Betrayal.

I never thought it’d happen, but it is what it is. Nothing less, nothing more. This is what I get for opening myself up and allowing something as fucking stupid as trust and love to take over my life. Yeah, you read that right—love. I thought that I felt it, you know? I thought that I finally felt something like it again, and this time there were no boundaries to it.

And then it all came crashing down.

I’m not going to lie; this fucking hurts. It’s like a knife wedged in the space between my soul and mind, a sharp piece of pain that I simply can’t dislodge. But whatever, I’ve been here before, and I’ll be fucked if I’ll allow this to defeat me. Pain hasn’t brought me down before, and it won’t do it now. Not a fucking chance in hell. Daphne and Lucas might think they have me beat, but they’re just fucking wrong.

Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. You’re looking at me right now, sitting in my office with the blinds drawn and an open bottle of scotch sitting on my desk, and you’re thinking that I look like a shadow of the man I was when all this started. If that’s what you’re thinking, I’m sorry to fucking disappoint you, but that’s not it. I just need a day or two to process all of this. Yeah, what a surprise, I’m a fucking human being, just like you.

I grab the bottle of scotch and am about to pour some more into the glass when there’s a knock at the door. I raise my eyes for a moment, but then just shrug. Whoever it is, they can fuck off.

"Mr. Strong?" I hear my secretary call me, but I remain in silence. I just want a fucking minute of silence, is that too much to ask? I’ve been betrayed by the two people I love the most, and I’ve already sold my soul to the fucking government; is a moment too much to ask?

She knocks again, and this time I don’t even bother to look up. Except, instead of simply giving up, I hear the handle turn and then the door swings open abruptly.

"I told you I didn’t want to be distur --" The word dies in my throat as I see the two figures standing by the doorway, the shadow of their bodies falling across my office and reaching for me.

"What the hell are you doing, Ares?" Lucas starts, taking one step inside and looking at me with one cocked eyebrow. Daphne follows after him and, in a gesture that makes my heart tighten up in pain, she grabs his arm and leans against him. Seymour was right; these two were plotting together.

"What does it look like?" I growl, grabbing the bottle once more and filling up my glass. I feel my hand trembling as I pour down the whisky, and I have to take a deep breath to steady myself. Now, instead of love, I feel something entirely different: hate.

"Ares … I don’t understand. Why would you side with Seymour now?" Daphne asks me, taking one hesitant step forward. I raise my eyes to meet hers and what I see there tears my soul shreds. Throwing my head back, I down the whisky in the glass all at once, and then pour some more.

"Funny of you to ask, dear," I tell her, my heart hammering hard against my ribs. "You two weren’t expecting something like it, were you? Well, ta-da! surprise," I say as I lower my voice, a knot in my throat.

"You betrayed us," Lucas growls, closing the distance between us and taking the glass out of my hand. "YOU TOLD ME TO TRUST YOU," he shouts, throwing the glass against the wall with unmitigated rage. The glass shatters behind me into a thousand little pieces and the strong scent of the whisky, oak and spices, fills the whole office.

"Don’t you dare. Don’t you fucking dare," I whisper at him, not even bothering to raise my voice. My soul is too fucking spent for that. "I trusted you too … and you stabbed me in the back. So fuck off with that betrayal bullshit," I continue, slowly going up to my feet and turning my back to him. I walk toward the small glass cabinet I have in one of the corners and take a new glass from the inside.

"You’ve lost it, Ares. You really have. I have no idea what's got into you, but this is not how I wanted things to end between us …" he insists, playing it off as if he’s the fucking hero in this story. Just like he always does. And, just like always, he’s trying to peg me as the fucking villain.

"Ares, please --" Daphne starts, her voice low and unsteady, but I don’t even let her speak.

"Just go. The two of you. Just fucking go and let me be," I whisper, sinking down on my chair and staring at them coldly. I see sorrow tainting the soft lines in Daphne’s face, and an urge to simply get up and wrap my arms around her and Lucas wells up in my mind; gritting my teeth, I put my heel down on top of that thought and crush it into dust.

"We’ll go," Lucas says, but then Daphne hands him something and he lays it carefully on top of my desk. "She’d want you to have it." His words are sad and heavy, but he doesn’t wait to see what kind of effect they have on me. He simply continues. "Whatever you’re thinking right now, I really did trust you. And I … thought there was something between the three of us."

With that, he turns on his heels and, grabbing Daphne by the crook of her elbow, starts walking out of the office. Looking at me over her shoulder, Daphne offers me her parting words.

"Goodbye, Ares," she whispers, closing the door behind her after she leaves.

I stay there, sitting and unmoving, the shadows of my office once more closing in on me. The silence covers the room like a heavy blanket, oppressive and solitary.

"Fuck," I whisper under my breath, reaching for what Lucas left on my desk. It’s a neatly folded sweater, and I open it up, arms stretched in front of me. My eyes fall on the Harvard logo printed on the front of the sweater, and my heart simply stops beating.

I would've recognized this sweater anywhere.

I bring it up to my face and press it tight against me, clenching my jaw as I feel tears stinging my eyes.

This was Joanna’s sweater. It was what she was wearing on my first day at Harvard, when the three of us met. I still remember the way she looked when she put it on in the morning, wearing nothing else as she got out of the bed.

I knew Lucas had been the one keeping it, but I never dared to ask him for it. As much as the hate we felt toward each other grew over the years, we always respected whatever the other felt toward Joanna.

You don’t use love as a knife.

Jesus, what the fuck am I doing? Sitting in my office like a miserable bastard, getting drunk in the dark and nursing my hate. I didn’t even want to hear what Daphne and Lucas came here to say. I just spew my hatred at them, the pain I felt drowning out everything else.

But the sorrow in her eyes as she spoke, her soft voice calling my name … and Lucas’ words … he thought I was the one betraying them.

Have I been played? Has Seymour pulled my strings and, just like some stupid fucking puppet, did I dance to his tune?

Trust me, I asked Lucas a few days ago. And he did trust me; I believe that.

Now’s my turn to trust him.