Page 239 of Good Boys Don’t Bite

Elliot’s expression hardened slightly.

“Does it matter?”

“Yes.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“Tell me.”

“They hurt people.”

“How?”

“Tyler drugged women at the bar.”

Ronan went still.

“Grace?”

“She blackmailed an ex with private pictures.”

“Benjamin?”

Elliot looked away.

“He beat his boyfriend.”

Ronan stared. There it was. The rule. The justification. Bad people. People cruel when nobody important watched. Exactly what Elliot had been feeding him as a theory. Not because he’d discovered the pattern. Because he’d created it.

“You weren’t investigating.”

Elliot looked at him.

“You were explaining yourself to me.”

Silence.

“Every conversation.”

Ronan’s stomach turned.

“The videos. Mason. Lucas. You kept telling me what kind of people they were because you wanted me to understand why you killed them.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“I was trying to—”

“To what?”

Elliot stopped. Ronan laughed.

“You wanted me to think whoever did it had a reason.”

“They did.”

“You.”