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“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 dinne
r,” 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.
