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She nods. “He did. He put me into a car with Wes, but I don’t remember where he took me. It’s strange. The rest of the night is still missing.”
I eye her, lifting my brows on my forehead. “He hadn’t told me that part of the story.”
“You asked him if...Gage, he wonders if it was Conner and not you,” she admits, licking her lips.
Her pitbull.
I bite my tongue and don’t say anything to her about him yet.
“I don’t remember much after hitting you, Carina. And I’ll live with that image of hurting you for the rest of my life. And every time I dream about it, I wake and I’m so sick about it, Carina.” I hang my head in my hands, and I hear her move towards me to comfort me. She thinks better of it and sits back.
“Well, I know how that feels. I’ve hated you for as long as the flashes have been coming back to me. Since I saw you on television.”
My head snaps up. “So, you admit you came here to destroy me? This wasn’t a happy accident?”
She laughs awkwardly, letting her feet hit the floor again as she flattens her hands on her thighs. “Nothing about our situation should ever be termed as happy.”
She’s got that right.
“Do you think he...” She trials off, biting her lip as her beautiful blue eyes meet mine.
“I don’t know, Carina. I don’t know how any of this shit happened. That night is something I feel like we’ll never be over.”
She sighs, swallowing audibly. “I was so hellbent on making you pay, and now I’m just as bad as you, I’m so...”
I stand, pushing my hand through my disheveled hair. “Don’t say it. You owe me nothing. It’s the least I deserved for what I do recall.”
“You were...You were drunk? I’ve watched you, well...I watched you. You never seemed like you did that night.”
Her admission she’d watched me before tightens my chest when I have no right to allow it. “I was high, and I don’t know what was in what I snorted, if I’m honest with you. I’d never done it before, and I had been drinking, yes.”
She nods, taking the information in. “You could’ve been another body on the floor, Emery. You’re just as lucky as I am. My sister didn’t make it out.”
“You know?”
She nods. “Gage, he’s—let’s just say he’s good at getting his hands on information he shouldn’t be able to.”
My interest piques because my father is equally as good at burying things, but I keep my lips sealed.
“He found out it was my sister.”
“And Declan,” I add.
She eyes me.
“Declan Smith, from the football team. He died that night, too. It was the drugs.”
“Gage admitted to me that he was the one who set the fire. I’m assuming your father hired his father to clean this shit up. It’s no secret in town that your family is powerful.”
The news strikes through my chest like a fucking sharpened knife. “I don’t know anything about that, I was ushered off the property as soon as he arrived, but I do know he used many fixers for things like this, yes.”
“You called him?” she assumes, and my mouth goes dry.
I shake my head. “Conner did. He was always more like my father. It’s how he tried to groom us both to be. Problem solvers in the heat of the moment. But Conner took to it more naturally than I did. Look, Carina, I don’t know if I should be here. We don’t know if I’m the one who did something to you. I was just drinking, and Conner had just left my apartment, and I was reeling. I’m sorry to have bothered you.”
She stands and comes closer to me. “We’re both a part of this, either way. I need answers just as badly as you do, Emery. I’ll give it to you, it’s an odd circumstance, but I needed this. And I think you did too.”
Her hand presses to my chest tentatively, testing, and my eyes close. “I’m so sorry, Carina. For everything you’ve been through. For every part I played in it. I’m so fucking sorry,” I sob, breaking and letting the first wave of emotion belt free from my chest.
