"Jealous?" My jaw drops in disbelief.
He nods, moving onto the next dark liquor, swirling it in the glass before inhaling the aroma, "You've seen your crime scenes. Those are nothing compared to what we've seen others do. Every one of your victims deserved what they got and worse. I can't close my eyes without seeing some of the shit. Can't fucking sleep without drinking myself to it sometimes."
I swear for a second I can hear emotion in his voice, a clogged throat, and a stuttering of his words.
"And it started with your stepdad?" I ask, not sure if he'll actually answer this time.
He nods, "Yeah. I knew he was into shady shit when I was a teenager, but I don't think I even realized the depths of it. Not until I was about to move out.”
"What was he doing?"
"Selling virginities to the highest bidder," he throws back the drink in one swig.
Jesus Christ.
"And, what? You tried to turn him in, got him busted?"
"Nah," he laughs. "I stole a cherry out from under his nose."
"Whose?"
He doesn't answer, grinning like a madman.
"Hisdaughter? Your stepsister," I fill in the blanks. "Are you fucking stupid?"
With a heavy sigh, his manic grin falls, the mask of indifference with it. "You're not getting it, Cormac. He wasselling his daughter's virginity. Getting ready to pimp her out to some fucking middle aged sicko who was going to take it by force."
"So you fucked her first."
The first frown I've ever seen him really wear pulls his lips down, "She fuckingbeggedme. And not like in a hotplease daddyway, but in a desperate, tears running down her face kind of way. She hadn't been allowed out of the house enough to find anyone else to do it. Wasn't allowed to date. She was going to kill herself to avoid what those men would do to her. So she begged me and I obliged."
"I'm sure it was a real sacrifice," I scoff.
A sad smile turns the corner of his mouth, "Yeah, well, it wasn't so bad until she fessed up to her dad and he came after me for ruining his product."
"He tried to kill you for that?" I shouldn’t be surprised, honestly.Some people only see others as something to use for their own gain. "What about your mom? She didn't try to protect her stepdaughter?"
He shakes his head, "Nah. She kept her head buried in the sand and pretended she didn't know where all the money was coming from. I didn't find out Maeve had spilled the beans until her dad's knife was stuck between my fucking ribs. It had been years since it happened. I thought I was off the hook when Stella and I vanished and changed our last name before he could try that shit with her."
Fucking hell.
"And I tore him off of you," I fill in what little I do know of this story.
He nods, reaching to finish off my glass. I take the last of it, though it's not much, just to keep him from indulging too much.
The third and fourth drinks are meads with different fruit juices and honey combinations to find a new spring specialty. Peaches and honey from just this side of the border in North Dakota.
Fortunately, it's a lot harder to get someone drunk on mead than it is on whiskey, so Sky is gonna be forced to slow down.
"Yeah you fucking snatched that big bitch like he weighed nothing," he laughs. "He took his knife with him, which hurt even worse than it did going in. He slid it across your neck, and that was the last mistake he ever made. I swear to god all the color in your eyes was swallowed by black, your blood was running down your arms and fingers while you beat him to a pulp. Then you strangled him so hard I thought his head was gonna fly off.”
"Jesus," I mutter.
Skyler shrugs, "Like I said, not pretty, but I'm not sad about a predator getting taken out before he can hurt anyone else."
"And what happened with Maeve?"
"Haven't seen her since I snuck out of her room that night with her virginity still coating my dick," he reaches for the card. "This is the one. The whiskeys are fine, they'll make good cocktails, but this is what people will buy the most. Call it something cute like Life'sPeachyorLife's a Peachand Then You Die.Then we can make it a Halloween launch. A seasonal exclusive.”
