Nightfall (Devil's Night 4)

“Maybe it’s someone who hates you?” I shot back. “Your brother?”

She hesitated. “Why now?”

I grunted as I pushed myself up, using my shoulder to wipe off the blood dripping over my upper lip. “I think you know why.”

A look passed between us, because she knew what I was talking about. She was his loose end. The only other person who knew what they had orchestrated to send my friends and me to prison all those years ago.

“This place costs money,” she argued.

“His new wife has a lot of that.”

She does? I’d never met her.

But I countered. “He’d save the money and kill me if he actually thought I was a threat.”

“Would he?” I retorted. “In his head, I’m sure he thinks he loves you. Like Humbert Humbert.” And then I shrugged. “Perhaps he wants to teach you a lesson. Make you suffer.”

To my surprise, amusement crossed her eyes. “Because he loves me so much, right?”

Typical abuser. He never hated her, just like Damon’s mom never hated him, and none of us ever hated Rika when we were stealing her inheritance, kidnapping her family, and burning down her house. The diseased mind only sees its own intentions, and everything they did and everything we did justified the end.

The path to who we want to be is winding, at best. Everything was justified because we were all the victims in our story.

“There’s no one we make suffer more than those we love,” Aydin chimed in.

His arm sat on mine, our fists grinding against each other as we tried to squirm our way free, but I gazed at Emmy and the valley between the olive skin of her breasts and her toned stomach, and I could almost feel her in my hands.

She was so close. Do you still want to hold me? I blinked long and hard, trying to push away the swelling in my groin.

“Do you want to know what I did to get in here?” Aydin asked her. “The awful shit I pulled?”

She watched him, and despite the cool air, a light layer of sweat coated my neck and chest.

“I refused…to get married,” he answered. “That’s it.”

Alex’s eyes fell, and she looked like she wanted to be anywhere else.

“And I can get out anytime I want,” Aydin continued. “As soon as I agree.”

I didn’t actually know that, but it changed nothing. I knew of Aydin before I came here. He was in Meridian City frequently, and we were often at the same clubs and parties, although we never met.

“Did you think I killed someone?” he teased Emory. “Fucked my sister, maybe?”

Maybe, out of all of us, he was sent here for the least, but he was capable of the most, because he knew people almost immediately upon meeting them. It had happened with Rory, Micah, and Taylor. Even I had been here so much longer than necessary, because he proved too difficult to maneuver.

“My future wife is beautiful, smart, she comes from the right family,” he said. “The hand-picked, perfect spouse and mother to build my life around. And I was completely on board…until one night.”

“The artist…” Emmy said.

I shot my eyes up, looking between them and seeing him nod.

Artist? How did she know anything about it?

“What did she do?” Em asked.

He stared at the women, and I followed his gaze, both Emmy and Alex looking so beautiful that I swore I felt myself back in my old room in my parents’ house, nestled in my damn bed as the morning light heated the sheets.

“That,” he answered.