I laughed before I could stop it. “What? That doesn’t even make sense. Protect me, by turning everyone against me?”
Zane considered that. “It wasn’t from them he was protecting you. It was from his parents. From Bianca. From… everything.”
I shook my head. “Still makes no sense. I told him I’d handle his parents—”
“Liora,” Zane cut in, his voice suddenly serious. More serious than I’d ever heard it. “They didn’t just threaten him. They threatened you. Said if he kept entertaining you, they’d make you disappear. Quietly. Permanently.”
My hands froze.
Then I kept wrapping. “Is that all?”
Zane blinked. “Is that all?” he repeated, skeptically. “Yeah, I guess a death sentence is pretty minor.”
I shrugged. “From what you could tell, was he lying?”
Zane shook his head slowly. “No. I think
