"What the fuck?"

Lucas burst out as he stood up from the bench at the mere thought that someone was threatening me by using the closest friends I had. I had told him everything from my brother's crush to the warning writing on the drawer.

"Calm down and let's think this through." I told the ballistic guy, who was pacing back and forth shuffling his boots on the snow.

"That was why I had beaten up the guy at the dorms. He mentioned something about you and the letters I got." I stilled in place, Lucas was indifferent at what he just said, he obviously didn't believe a random stranger.

Someone else saw the letter. Adam's redemption.

To who? To Yaris? Those guys were enrolled into the same college and I didn't see them before. That could only show that they mapped it out: Adam travelling from Lebanon all the way to Massachusetts, Yaris had an interest to my brother to get to me.

They were the working devils. Adam purposely talked about Yaris to me to let me know the underlying threat, how couldn't I see that? They both excelled in manipulating me.

Adam and Yaris exhibited all red signs under my nose the whole time, Adam was distracting me in the library, that only explained why he heard our phone call, meanwhile, Yaris knew better than to kill Reign. He had made his threat show bright and clear.

"Naya, Naya," Lucas shook my form, he had chapped lips from the cold when he gazed at me, "tell me what you realized and don't hide anything."

"Lucas, this was all a plot. Becky and Ivan, they got Adam and Yaris on their team. I don't know what they want from me, I do know that Yaris wants his revenge for imprisoning his cousin that was Ivan." I animatedly spilled out.

"Who is Yaris?" He asked.

"The one who was at the hospital next to Adam, the Lebanese guy." I replied quickly.

"But what does my step sister had to do with all of this?" He inquired, not getting what I insinuated.

"She was Ivan's girl and she had played him for you, that was what she told me." I answered pointedly. He didn't catch on to all the details I had in my mind, and I wasn't ready to repeat the news to him.

"So, what do we do now?" He pestered me when he sat next to me, his shoulder against mine.

"We hit them back. It's simple, they are playing all these games for redemption, you can get Becky on our side and we could act out a fight, making them think that we aren't friends. We also have to break it down to Reign and Lowe." I rushed in my constant haze of thoughts. I was overwhelmed with how much I had to do.

There was an endless list on turning the plot against them. We had to get under their skin enough to irritate them, they had to expose themselves in the end.

I called Khai in front of Lucas. He placed his head on his hands as he covered his face to clear his head.

"Khai, hey, is it a good time‐" I heard a giggle and rustled sheets.

"Hey, sis, bad timing." He laughed his words out as more kisses sounded through the phone.

I instantly identified Yaris. He was with my brother right now.

"Listen, Khai‐"

The line was dead. I wanted to pull my hair from my scalp at the amount of stress I felt.

He was playing tonsil hockey with the person I loved the most. My brother.

"Let's go back to my house. I need to end this shit now." I ushered Lucas, grabbing him by the arm, he stood up as we raced back to his car. It was the only solution to stop the little play he had with my brother.

Further along the way, I bent my knees to my chest. Lucas's pearly eyes attained towards the way, but I could tell his head was heavily fogged. These recent days had been fast paced for us to comprehend, I went from a simple plan to a deadly plan without it being under my control.

I realized that he remembered my address. The same house that we had fought in, we had laughed in, and we had crazy pranks in.

Dad wasn't home since Yaris invaded Khai's space comfortably. It was also added to my luck since dad hated Lucas with a burning passion over the break up story, leaving out the pain-stricken details.

My head spun with the thoughts that Yaris could have called Adam to inform him about their sick plan to get whoever was close to me. I didn't want to think about the hurtful consequences, they made trailing threats all along, yet I thought it would be Becky who knew, but it turned out to be Adam.

Who reported to Yaris. It was all validated by me, he clearly used me like a rag doll. I scolded myself for being the simple girl that believed only good intentions.

My thoughts thrashed me down to reality at the sight of our house. I bit my lip when Lucas gave me one final glance, before he got out of the car and I trailed behind him through my blisters.

We got into the house with my key and went up to Khai's room.

"What? it can't be...Callum didn't die on purpose..." We heard portions of the conversation, and I almost had a heart attack if it wasn't for Lucas holding my frame.

"No, I shouldn't have let you in." Khai started cursing off Yaris, his trauma came back harder and all I could think of was barging in to help my brother out of this mess. My sisterly protection got the best of me as I fought with Lucas to let me barrel into the dickhead inside.

Lucas's hard grip on my waist got me stuck. It got us both crystalized when a gunshot was heard.