“You have a fucking sink in front of you,” I retorted.

“I do not drink tap water.”

“You’re about to die, you idiot.” I grabbed the back of his head and smashed it against the mirror above the sink, turning the tap on in the process. Blood trickled down his forehead when his head bobbed back up. The mirror in front of him was shattered.

“That’s seven years of bad luck. Your death couldn’t come at a timelier moment,” I chirped.

I began shoving pills into his mouth. I didn’t have time for this. I wanted to call my son and see that he was okay, talk to my wife and assure her everything was fine.

After his mouth was full of pills, I pushed his head under the water, forcing him to gulp down or choke up. I repeated the action three times, until I was sure he’d swallowed enough drugs to kill a Game of Thrones dragon. His bloodstream would soon be more contaminated than Chernobyl circa 1986.

When it was done and dealt with, Harry sat on the edge of his massive bathtub, clutching the edges to the point of white knuckles. I leaned against the sink, watching him die impatiently.

“So this is how it ends?” He looked around him, quietly stunned.

I crossed my arms. Expecting small talk from me after what he’d done was a fucking stretch.

“Ever wondered what it feels like?” He scrubbed his cheek absentmindedly. I don’t think he noticed his hand trembling. “Death, I mean?”

“No,” I answered. “I lived through it during my teenage years and most of my twenties. I know exactly what it feels like.”

“Do you believe in the afterlife?”

“No more than I believe in unicorns.” I stopped to think about it. “Actually, unicorns could potentially exist. Some dumb, millennial scientist is bound to fuck with a horse’s DNA and manage to get it to grow a horn and a pink, fluffy tail. Of course, you won’t be here to witness it. I’d send a picture, but sadly, USPS doesn’t deliver to hell.”

“I always thought…”

“Shh,” I pressed my index to my lips. “Your thoughts don’t interest me. You’re a pedophile. At least have the dignity to die silently.”

He was quiet for exactly two minutes, then spent the next ten minutes compulsively blabbing about his dark childhood—with his drunken father and MIA mother. I spent the next ten minutes flicking dirt from under my fingernails and checking the time on my BVLGARI. When the minute hand on my watch signaled it had been twenty minutes since the asshole gulped down a pharmacy, and I heard the truck downstairs disappearing in the distance, the glazier with it, I picked up Vaughn’s dagger.

“What are you doing?” Harry looked up from the floor, blinking. He looked so broken, a part of him was already dead. He’d accepted it. It surprised and frustrated me that it hadn’t happened yet.

“Turns out, the pills aren’t quite fast enough for my taste,” I said roughly, picking him up by his neck.

“You promised me you wouldn’t let me bleed out. We had a deal.”

I propped him back on the edge of the bathtub, grabbed his wrist, and cut a deep gash. He shifted his gaze from his wrist to his other arm—the one with the cast—mouth agape, eyes flaring with alarm.

I’d cut a gash that would drain his body of blood. And he couldn’t even try to stop it because my son had broken his other arm.

Poetic. Precise. Perfect.

“I did? Well, I don’t negotiate with child molesters, much less those who hurt my child. Have a nice death.” I gave his chest a shove, watching him collapse into his bathtub, jerking and convulsing like a fish out of water.

I seized his shaving razor through a towel to avoid leaving fingerprints, took out the blade and threw it into the bath, not bothering to close the door after me.

I felt heavier than when I’d walked in.

That’s how I knew I’d done right by my son.

Some hours later, I parked in front of the cottage I’d rented downtown near Carlisle Castle. Vaughn wasn’t answering his phone, and I was ready to burn the world down. I’d shoulder a million deaths to protect him and Emilia. All I asked—all I fucking asked—was to know they were both okay at any given time.

I walked into the cottage, dropping the keys onto the rustic kitchen island that bled into the open-space interior, and spotted my wife sitting on the couch, cross-armed, fire in her peacock blue eyes.

She stood up and stormed toward me. I opened my mouth, my expression automatically easing at her sight.

“Sweetheart. I was going to—”

The slap came out of nowhere. It wasn’t the first time Emilia had slapped me. But this time, I didn’t know what I’d done to deserve it. Upon closer inspection, I could see she had tears in her eyes, dark circles beneath them, but the rest of her was as pale as a ghost.

“Baby…” My mouth fell open when she dropped to her knees, burying her face in her hands. I lowered myself to the floor as my mind caught up with her actions. The word no carved itself into every cell in my brain.

She couldn’t know.

I’d tossed the magazine, and she hadn’t been in touch with Harry lately.

“How could I be so stupid?” she wailed.

She knew.

“And how could you hide the magazine from me? What did you think was going to happen? God, I did this. I did this to my own son. How could he even look at me?” She sniffled. “I put a painting of his sad eyes in front of his room. I’m a monster.”

“You’re not a monster.” I scooped her into my arms on the floor, kissing her forehead, threading my fingers through her hair. “You’re the farthest thing from a monster. You heal monsters. You set their hearts on fire and make the bad shit perish. Vaughn loves you very much. I do, too. This is why we couldn’t tell you. And I only recently learned myself.”

“Is he okay?” Her question came out muffled.

I felt my dress shirt soaked with her tears. I hated to see her like this. I’d kill a few more Harry Fairhursts with my bare hands if it meant making her happier.

“He is fine,” I said with conviction I didn’t feel, because where the fuck was he, anyway? “Absolutely fine. He is thriving. He is healthy. He is in love.”

The wreckage storming through her body subdued a little. I was on the right track.

“And Harry?” She unglued her head from my shoulder, looking up and blinking at me.

It never ceased to amaze me, the effect her eyes had on my heart rate. She was a wingless angel—divine and saintly, but not in a prude way that made you want to fuck her dirty just to prove she was less than perfect.

I dragged my thumb across her lips. “Dealt with,” I said.

She closed her eyes and took a ragged breath.

“Did Vaughn…”

“No. I did.” I refused to let her finish the sentence, knowing how much it pained her to even think it. “Vaughn went back to his girlfriend, Lenny. He is fine.” A lie. Who the fuck knew where my son was right now? “We didn’t tell you because we knew you’d take the blame.”

“I am to blame.” She shook her head.

I shut her up with a bruising kiss. “No. Harry Fairhurst is responsible. The responsibility for child abuse is on the abuser. Vaughn was surrounded by top-of-the-line nannies on the rare occasions he was out of our sight. We sent him to the best establishments. You gave him everything you could. Despite what happened to him, he grew up to be a boy who adores his mother so much, he couldn’t even tell you to remove that stupid painting from the wall opposite to his door. This is the mark you left on him, Em. Not the ten minutes he was out of your sight. Not the time he moved to Carlisle Castle for the summer after begging us to go there. You couldn’t have known.”