She’d never uttered it before.
My fingers dig into the armrests. “What lie are you spinning here?”
Her mouth curves into a bitter smile.
“Thank you so much for the role you played in this story.”
“Story? This is bullshit,” I shoot back. “This is my life and you’re framing me for something I didn’t do.”
“Yes,” she agrees easily. “And no one questioned it as soon as I pointed you out to blame.”
My throat tightens but I battle through it with grittedteeth, “Because I’m such a villain. Did I really treat you so harshly in that warehouse to convince you of that?”
“You killed Marco,” she hisses.
My eyes widen in recognition at that name. “Don’t speak to me about-”
“About the man who murdered and assaulted your future wife?”
My head shakes out of frustration, “What the fuck does he have to do with this?”
“Hehas to do witheverything” she shoots back, whirling on me. “I know exactly what he did to that girl you loved so much.” She stands up straight and paces the room. “I’ve lived everyday knowing the damage he left in his wake. I live with the names, the victims, the blood he left behind.”
Her hands curl into a fists at her side.
“But he was still my brother.”
I gulp down a thick dryness in my throat.
She huffs out a laugh. “I warned my father to cut him loose from the family business because all he ever brought around was attention. That dumb-ass craved it. It fed his ego, but when I said I wanted him cut loose, I didn’t mean he needed to die. But you did just that, didn’t you, Finnic?”
She stops pacing and looks straight at me.
“Were you so ignorant that you didn’t think to look into his family? I mean, come on. For the longest, I thought you had figured out who I was. But I guess your revenge for the one you claimed to love so much stopped at him.”
My stomach turns.
“My father couldn’t avenge Marco publicly,” she goes on. “If the straight A University student died right after his girlfriend was found murdered, we’d have eyes searching around the city for his killer too.” Her gaze drops briefly to the restraints that are holding my arms down to the armrests. “So, it was either stage your death to look like a suicide, or play the long game.”
I shake my head slowly. “You used me.”
“Yes,” she says again, unapologetically.
My pulse throbs in my ears.
“So, not even a few months after his death, we came up with a plan,” she explains. “The unstable construction worker who got drunk every night after the death of a loved one. The obsessive stalker who thought innocent ‘Chloe’ reminded him of the love he lost.” Her eyes darken. “My father was in on the plan, of course. To make you look deranged and to have you held forcefully in Beacon Asylum to be tortured and mentally changed for the rest of your hopefully short life.”
“I don’t get it though,Everleigh.” I spit her name out like it tastes bad in my mouth. “Your father is dead now. When did that part get added into the plan?”
“It wasn’t. Not at first. But eventually I realized you were the perfect person for this. I needed you to complete this part ofmystory.”
I laugh, “What? Was your real father too emotionallyabusive? Couldn’t just pack your shit and walk out like a fucking adult?”
Her gaze doesn’t waver. “If you must know, you don’t just walk out on my father. My mother proved that to me years ago when I found her hanging from a ceiling fan.”
I stare at her, something inside me splintering quietly.
I can’t feel something for this girl. The girl who planned on trapping me from the beginning. Whodidtrap me. She premeditated this shit, yet here I am still feeling an ounce of sympathy for her.
