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“They kept you alive.”

He laughs. “Is that what you call it?”

“Yes,” I snap, and Rowan stares at me in disbelief. Cave could have killed him, the Jester could not have listened, and even if they let him go, Steedy’s men would have ended him. Instead, they kept him alive for me.

Cave may have lied to me, but I refuse to let the good erase the bad. I won’t let Rowan twist it.

Rowan rubs his hands over his face. “Do you really believe they were going to keep me alive? I watched that clown.”

“Jester,” I correct.

“Who fucking cares? I watched him torture Steedy to death.”

“You should be relieved he is dead—it was you or him.”

Rowan sits with that for a second, and I say nothing, needing him to realize how lucky he is right now. The fact that the Jester killed someone should make me feel something, but I don’t. Steedy was the scum of the earth, feeding on people’s weaknesses and not letting them out. He deserved everything that came his way.

“Did the Jester hurt you?”

Rowan drops his hands and looks out the window. “Does it matter?”

“Yes.” Of course it fucking matters. Everything matters, and the fact that he can’t see that is such a Rowan thing.

“Not really.”

I laugh. “That isn’t an answer.”

“He threatened me,” Rowan says, scratching the side of his neck. “Talked about cutting pieces off me and feeding them to his pigs. He would sit outside my cell, just him. Sometimes he would come downstairs covered in blood and stare at me.”

“That sounds like him,” I say with a smile, though quickly pull myself up when I realize I’m doing it.

“You’re joking, right?”

“No,” I say, laughing again, but this time I don’t hide it.

“What the fuck happened to you?”

I think about his question for a minute. What has happened to me? It’s freedom . . . and love.

I have never felt so physically safe and emotionally secure, not since our parents died. Rowan was supposed to protect me; he was my big brother. Instead, he put me in danger and made me clean up his problems, all while I protected our baby sister from his bullshit. That has happened to me.

“You used to be normal,” he snarks.

As I take a turnoff, I try to compose myself, but it doesn’t work and I don’t hold back. “I used to be a fucking doormat, holding on to you because you are a piece of them. I was tired, overworked, and scared to leave the house.”

“At least you weren’t living with murderers.”

The manic laughter that escapes me must scare him because he flinches. “Worse, I was living with you.”

He scoffs and looks out his window, turning his body away from me. “Here we go.”

I glance over at him. “Here we go?”

“You always do this. Like I’m the reason your life is shit.”

“Well, you are one of them.”

He turns back to me. “I’m your brother.”