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I tilt my head and run my hand over my matted hair, which I was able to pull into a braid earlier. I don’t respond, keeping my eyes focused on my dinner instead.

“You’re the last reminder I have of him,” he says.

My eyes shoot up.

He leans his head back against the stone. “He looked happy with you—more than he had in a long time—before Micah fucked it up for him. He’d want me to look after you and protect you in the way he would.” A swell of emotions run through me at the thought of Maison still protecting me from the other side. But this is Ezra, and he’s been an ass since the moment I met him, even when Maison and I were together and happy. “But mainly, it’s because when Micah finds out I have you, he will fucking hate it.”

That’s it, then. Revenge on Micah.

However, I suppose it could be both.

“Why do you and Micah hate each other so much? And please don’t say it’s because of Naomi unless you want me to vomit.”

He tilts his head up and scoffs, but a smile hints at his lips. He’s loosening up…

“Maison and I were always close—he was my best friend growing up. Micah was always there, but…” He casts his gaze downward, a fleeting moment of hatred before it’s gone.

I rest my hand on his leg. He twitches but doesn’t move it. It’s not sexual but comforting. I want him to know I’m open to his friendship, should he want it.

“But what, Ezra? Help me understand your dynamic with Micah.” My eyes draw down to his hand. It always seems to provoke his anger when my gaze lingers there. I move my hand to his and run my fingers over his scars. He lets me inspect his impaired hand before slowly pulling it away and tucking it into the cuff of his sweater.

“Micah’s an ass,” he mutters. “He’s always had it out for me. There is something seriously wrong with that guy. He was jealous of me. He can’t stand when he’s not the center of everyone’s attention. His jealousy of my friendship with Maison is the real reason why he cut off my fingers. He saw an opportunity to hurt me and jumped on it.”

I can’t say I disagree with him right now.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that Micah could have let Ezra go. Perhaps I disagree with his decision to cut off Ezra’s fingers, even if it was in the heat of the moment. Sure, Ezra had a knife to Micah’s throat, but it’s not like Ezra was the one who stabbed Maison.

“I’m sorry, Ezra,” I say to him, “if I had any part in it.”

My eyes draw to my shattered hand, and I internally laugh at the irony that Micah indirectly caused this injury, too.

However, Micah has also been my savior in more ways than I can count.

Ezra continues, and I watch him. It’s as if he’s replaying something in his mind. “It’s like Micah doesn’t have a soul. Like maybe he wasn’t supposed to be born… Like it was always supposed to be Maison, and Micah was a fucking accident. A freak of fucking nature that never should have existed.”

I never really stopped to think which of the two was older. I just assumed Micah was… not that it really matters.

“What else did he do to you?” I ask him, genuinely curious. What did Micah do to Ezra that makes him look so tortured whenever he’s around him?

His jaw tenses. “He fucked me up when we were kids. And I mean, he was obsessed with making my life hell. My mom said I had to put up with him because of my parents’ business dealings, not to mention that the whole town fucking caters to anyone with the last name Matei. But she didn’t know what he was really like. Maison did, though. He saw it, too, and he turned a blind eye to it. That is, until Micah raped his girlfriend, then killed her.”

Jesus.

I blow out a breath. “Ezra, you know Maison was the one who killed Olivia.”

“Yeah, well, Micah still fucking raped her.”

Christ… I can’t dispute that, either.

I scoff. “So, who cares? That’s his business with Maison. Everyone gets bullied once in a while, Ezra. But you grow up and grow out of it, or you stand up for yourself.”

His pupils flare. “You don’t fucking understand. You think this island is the first time he has crushed my neck? He did that to me behind closed doors for years. I swear, he has almost killed me at least three times when we were younger and I was smaller than him. He was obsessed with torturing me—it’s like he got off on it or something. Something is not fucking right about him.” He pauses for a moment. “And he’d get this glazed look in his eye… like he was there but not really there. His pupils went all black and shit.”

My heart pounds as he describes Micah’s eyes because I’ve witnessed what he’s talking about, although I’ve only seen it once. The night he called me Olivia when he went all unhinged and hurt me, and not sexually.

The bruises he left on Olivia.

The bruises he leaves on me…