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He leans in again, voice dropping to a whisper. “It isn’t meant to be nice. I broke into your house.”

My eyes go wide. “You what?”

“I needed to know what I was dealing with.”

“You were in my room?”

“Sure was,” he answers.

“Oh, my God.”

“I saw the broken lock, all your hiding spots for your important shit. Saw your stuffed animal,” he gestures at my rabbit, “your money, your sketches. And then I listened.”

“Listened?”

“I put listening devices in the house.”

My eyes widen in shock. I guess it really shows my naivety that I thought he meant he listened to his heart, or to my dad, or something like that. Not literally listening with his ears. Not spying on me.

“Why would you do that?”

“Because I was trying to figure out how much you knew about Wade and whether you’d talked.”

Oh.

Right.

The murder part.

“And then?”

His expression goes darker. “I heard what happened with Sherry the night you ran off.”

My fingers curl into the blanket. “What did you hear?”

“Enough.”

My face burns. “About the money?”

“Yes.”

Mortification burns straight through me. “I was upset, but maybe I overreacted—”

“Overreacted?” Adrien scoffs in disbelief. “Sweetheart, you reacted like any other nineteen-year-old—no, any other person. Any other person would have been demanding blood, Kamden. I—” He shakes his head. “I’ve seen people snap for less. You kept your head about you, even when you shouldn’t have had to.”

I hate the way his praise worms into me. I hate that it doesn’t sound condescending, not even a little, but honest, like he’s been waiting to tell me forever. I hate that I want his approval, after everything. Sure, he was my dad’s friend, but he’s still a bad person. He kidnapped me, and he works with people who kill people and sell drugs and stuff.

Adrien presses the heel of his hand to his forehead, then drags it down over his face. “Look, what I mean to say is that it stopped being about John’s promise a while ago, but even more so when I took you.”

A weird current runs beneath his words, something I can’t quite name. It sits just under the surface, unspoken, and I realize I’m holding my breath, waiting for him to say something else. Something that feels bigger than the rest.

He breathes in through his nose, hands folded together so tightly his knuckles go white. “You’re not a problem that needed solving. You’re not a favor I’m repaying. I—” He stops short, looking anywhere but at me.

“What?” I whisper.

“Never mind that. You get the point, yeah?”

I’m not entirely sure I do.