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“I was the one who needed to know. I needed confirmation. All these years, he thought I was the one who did it. And you sat back and let him believe that because it didn't matter then, right? I'm an asshole, so why not let him believe I would murder his wife to get back at him?”
A fourth voice chimes in from the doorway. “No. It's worse than that.”
Shit.
My stomach drops at the sound of her voice. I glance down at my dark, silent phone before glancing to the doorway, where Bianca sways slightly, her eyes as big as saucers.
How the fuck did she get here without me knowing? I was either too engrossed in Ken's story to notice the alert when it came through or the app failed.
Fuck me. Fuck everything. She wasn't supposed to find out this way.
“Bianca.” Ken's chair almost tips over when he stumbles to his feet before lurching toward her. “Kiddo, what did you hear? It wasn't my fault, I swear. I never. I wouldn't have ever—”
She cuts off his panicked rant with a sharp slap that snaps his head to the side.
BIANCA
My hand stings.
I let it fall back to my side, where it throbs in time with my fast, pounding heartbeat.
I can barely look him in the eye, so I focus on the palm print I left on his cheek. It stands out redder with every second, while the rest of his face is as white as a sheet.
“Bianca...” Callum's somewhere behind him, though it's like everything around me is muffled, like I'm underwater.
“How could you do it?” I don't feel anything besides the stinging in my hand. There's no anger, no rage, no grief. I'm cold. Disconnected.
“I didn't have a choice.”
And I used to respect him so much. I looked up to him the way Dad did. Now, here he is, crying and shaking, a fucking blubbering mess. I can feel it coming. He's going to start begging for me to forgive him. I don't know if I can handle that. I really don't.
“You didn't have a choice?” I whisper. “You had no choice but to let him believe he was going crazy? You had no other choice?”
“Bianca.” Callum pushes Ken to the side and reaches for me. “You don't need this added stress.”
Something in the way I look at Callum makes him back down. I can't imagine the expression on my face, but whatever it is, it makes his features pinch like he's pained. “Come, sit down. At least sit, please.”
I shake him off, though, because sitting is not what I need most. What I need is answers and damn good ones. “What's your excuse for that, huh? All this time, everybody treated him like he was some sad joke. You could have stood by him at the very least.”
“I did! I was the only friend he had left in the department.” His voice cracks.
“Some friend,” I snicker. “You let him believe he was making things up since that made it easier for you.”
“How much did you hear?” Callum asks.
“I heard enough. Now I know who the real snake in the grass was this entire time.”
“You've got it all wrong. I did everything possible to get him to walk away from the case.”
“You gaslit him.” Whatever holds me frozen in place must loosen, because now I can walk. Each step I take sends Ken scrambling backwards. “You watched him fall apart a little at a time, cracking slowly, pieces of who he was being chipped away. Yet, all along, you knew the truth. You knew he was right, that she was murdered, and you still made it seem to everyone else that he was broken by grief. Like he couldn't think for himself.”
“And the autopsy,” Romero interjects. “Are you the one who altered the report?”
My God. It keeps getting worse.
“He was looking too deep into things. He was going to get himself killed, so I had to step in.”
“You hid the truth from him and made him think he was crazy.”
