He crouched down, bringing himself to eye level. Not with me, but with Daisy.
"Justice isn't about equal punishment. It's aboutequalpain. Jack Spencer took my future. So I will take his. Simple math."
His cold, dead eyes fixed on Daisy's terrified face.
"She is his heart. The center. Everything he does, every breath he takes, is for her. And you—" He glanced at me. "You've become part of that, haven't you? Part of his little makeshift family. His second chance."
The way he said "second chance" made it sound like a disease.
"So, taking you both? That's not just revenge, Anna. That's poetry."
Something snapped inside me. Maybe it was the way he was looking at Daisy, assessing her, like he'd assessed me a thousand times before deciding how best to hurt me. Maybe it was hearing him call an innocent person’s pain "poetry." Maybe it was two years of carrying the weight of that night, of Elena's death, of my silence.
The words exploded out before I could stop them.
"You killed his wife!"
The sound echoed in the vast space, raw and accusatory. Even Daisy went still behind me, shocked into silence by the fury in my voice.
"Youkilledher, Carter. You were drunk and angry and driving like a maniac because I asked—because Idaredto ask you to slow down. You hit a woman who was justrunning. An innocent woman. A mother. A wife. A teacher who spent her life helping children."
My voice broke, but I pushed through.
"And you drove away. You threatened me. You made me complicit in her death because I was too terrified to speak. You destroyed everything. Her family, her work, her future. You did that. Not Jack.You."
The calm vanished like someone had flipped a switch.
In two strides, he was on me. I saw his hand coming, but couldn't move, couldn't dodge, bound and helpless. The back of his hand connected with my cheek with a crack that echoed off the concrete walls.
The pain was bright and immediate, white-hot across my face. My head snapped to the side. I tasted copper, the blood from my split lip mixing with the chemical residue still coating my mouth.
Behind me, Daisy cried out. A sharp, terrified sound that hurt worse than the slap.
"I had anaccident!" Carter snarled, his face inches from mine, his breath was hot and sour. Spittle hit my face as he shouted. "A tragic, regrettableaccident. But Jack Spencer, that self-righteous, controlling bastard, he went and turned it into a crusade. He used his money, his power, his connections to hunt me like an animal."
He grabbed my chin, forcing me to look at him. His fingers dug into bruised flesh.
"And you." His voice dropped to something quieter, more intimate, more terrifying. "You ran. You hid in your little shelter with your victim story. Then you crawled into his bed, didn't you? Became part ofhis little replacement family. Playing house with his daughter. Playingmommy."
The last word was coated in venom.
"It's not like that," I whispered, though my voice came out weak, uncertain.
"Isn't it?" He released my chin with a shove. He stood, pacing slowly in front of us now, a professor delivering a lecture. "Let's examine the evidence, shall we? Anna Stewart, professional fixer of broken men. It's pathological at this point."
He ticked off items on his fingers, each one a needle finding an old wound.
"Father drinks himself to death despite your best efforts, check. Mother abandons you because she couldn't stand the weight of your need, check. String of boyfriends you tried to save, each one using you up until you were empty, check."
Each word pierced me deep, and he knew. He had always known exactly where I was weakest, which scabs to pick until they bled.
"Then you found me. And for a while, you thought you'd finally succeeded. Until the accident." He stopped pacing, looked down at me. "And then you ran again. Straight into the arms of another broken man. Rich, grieving, angry. Perfect project for you."
My throat closed. Because part of me, as much as I hated it, wondered if he was right.
"He kept you close, didn't he?" Carter continued, voice dropping to something almost conspiratorial.Almost kind. The fake kindness he'd used before, the one that had made me doubt my own reality. "Had you cleaning his house at first. Watching his kid. Bet he told you it was a fresh start. Bet he made you feel special. Needed."
He crouched again, eye level now.
