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Aiden raises his eyes to meet mine very slowly. “I’m going to ask you one more time before I throw you in a cell for conspiracy.”
“The fuck di-”
I hold up my hand, silencing Drakos.
“What do you know about Sascha?” Aiden repeats.
“He came for her.”
“Catherine?” His eyes widen with shock. “When?”
“A few weeks after we took her from the party.” I am painfully aware of Lyla and Jules’s shocked stares.
“And you cut a deal.”
I flinch against the accusation in Aiden’s tone. Behind me, Drakos starts pacing, a wild lion in a new cage. “No. I told him to go fuck himself or I’d call the police. I lied. I said that Catherine remembered everything and that if he didn’t want her to testify, he’d take the loss and move on.”
“I helped.”
“Drakos,” I warn, my tone lethally calm.
But he ignores me and carries on. “I threatened his clubs. Told him I’d buy the buildings from his landlords and run him dry if he ever came near the girls again.”
“But he didn’t listen,” Aiden says.
“We thought he did. It was quiet. He never bothered us.”
“It was too easy,” Drakos argues. “And we both knew it.” His tone is dangerous, and when he looks at me, I can see him daring me to contradict him.
“Over a year passed. Nothing happened. But Lizzie had started behaving…erratically. More so than before. She would leave without telling me where she was going. She started using,heavily—and she was never into street product before. She would disappear and not come home for days.” My memories are raw and unfiltered. There is objectivity that comes with enough time and space, and now I can see that that was when things really started turning with Lizzie. The other girls, even Catherine, never knew who she was before.
But I did.
It’s why I could never abandon her completely.
“She struck a deal with Sascha?”
“She did.” Tears burn my eyes as I think back. “One day I followed her. She went to the Mousetrap. And an hour later, she left through the front door with Sascha Sokolov.”
“And it never occurred to either of you to call the police?”
“Nico wasn’t around anymore,” I say, trying to exonerate him. “And my experience with police has only ever taught me that you cannot trust anyone, even those paid to protect you.”
“If we had known-”
“Bullshit!” The careful string holding my emotions in check snaps. “You’ve known about Sascha foryears! And yet, he’s still out there!” Lowering my tone, I glare at Aiden. “Don’t fucking tell me that this is all my fault. We—Lizziedid what she had to. She protected us, she protectedCatherinewhenyou,” I glare from him to Sade, “couldn’t!”
Aiden blinks once. He takes a deep breath as if he’s trying to calm himself. “What was the deal?”
“I don’t know if she ever told me the full truth. But Lizzie would visit Sascha once a week for free. In return, Catherine could stay with us.”
“And it didn’t occur to you that he would come for her when Lizzie died?”
“I…” I can honestly say that I didn’t. For the past three weeks, I’ve been numb. Absent. I have been so wrapped up in my grief and my self-pity that I’ve endangered my girls. The truth of the realization has a tremor passing through me, and, seeing my hands shake on the table, I clasp them together. “I had no way of knowing Lizzie would die.” But I did let Catherine down. “Endangering Catherine was not intentional. And if I had known-”
“It’s a little too late for that.” Aiden pushes to his feet. “If she ends up getting hurt, you will be charged with aiding and abetting.”
“Be careful.” Nico’s cold voice drops like a stone in the room.
