a relaxing vacation.
It only pisses me off more because anything would have been better than seeing the wicked determination he has to turn my own rage against me.
My head falls back against the floor when that realization hits.
He’s doing this on purpose. Again. Making me his puppet. Again.
“Why are you doing this to me?”
I manage to yank one of my wrists free, and I punch him in the face, his head whipping left before he slowly turns back to look at me, his jaw stretching from side to side to ease the pain of the hit.
He catches my arm before I can punch him again, his fingers clamping down tighter as he adjusts my wrists to hold them down with one hand, his other reaching between us to trap my chin and hold my head in place.
“Doing what? Tell me exactly what you think it is I’m doing to you.”
“You’ve killed people,” I yell, my throat sore from the volume of my voice.
“Let’s talk about who I’ve killed. I think we’ve already covered Tyler Dixon, his crimes, his victimization of women. Was I wrong for ending his life? And what about Jason Ayers? That asshole made it a game to use women and abuse them. You weren’t the only one, even though you thought you were. When he bruised your face, I was fucking done with him.”
Tears well in my eyes, hot and thick. Knowing he killed people is hard enough, but to hear him admit it with no guilt at all? It’s terrifying.
“Why? Because you don’t like people breaking your things?”
The smile fades, his gaze caressing my face with such tenderness that my heart warms at it. I’ve never had a person look at me the way Ari does. And I know it’s fucked up to enjoy it. But the heart is a fickle fucking creature that bends the mind. Defies logic. And spits in the face of everything that is wrong and right.
Ari looks at me like I’m valuable. Like I’m some rare, mythical being. Whether that’s from his insanity or mine for even seeing it, the expression is still there. The truth of it.
But that still doesn’t excuse what he’s done.
Does it?
“I don’t like it when people hurt you. I won’t apologize for that. Ryan Knox, let’s talk about him.”
Ryan? Holy shit. He killed Ryan? I always wondered why he suddenly up and left. Even his roommate didn’t understand. Nobody ever reported him missing, I don’t think. We just assumed he took off because of some messed up drug deal.
“Ryan was your supplier for a good several months. That alone pissed me off, and I stole as many of those drugs from you as I could.”
My eyes round. Son of a bitch. I thought I’d misplaced those.
“But then Ryan decided to take on a new client. A thirteen year old girl that he intentionally knocked out with the drugs he gave her before fucking her while she was passed out. She couldn’t go home and tell Mommy what happened, not without admitting why she was there. And the asshole knew that. He squealed like a stuck pig when I decided to end his career.”
Anger sparks inside me, not at the fact Ari killed Ryan, but instead for what Ryan did to that poor girl.
Fuck! What is he doing to me? This is not okay.
“And the only other friend of yours that I’ve killed is Preston Cotter. Would you like to know what he had planned for you? What he had done to other women before you?”
Preston. Crap. I try to put a face with the name, but I’m drawing a blank. Ari must know that. His lips curl when my brows tug together in confusion, his eyes searching mine for some tiny spark of recognition.
Finding none, he tells me what I can’t remember.
“You were drunk one night at a bar with your friend, Melanie. She took off with a guy several hours into the night and left you with Preston. What you didn’t know is that he had three other friends at that bar, and when he offered to take you home, he never intended to actually take you there. Fortunately for you, his group had a dumb habit of discussing their plans when people were around who could hear them talking.”
I feel deflated by what he’s telling me, by how close I’d come to being hurt or worse because of the constant partying when I was younger.
Ari’s hand moves so that his palm is warm against