep. Even when he never responded to me. After the first night, he had taken to ignoring me when he had asked me to leave, and I refused.

“Lucas, he would like to see you. He said it was something medical.”

“On it.” Lucas smiled, but it was not fully there. It hadn’t been present since West had fallen into his anger. We tried to talk to him about seeing someone professional to speak with, but he refused each time. Unless he was asked a direct question or wanted something, he didn’t seek conversation otherwise.

All of us were worried.

Had they gotten to him? Had they planted their seed into his mind, which had grown into something bigger?

He refused to get up, to move, only to lie there and allow himself to fall deeper into this state of despair. We could no longer see the person West had been. He did not argue. He did not invite people to see him. He did not want to see anyone. If it was not for Lucas, Kylo, Wreck, and me being persistent, West would have his way and be alone. We ignored his verbal abuse and spoke to him as if he had not said anything harsh at all.