Oblivion (Alphaholes #4)

18. Evan

18

EVAN

S miling to myself, I watch as Sammy scrolls through her contacts until she finds Drew’s name, then hits dial. She’s nothing if not predictable. A part of me wondered if she’d run, but my wild one has never been one to back down from a fight, and this is no exception.

I listen as the call rings, then connects to Drew’s voicemail, and Sammy’s sweet melodic voice leaves a message.

“Hey, Drew, I know you’re in class right now, but I need to talk to you. If you have time, can we meet for lunch or tonight for dinner? It’s important. Love you.”

My clenched jaw ticks when I hear her say she loves him. It doesn’t matter that she’s not in love with him. I still don’t want to hear her say the words to anyone else but me ever again.

I had planned to wait until Friday to give Sammy the chance to end things with Drew on her own, but those two words sealed all of our fates. She loves him, and that’s not okay. Opening the email I’ve already got saved and ready to go. I hit send, feeling my lips curve into a smirk as I hear the whooshing sound of the email being sent and heralding the end of Sammy and Drew’s engagement.

For good measure, I send him a text too, with a single picture attached. Then I exhale, feeling the warmth of victory heating my body.

Despite Sammy believing her fiancé is in class, I know that he’s actually studying in the library right now, like the good little student that he is. Opening the body cam feed of the guy I have watching him, I get to witness firsthand his expression as he opens the text I just sent him with a picture and three words.

Me

***Photo message*** Check. Your. Email.

If the picture of a half-naked, sleeping Sammy laying on my chest in the bed in her new Harvard home isn’t damning enough, then the entire portfolio of surveillance pictures I’ve been collecting for the past year will be.

Sammy drunk. Sammy dressed in short skirts with glassy eyes. Sammy rubbing on other guys. Sammy on dates. Sammy in a bikini in the pool. Sammy with her head in the toilet after she drank too many margaritas and puked her guts up. Sammy dancing in the middle of a party, sandwiched between two guys. Sammy asleep half-dressed at our breakfast table. And finally and easily the most damning: Sammy, looking up at me, her lips parted, cum decorating her face and tongue with the head of my cock clearly visible at the edge of the picture.

With a handful of photos, I just destroyed their relationship and made the woman I love look like a whore. The pool of lingering guilt inside of me that I’ve learned to tolerate for the last few years bubbles and pulses, but I ignore it. As reprehensible as what I’ve just done is, it was necessary. Apart from the last picture, the rest simply show a beautiful, young college student having fun. None of the pictures are too scandalous, but combined with the last shot, from the one and only time Sammy and I connected beyond being distant friends, I’ve managed to make her look like a party girl slut, who lets guys take pictures of her when she’s wearing their cum like a badge of honor.

She’s not that, of course. Since she came to Kingsacre, she’s only ever kissed guys other than me. But with that one picture it won’t matter, because a picture says a thousand words, and that one screams political nightmare whore from the tops of the trees.

If Drew is as attached to his political dreams as I think he is, then he’s going to drop Sammy like a fucking rock. If by some miracle, he chooses her, then I’ll have to think of some other way of getting rid of him.

As I watch him through the guard’s camera, his brows furrow and his lips purse. Bringing his cell closer to his face, he stares down at the picture of Sammy and me in her bed, and his jaw ticks.

After a moment, his fingers start tapping at the screen of his cell, and I see the moment he opens the email I sent to him, his dad, and the PR team they regularly consult with. They might all be getting the pictures of Sammy, but the cum shot they’ll only be able to view once before it’s automatically deleted. According to Clay, all traces of it will disappear from their computers, emails, and any backup servers. Clay is literally standing by to hack into their systems to make sure, but I trust him to know what he’s doing.

I might need all of them to see the picture, but I refuse to allow them to keep it. Until she’s finally mine, that’s the only reminder I have that she’s always belonged to me.

She’s hated me since the night I let her fall asleep in my arms and wake up alone. I should never have touched her that night, but I’ve never regretted it.

I know her memories of those few hours we spent together are vague, but I remember the feel of her body as I pushed my fingers into her, fucking her with them until she came on a cry. I remember the way my heart stopped when she sunk to her knees at my feet and took my cock in her mouth. I remember wanting to tell her she was mine and that I’d never let her go. I remember her telling me to come on her tits, and I remember not being able to resist the urge to mark her neck and face too.

Then I remember taking that picture of her, so debauched, so dirty and utterly mine. The next morning, when I was sober and alone, I knew I should delete the picture, but I just couldn’t. Those hours together might have hurt her, but they were perfect to me. A perfect snapshot of how my life could be if I wasn’t a fucking monster.

I’m still that monster, only now I’m going to claim her anyway, and hope somehow, she can still find a way to love me.

I fight the urge to pull up the picture I’ve looked at thousands of times and instead focus on Drew. His brows get more and more furrowed as he looks at the pictures I sent him. But I know the moment he sees it. The moment he sees her, branded with my cum. His hand comes up to cover his mouth, and his eyes harden.

This is it. This is the moment it’s all over, the moment I’ve ruined any chance of them ever being together. Without him saying a word, he just picked his future career over a girl he says he loves, and in this moment, I know that even if she hates me for it, I just did her a favor.

My wild one needs someone who will do anything to keep her. Who will follow her to the ends of the world and drown her in love, and Drew isn’t that person. At the first hurdle he’s proved that he doesn’t give a fuck.

When his cell starts to ring, I watch as he purses his lips, collects his belongings, and strides out of the building, answering the call as he pushes through the exit door. The guard follows him, but I log out of the camera footage because Drew isn’t important anymore.

The guard following Drew keeps me informed of his whereabouts for the rest of the day. Drew’s dad and two members of his PR team fly to Massachusetts, and they have a political pow-wow at a hotel. Even though I can’t hear what they’re discussing, I’m pretty sure I know exactly how that conversation is going to go.

Sammy isn’t an appropriate wife for a future senator. The engagement—which thankfully hasn’t been officially announced yet—will be called off, and any and all association with Sammy and the Hartley family will end.

Oddly, the constant nagging guilt I usually feel whenever I’d doing something fucked up is absent, probably because, even though doing this to Sammy is wrong, it’s still the best thing for her, and eventually she’ll see that.

It’s early evening when Drew leaves the hotel and calls Sammy. I listen to the call through my link with Sammy’s cell and hear Drew ask her to meet him in a public park not far from the house she’ll be moving out of tonight.

I could allow Sammy’s guards to monitor the situation and watch through the cameras, but instead, I find myself pulling on a jacket and trailing after her as she drives her car to the park and then sits down on a bench, waiting for Drew to arrive.

He’s punctual as I expected, and I wait, hidden a few yards away, and listen.