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That was so close to what Bane said, I flinched. “This has been your life since you were twenty? That’s the life you chose, Liam? Why?” I heard the judgment in my tone but couldn’t stop it.
He didn’t reply for so long, I thought he wouldn’t answer. “My father’s job was collecting information on everyone and everything. I thought he was amazing. My father—the man who knows everything.
“I was third eldest. My older sisters both chose college, dating, parties, and normal lives. I knew what that looked like, Mackenzie. I knew it could be mine too.”
Something in his voice cooled my rage. “What happened? Why did you go a different way?”
“One day I was in my junior year at Cinco U. I got a message from a blocked number. I enrolled in school under a different name, but somehow the person on the other end found out who I was. They told me if I didn’t leave a hundred thousand dollars in cash under the bleachers on the football field, they’d detonate a bomb they hid somewhere on campus.”
“What?” I cried. “Liam, is that true?”
“Every word,” he forced out. “He sent me a picture of the device so I’d know he was serious.”
“Oh my goodness, what did you do?”
“I had no choice. They told me if they saw one cop on campus, they set it off and people would die. No amount of money was worth that, so I paid. That night, he set off the bomb.”
“He what? But— But I don’t understand. I went to Cinco U, I never heard of a bomb going off there.”
“The bomb didn’t go off there. It went off at a bus station. Four people died.”
I slumped against the leather, horror filling me. The CincoTran bombing. That I did hear about. “They never caught the guy who did it,” I whispered. “Why did he lie and say it was on campus?”
“Because he was on campus.” Liam slowed to a stop. I glanced around, shocked to see the neon sign flashing Astoria. “I figured out it was a test. He was watching the campus and me to make sure those cops never showed up. His plan was to drain me of every cent I had. The ransom demands were never going to stop. So, he had to know I was scared enough at what he’d do that I wouldn’t tell anyone, and then he detonated the bomb, so I’d never doubt he was serious. He killed four people, Mackenzie, just to prove he could.”
“I feel sick,” I said, swallowing hard. “Liam, that’s so evil.”
“When I got another text demanding money and another photo of a bomb, I knew I had to find him. End it once and for all. The little I had to go on turned out to be enough. With how certain they were that I didn’t alert the cops and the fact they found out who I was, I figured they were in administration. I tracked the texts back to the provost.”
“The provost? They make six figures a year. Why the fuck would that lunatic kill innocent people for money?”
“He didn’t do it for money,” Liam confessed. “His mother was a name in the ledger. It was revealed she was a client of a monster who auctioned children for sex. When the truth came out, their whole family was ruined.”
My stomach heaved. I truly was going to be sick.
“Her son, Provost Samuel Dickerson, was forced to change his name to escape the shame on their family. But then a picture of me ended up on the school website, celebrating my team’s win. Dickerson couldn’t help but notice that I looked oddly similar to Adeline Redgrave.”
“Of course you do,” I said, eyes squeezing shut.
“He did some digging into my records, discovered a few things didn’t add up, and put it all together. It was his dream come true. The son of the woman who ruined his life was sleeping two buildings away. He bragged about all of this when I burst into his office. Dickerson laughed in my face, bragging that it was already too late. He set off the bomb the minute he saw me enter the building on the security cameras. Once the timer hit zero, more people died.”
It suddenly became clear to me why Liam was telling me this story. “You had to torture him.”
“Hatred twisted his soul, Kenzie. I shouted that it was over. There was nothing to gain but two life sentences instead of three. I pleaded with him, and he just laughed. My family made him into this. Their deaths were on our heads.
“Time was running out. I was alone, scared, and by that time, the most pain I caused someone was tackling them on the football field. It was blind panic that made me pick up the bookend and hit him over the head. But when he just kept fucking laughing... I realized I couldn’t stop.
