“You are one of us,” he said.
The words hit like a blow.
I stared at him.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“I blew up cars.”
His mouth tightened. “You think no one in this room has ever blown up a car?”
Regan made a sharp sound. “Edge.”
“What? Bad time for honesty?”
“It is always a bad time for that particular honesty.”
Tarak let out something that might have been a breath of laughter if he hadn’t looked so haunted.
I stared at them.
Edge leaned closer.
“You did something dangerous. Reckless. Stupid as hell.”
I swallowed.
“But you are not Mandy,” he said. “You are not a curse. You are not bad blood. You are my daughter.”
My face crumpled.
Regan took over, brushing hair away from my damp cheek.
“You did what half the people in this building would have done if they’d been cornered long enough, hurt deep enough, and drugged hard enough.”
“That doesn’t make it okay.”
“No,” she said. “It makes it understandable.”
Tarak stepped closer.
He looked older tonight. Not physically. Tarak was still Tarak, all hard edges and quiet menace. But something behind his eyes had aged. Or maybe something old had finally surfaced.
“I said the wrong name outside,” he said.
My chest tightened.
“I heard.”
Pain flashed across his face. “I’m sorry.”
I looked down.
“It’s okay.”
“No,” he said. “It isn’t. You spent years being haunted by a woman you barely knew, and tonight I added to it.”
