“It was hard,” Kai told me, and I could hear the tears in his throat. “We didn’t deserve it.”

My chin trembled, and I clenched my jaw to stop it.

“Will didn’t deserve it,” he continued.

I know. Just thinking about Will in a cell, surrounded by cruel people, locked up in gray walls…

“You’re not good enough for him,” Kai finally said.

I looked up, meeting his gaze despite my shoulders wanting to slump and the urge to fold in on myself.

I’d made a mistake. I wasn’t a bad person.

I wasn’t.

I turned to leave, but then I heard Damon’s voice behind me.

“We set Rika’s house on fire, Kai,” he said.

I turned and looked at him as he stared at his friend.

“Stole all her money,” he continued. “I kidnapped her, and you forced Banks to marry you. I tried to kill Will…”

“We made mistakes,” Kai argued with him. “We would never do that again.”

“Speak for yourself,” Damon fired back. “The role of the villain is only determined by who’s telling the story.”

An electric current ran under my skin, and I almost smiled, grateful.

They got redemption, because they felt they had their reasons.

Damon and Kai looked at each other, and even though Kai was the one I could see myself connecting to in high school, because he was stubborn with a clear idea of right and wrong, Damon had been my savior on more than one occasion when life had proved there was so much gray.

They were like yin and yang, and I understood. I got it now.

“You’ll make it up to us,” Michael finally spoke up, meeting my eyes. “You’ll stay at St. Killian’s with Rika and me.”

“No.”

“Yes,” he said.

He wanted to make sure I didn’t skip town. What was he going to do? Lock me up?

And then I paused, remembering that he could. They lived at St. Killian’s. He had a whole dungeon at his disposal. No one would hear me scream.

“I have a place to stay,” I told him. “In Thunder Bay.”

His eyes thinned on me, probably not trusting me, but probably not wanting to deal with the hassle, either.

“You don’t leave town,” he ordered. “You will pay your debt.”

I straightened. “I won’t leave town.”

He nodded once as Damon took a drink from his glass and Kai glared at me.

I shifted on my feet. “May I borrow someone’s phone, please?”

But Michael just raised his glass to his mouth again, mumbling, “Borrow one from the girls. We’re using ours.”

I shifted on my feet, finally turning around and rolling my eyes as I left the car. I ventured back the way I came, trailing from one box to the next, past the kitchen, the dining car, the cabins, a room with William Grayson engraved on the door, and the lounge car.

They weren’t using their phones, but at least he wasn’t telling me I couldn’t use one. For all he knew, I could be calling my brother and trying to get help.

But I wouldn’t.

I might be safer if I jumped on a plane to California as soon as we arrived in Thunder Bay, but now that it was all on the table, I knew.

I was the one who hurt them. I needed to see this through.

For Will.

Even if he never wanted me again, I owed him this.

Leaving the empty lounge, I spotted movement through the window in the next railcar. I watched one of the girls inside, her dark locks hanging in her face as she held Alex in a headlock. I slid open the door and stepped inside the gym, noticing a couple of treadmills, weight machines, and a floor mat for sparring.

Erika Fane stood off to the left with her arms folded over her chest, while Winter Ashby straddled a bench off to my right.

As I let the door slide closed behind me, everyone turned their eyes, staring at me.

The black-haired one, poised over Alex, pierced me with her green eyes, and I saw Winter shift and turn her head to train her ears.

“Those are my clothes,” Alex said, panting.

I chewed the corner of my mouth. “Yes, I know.”

She hooded her eyes and pushed the other woman off, rising from her knees and standing up. Sweat made her skin glow, and her shorter hair was pulled back into a low ponytail as she walked to the treadmill and grabbed a towel.

Erika inched over, her arms still folded. “Alex filled us in.” Her eyes fell down my body. “You’re okay?”

I nodded. “Thank you for asking.”

No one had yet.

Erika cast a glance at Alex, who was downing some water, and then back to me as she started to walk past. “We’ll leave you two alone.”

“Don’t,” Alex told her.

Erika stopped, and Alex capped the bottle and faced me.

Splotches of sweat darkened her white workout top, and she stepped toward me in her black yoga pants and bare feet, hands on her hips and fire in her eyes. “In the moment, you actually didn’t know who you were going to choose down there, did you?”

I tipped my chin up. “Was it that I might’ve chosen Will or that I might have chosen Aydin that bothers you the most?”

Her eyebrows shot up, and I didn’t quite feel satisfied that I’d annoyed her, but I didn’t feel badly about it, either. She and Will still failed to understand that it wasn’t a choice I was making between the two men in Aydin’s bedroom.

It wasn’t about them at all.

She approached, glaring at me like she was judge and jury. “You broke his heart.”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” I retorted, remembering Will’s taunts. “I’m sure you provided loads of comfort to him all these years. ‘In his bed, in the shower, on the beach, against the wall, on the hood of the car, and in his backseat.”

She growled, coming right for me, but I shot out and caught her, pushing her away before she hit me. “I’m not going to fight you.”

“You don’t get to decide!”

She lunged into my face, and I pressed my palms to her chest, pushing her back again.

“And you’re not going to fight me,” I told her. “I’m tired of bleeding.”

What had been happening in my head in that house was the same battle I’d always fought. A battle between how I always saw the world, and how I craved to see the world instead. I needed to change as much as I needed Will.

I needed to like myself as much as I loved him.

I stared at her, feeling the eyes of everyone else in the room, and while I kind of understood where she was coming from, because I felt the same jealousy thinking about her and Will as she did thinking about Aydin and me, her notions of who I was and what I deserved weren’t my problem.

“I will make amends for my crime all those years ago,” I told her, “but what goes on between Will and me is none of your business. I don’t give a shit if you’re his friend, his mom, or God. You’re not entitled to a grudge against me. This isn’t about you.”

A glint hit her eyes, and then she cocked her head, silent for a moment.

“You sound just like him,” she finally said, crossing her arms over her chest. “He got to you quick, I see.”

He.

Aydin.

She shook her head. “Like a true, manipulative monster—”