Page 15 of Requiem
I glance at her, catching the way her fingers tremble slightly around her cup, her gaze fixed somewhere out past the trees.
“I know,” she says finally.
“Is there anything you can tell me right now? He woke up in the middle of the night, and looked awful.” I pause. “The fucker looked like a demon, Adri.”
Her bottom lip trembles. “That’s exactly what I thought.”
“How did that happen?”
“Alexei made him fight.”
My jaw locks. “Fight who?”
“Anyone they put in front of him.” Her voice doesn’t waver, but it’s quiet. “They hurt him a lot.” Her voice breaks on the last word.
Rage twists in my chest. “And if he didn’t fight?”
She lets out a breath that fogs in the cold air. “He didn’t have a choice, Micah.”
I look back toward the river, my grip tightening around the mug until my fingers ache.
“They trained him,” she continues. “Conditioned him. Broke him down until he reacted the way they wanted.” Her voice drops slightly. “And when that wasn’t enough, they…” She trails off for a second, her throat working as she swallows. “They fucked with his head. Over and over. Sleep deprivation. Drugs. Isolation. They’d reward him for violence. Punish him for anything else. For any sliver of softness that remained inside him. Alexei ripped it out of his fucking veins.”
I can’t breathe.
“You remember how kind he was?” she asks, a single tear rolling down her cheek. “How happy? Before Nolan sunk his goddamn claws into him? Before the needles?”
I sigh. “He wasn’t really ever happy. He tried to be, though. But the moment he walked away from Emma…” I drag a hand down my face. “He left part of himself with her. But he did try to accept the life that you and Nolan forced him into after that night in LA. Every time he kissed you, slept with you, laughed with you…it was only to survive.”
She sucks in a breath like I hurt her feelings. “Um, I have to tell you something.”
I don’t look at her this time. “What.”
A pause. “Jude never killed anyone in LA.”
My head turns slowly. “What?” I say again.
“The blackmail,” she whispers, her voice tightening now. “That first murder. It wasn’t real. Nolan fabricated everything. There was never any evidence because there was never anything to prove.”
For a second, I just stare at her. Like my brain can’t fucking catch up. Then it hits hard. “You’re telling me—” My voice breaks off as rage surges up my chest. “You’re telling me he went through all of that—everything—for something thatwasn’t even real?”
She winces. “Yes.”
A harsh, humorless breath tears out of me. I push up halfway like I’m going to stand, then drop back down again, my hand gripping the back of my neck. “Are you fucking kidding me?” The words come out sharper now, anger bleeding through every syllable. “That was thewholereason. Everything that started this—”
“I know,” she snaps, her voice cracking. “I know, Micah.”
I turn on her. “Youknew?”
Her face tightens. “Not at first.”
“That’s not what I fucking asked.”
Silence stretches between us. “I found out later,” she says, quieter now. “After it had already happened. After—” She cuts herself off, her grip tightening around the cup. “It doesn’t matter when I found out. I still stayed.”
Yeah.
Yeah, you fucking did.
