Nightfall (Devil's Night #4) - Penelope Douglas Page 0,91

want her gone,” I told Aydin again.

He shot me a look. “I can’t help you.”

Turning to her, he continued, “You’re right. We’re not monsters.” He reached across the table, taking the bourbon and pouring more into his glass. “Evil doesn’t exist. That’s just an excuse for people who want quick answers for complicated questions that they’re too lazy to deal with. There’s always a reason things are as they are.”

“I want her gone!” I growled.

He ignored me, taking a drink and holding my eyes.

I shook my head, turning to Em. “You know why he likes it here? Because if not for this place, he’d be alone.”

Whatever this friendship was forming between them, it wasn’t genuine on his end. Aydin Khadir didn’t want to leave, and now that he had a woman in the house, there was no reason to. This was his dominion, and I could feel the shitstorm coming.

“You couldn’t take the shame, could you?” I said to him. “People finding out the things you liked. The kink and the various ways you like to fuck. Everything was a secret in your rigid family, and that was fine, until… until you were done hiding it.”

He said nothing, his expression unreadable.

“I know someone like that,” I told him. “He couldn’t fight for the life he wanted until he was forced to fight alone. He held on to his friends and to his sister so tightly, he almost killed us, because in that moment, he couldn’t bear to see us leave, and he would’ve rather seen us dead.”

Aydin’s gaze faltered, and I knew something was finally cracking in there. If he wasn’t careful, he was going to die here. Alone.

“Did you ever forgive him?” he asked, his tone gentle for once.

“Family does.”

He blinked, something churning in his head. “But he had to submit.”

The corner of my mouth quirked. “Family does.”

Damon learned. He’d fucked up, but he learned.

He’d hurt so many people so badly that he lost everything, but it was only then that he realized his pride was less important than everything he loved.

I felt Em’s eyes and looked down at her, almost shaken at how she stared at me, unblinking. Like a tiny crumb of the wall inside of her had suddenly peeled away.

Silence filled the room. Taylor was at my side, quietly drinking, while Aydin and Em just sat there.

I wanted to fight. Him, Taylor…something to get rid of this steam rising up my goddamn neck.

Lightning struck the sky, flashing through the windows and followed by thunder. Then, the lights all around us went out, the room falling into darkness except for the single taper lit on the table.

“Shit,” Taylor grumbled. “Not again.”

Aydin rose from his seat, jerking his chin at Taylor to follow, and they both left the room. Probably to check the fuse box or generator.

But I still stared at her as I sat down, leaning back in my chair.

“You weren’t that fucking great,” I said. “You were a huge hassle that I indulged in for far too long.”

She held my eyes. “I know.”

“There were girls who were nicer.”

She nodded, her tone softening. “I know.”

I ground my thumb against the insides of my fingers. “Friends who were kinder.”

“Yeah.”

“I haven’t called you,” I pointed out. “I haven’t contacted you in any way in nearly nine years.”

She opened her mouth but then closed it, breathing a little shallower.

“I don’t care what you went through,” I said.

Again, she nodded.

“There were people who loved me, and I wasted time on someone who didn’t.”

My heart hammered as I dropped my gaze to her neck. Her olive skin glowed with a light layer of sweat.

“I understand,” she said.

Fucking bitch. My dick swelled and hardened as I got angrier by the second.

“You had years to reach out, but you didn’t,” I told her. “Believe me, I had time to become well-aware you didn’t give a shit, and now, neither do I.”

I saw the lump in her throat move up and down.

“I moved on.” The candle flickered, a draft hitting us from somewhere in the house. “I kissed others, touched their faces like I touched yours, and spent time with them like I never did with you.”

You don’t matter.

Her jaw flexed, and I gazed at her pretty little throat, my fingers humming with the urge to pin her to this table and eat her out until she screamed.

“Years of nights,” I said, and I wasn’t sure if I was saying it more for her or me anymore, but I kept going. “Years of not thinking