Page 299 of Trick or Stalk

“Why?”

Something almost like amusement moves through his smoky-gray eyes. “You met my brother.”

“That’s not an explanation.”

His expression sobers. “Because he knew what Grant did to us.”

I swallow. “And because you're his brother.”

“Yes.” The answer comes without hesitation. “After Dad died, I became his protector. The one who looked out for him when no one else did.”

I think about Wilder sitting across from me at Bramble & Bean.

I’ve been doing stupid shit because Hades asked me to for most of my life.

Apparently, wearing a Halloween mask and getting chased through Hollow Creek doesn't even crack the top ten.

“Was Wilder mad?”

“At me?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Not even for dragging him into covering up a murder?”

“He didn't see it that way.”

“How did he see it?”

Hades is quiet for a moment.

“Like I finally did what both of us had wanted to do for years.”

My stomach twists. There's something so horrible about that sentence. Not because I think Grant deserved sympathy. He didn’t. But two boys grew into men imagining a world where the person who hurt them simply stopped existing. And then one of them made it happen.

I look toward the romance novel on the table.

Of all the things in this cabin, that's somehow the one that makes my chest hurt the most.

He kept it.

The ridiculous stalker romance I recommended before I knew I was talking to my own stalker.

God. My life is absurd.

“Why Hollow Creek?”

Hades shifts his weight. “Needed somewhere to go.”

“After the fire?”

He nods.

“You and Wilder just... left?”

“There wasn't anything left for us there.” His voice is flat.