Page 128 of The System

“What do you think? She was working, and I checked in on her like I’d done before.”

“Did you talk to her?”

“No, because I wanted her to talk to me. Is it really that hard? I was around. She had to see me. And she never said anything. Bitch.”

“Sometimes, we don’t see what’s right in front of us,” Dylan said.

“She ran off with that guy, okay? I followed them. They fucking got married in Atlantic City, and I had to watch through their motel room while he… defiled her.”

“You watched them have sex?”

“Good God,” Kevin let out.

“He has more issues than I can count,” Kieran added.

“How did he get missed in all of this?” Kevin asked. “Carina?”

“Hey, don’t blame me,” Carina said. “I only had the Nick May case. I had no way to connect the girl to Marin. And when we found out about Cory, we started working with Miami, but I got pulled.”

“No, I meant… How did he get through the system without anything major on his record? He’s watched Marin for her entire adult life; having sex, apparently.”

“The best part to me is that he watched her get hit, too,” Kieran said. “Over and over, apparently, and he didn’t do anything to stop it. He just watched her in pain. And he talks about how he was meant to rescue her, but he didn’t really do anything, did he? On top of that, he talks about Nick beating her, but he tried to force himself on her all the time while they were in the house together. He’s nobody’s hero.”

“She was mine, and he was fucking her,” Theo replied to Dylan.

“Did you watch Nick with her, too?”

“Yes. And she didn’t like it. I could tell. She didn’t like either of them.”

“She didn’t?” Dylan asked. “But she married them.”

“I mean sex. She didn’t like sex with them. They didn’t fuck her right.”

“But you would have?”

“Fuck, yes,” he stated. “I know what Marin needs. I always have. But she never let me show her. Why are you women like this? Just let us tell you what you need, you know? It’s not that hard.”

“So, you watched her have sex with different men; Cory included. What happened then?”

“I killed him, too. They fought, and I could see that she didn’t want him, but I knew she’d just do the same thing she did with fucking Nick May. So, I took that Cory guy out to save her. She left and moved to Tampa. I kept an eye on her.”

“That makes sense, Theo. You were just trying to look out for Marin when she clearly couldn’t do that herself,” Dylan said.

“Yeah, obviously.”

“So, when we arrested Marin for Nick’s murder, you were there?”

“Yeah, I was around.”

“You knew that we had her in custody and that she’d be going to trial.”

“Yeah. So?”

“And you love her. You love Marin.”

“I told you that. Why do you think I’ve–”

“But she’s being charged with two murders that you committed and, likely, a third one, too, because of the poor girl who you stabbed. She’s going to lose at trial and be locked up for the rest of her life.”

---