No one moved, her words hanging in the air, because everyone was waiting to see what Aydin would do. No one talked to him like that.

But this was how Emory was. Quick to judge because it felt better to push everyone away. If she didn’t understand us, she didn’t have to surrender a single piece of herself.

Was she drunk right now?

And then it hit me. Flushed skin, sweat… I found her bowl of spilled soup on the table and picked it up, smelling it.

The bourbon was faint, but it was there. I darted my eyes to Aydin, and everything was written behind the mild amusement in his. He’d spiked her dinner.

Motherfucker.

But before I could do anything, Rory spoke up.

“I killed a girl,” he said.

We looked at him as he sat there, calm and relaxed.

“Three, actually.” He took a gulp of his bourbon and set the glass back down. “And four men, as well. I drugged them and took them to the lake.” He paused, his gaze falling. “In the dark. At night. Deserted. Alone.”

Em stared at him, unmoving as she listened.

“At first, I hurt them,” Rory went on, the memory playing in his head. “Burned them, waterboarded them, cut them…just to see if it would make me sympathetic enough to not kill them. To see if I could stop myself from crossing that line.”

Emmy’s brow knit, and her breathing turned shallow.

I’d heard bits and pieces of what he’d done here and there, but never from his lips. I’d kept my distance when I first arrived, feeling him out, but after a while I’d realized not everything was as it seemed.

“By the third one,” he continued, “I just started tying them up and throwing them off the boat.”

His voice was almost a whisper now.

“Someone saw me one night,” he told us. “Luckily, it was the hillbilly sheriff my parents owned.”

He took another drink, emptying the glass and rising from his chair.

Emmy tipped her head back, not taking her eyes off of him.

“And believe me, they deserved exactly what they got,” he said. “I’m just ecstatic no one caught me until I was done with all seven of them.”

He buttoned his suit jacket and drew in a long breath, exhaling it.

“Thank you for dinner,” he said, leaving the table.

He walked out of the room, and Micah sat there for less than a moment before he followed him. Em dropped her eyes, probably feeling like an ass.

Would she ever learn?

“I want her gone,” I told Aydin again.

He shot me a look. “I can’t help you.”

Turning to her, he continued, “You’re right. We’re not monsters.” He reached across the table, taking the bourbon and pouring more into his glass. “Evil doesn’t exist. That’s just an excuse for people who want quick answers for complicated questions that they’re too lazy to deal with. There’s always a reason things are as they are.”

“I want her gone!” I growled.

He ignored me, taking a drink and holding my eyes.

I shook my head, turning to Em. “You know why he likes it here? Because if not for this place, he’d be alone.”

Whatever this friendship was forming between them, it wasn’t genuine on his end. Aydin Khadir didn’t want to leave, and now that he had a woman in the house, there was no reason to. This was his dominion, and I could feel the shitstorm coming.

“You couldn’t take the shame, could you?” I said to him. “People finding out the things you liked. The kink and the various ways you like to fuck. Everything was a secret in your rigid family, and that was fine, until… until you were done hiding it.”

He said nothing, his expression unreadable.

“I know someone like that,” I told him. “He couldn’t fight for the life he wanted until he was forced to fight alone. He held on to his friends and to his sister so tightly, he almost killed us, because in that moment, he couldn’t bear to see us leave, and he would’ve rather seen us dead.”

Aydin’s gaze faltered, and I knew something was finally cracking in there. If he wasn’t careful, he was going to die here. Alone.

“Did you ever forgive him?” he asked, his tone gentle for once.

“Family does.”

He blinked, something churning in his head. “But he had to submit.”

The corner of my mouth quirked. “Family does.”

Damon learned. He’d fucked up, but he learned.

He’d hurt so many people so badly that he lost everything, but it was only then that he realized his pride was less important than everything he loved.

I felt Em’s eyes and looked down at her, almost shaken at how she stared at me, unblinking. Like a tiny crumb of the wall inside of her had suddenly peeled away.

Silence filled the room. Taylor was at my side, quietly drinking, while Aydin and Em just sat there.

I wanted to fight. Him, Taylor…something to get rid of this steam rising up my goddamn neck.

Lightning struck the sky, flashing through the windows and followed by thunder. Then, the lights all around us went out, the room falling into darkness except for the single taper lit on the table.

“Shit,” Taylor grumbled. “Not again.”

Aydin rose from his seat, jerking his chin at Taylor to follow, and they both left the room. Probably to check the fuse box or generator.

But I still stared at her as I sat down, leaning back in my chair.

“You weren’t that fucking great,” I said. “You were a huge hassle that I indulged in for far too long.”

She held my eyes. “I know.”

“There were girls who were nicer.”

She nodded, her tone softening. “I know.”

I ground my thumb against the insides of my fingers. “Friends who were kinder.”

“Yeah.”

“I haven’t called you,” I pointed out. “I haven’t contacted you in any way in nearly nine years.”

She opened her mouth but then closed it, breathing a little shallower.

“I don’t care what you went through,” I said.

Again, she nodded.

“There were people who loved me, and I wasted time on someone who didn’t.”

My heart hammered as I dropped my gaze to her neck. Her olive skin glowed with a light layer of sweat.

“I understand,” she said.

Fucking bitch. My dick swelled and hardened as I got angrier by the second.

“You had years to reach out, but you didn’t,” I told her. “Believe me, I had time to become well-aware you didn’t give a shit, and now, neither do I.”

I saw the lump in her throat move up and down.

“I moved on.” The candle flickered, a draft hitting us from somewhere in the house. “I kissed others, touched their faces like I touched yours, and spent time with them like I never did with you.”

You don’t matter.

Her jaw flexed, and I gazed at her pretty little throat, my fingers humming with the urge to pin her to this table and eat her out until she screamed.

“Years of nights,” I said, and I wasn’t sure if I was saying it more for her or me anymore, but I kept going. “Years of not thinking of you. Nearly an entire life of memories and history that doesn’t include you. You were nothing.”