Page 87 of Theirs to Ruin

I gasped. “You didn’t?—”

“I did. But you’re worth it.”

When I sat in stunned silence, he said, “I care about you, Camille, but I’m not being selfless in helping you. I don’t like injustice. I don’t like people fucking with others, especially women, when they’re vulnerable.”

“But your family is Irish mob. Your father was?—”

“I am not my father. Or my stepfather, for that matter. And letting someone torture a girl when she hasn’t been found guilty of the crime she’s accused of doesn’t sit well with me.”

“Aren’t you afraid what your family think? With us moving in together?”

He shifted in his seat. “They don’t need to know. Hopefully, we’ll find out what happened to Ava, you’ll be cleared, and then you’ll move back into the dorms.” His gaze flickered to the rearview mirror. He adjusted it slightly as if trying to catch a better angle of the road behind us or perhaps he just needed a distraction from our conversation.

Taking a deep breath, seeking another way to reconnect with him after our explosive encounter, I ventured, “What’s going on with the investigation? Are you or the police any closer to finding out who the ‘him’ in Ava’s note was?”

“Considering you’re still part of the investigation, whether I think you’re innocent or not, how about we don’t talk about that?”

At first, I wanted to protest. I was being bullied, forced to move in with two veritable strangers – although I thought I’d once known Ty as intimately as two people could, he was completely different now. Didn’t I deserve to know what the police had discovered about Ava?

I could go to my dad. Ask him to talk to the police, but opening up that subject with him would inevitably open others.

I’d just have to wait to hear what the official report said when it came out.

But that didn’t mean I couldn’t look into things on my own.

“Can I ask you one more question?” I asked, unable to keep my mouth shut. When Kage gave a tight nod, I said, “Can you tell me why Ava acted the way she did to me? Why she suddenlystarted to hate me so much? I knew how nasty she could be, but I never thought she’d be that way with me.”

His gaze slipped briefly to mine before returning to the road. "The past few years, Ava wasn’t herself. She was dealing with a lot of personal issues that had turned her into someone else—someone mean, someone who targeted others.”

"What kind of personal issues?"

Kage’s knuckles turned white as they gripped the steering wheel again. "She was kidnapped a few years ago. It was for a very brief period but it changed her. She was never the same after that."

My breath caught in my throat. I felt an overwhelming sense of sorrow. “Oh, God. That’s so horrible.” Suddenly, Ava’s nastiness made sense. She’d been lashing out at others because of her inner pain, just like Dante had said. But that still didn’t explain her abrupt change of behavior toward me. “Did they…hurt her?”

One look at Kage’s expression gave me my answer.

I closed my eyes and pictured Ava—so beautiful and strong and vibrant—at the mercy of her captors.

“I wish I’d known,” I whispered. “I wish I could have helped.” A thought crossed my mind. “Do you think her death could be related to the kidnapping?”

“Unlikely, considering I killed each of the men who took her.”

After what he’d done to Billy, I wasn’t surprised. Or even conflicted. If they’d hurt Ava, the men got what they deserved.

It made me wonder, though, given Dante’s earlier implication that Ava had been in pain, if she’d toldhimabout her ordeal during a counseling session or if he’d found out another way, just like he’d found out I’d been roofied.

"Unlikely doesn’t mean impossible,” I pointed out.

Kage's eyes met mine, the intensity in them unwavering. "No, but I think it’s more likely the killer is someone she knew here.Someone she was seeing. Or someone else from school. Given who we go to school with, their families, the faculty—who the fuck knows.”

“The faculty? Do you have anyone in mind?”

“What about Dante Morillo?”

I flinched. “Dante didn’t kill Ava!” And yet I couldn’t forget the moments I’d questioned whether he might have.

“He found you at the river, didn’t he?”

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