Page 136 of Fall Into Me

“Yippee.”

“We may need you to testi—”

“No.”

I stood up, my body cracking after being in one position for so long. Grabbing the stack of photos from the table in front of me, I reached for the folder Ambros held in a death grip that contained the rest of the images Declan had taken and rolled them up.

Taking evidence was definitely not legal, but they didn’t do a fucking thing to stop me, namely because I was almost certain that the way they’d brought me in wasn’t legal either.

They had dragged me into the Darling Police Station, which was in the middle of town, right near Sunshine, but the moment I stepped onto the sidewalk, the person standing in front of me was not the person I expected.

I had stopped being surprised by anything he did a long time ago.

“Why are you here?”

“I heard about Declan. As his employer—”

“His father, you mean.” I stared at Will Mackenzie and saw the same thing I always did—a stranger. Someone I didn’t know and didn’t want to, and the very reason I punished myself every fucking day of my life.

I made myself believe I deserved less, that I needed to be less, because anything more meant there was a chance I could end up just like him.

No, I wasn’t a violent man. But my palms were tingling with the urge to reach out and wrap my hand around his throat and squeeze until there was no life left in him.

What happened to me and my mom, Declan and his mom, none of that was my fault.

What happened to Cali wasn’t my fault. It washis, and I wanted to kill him for it.

He took a small step back, and the delight at knowing he was frightened sent a thrill through me.

“Declan had some information about the company. Things that will need us to present a united front.”

My laughter startled him. Half, I think, because the sound didn’t exist in our house growing up, and half because I don’t think he’d ever heard me do it.

This wasn’t the kind of laugh born from joy or safety. It wasn’t born from happiness.

It was the sort born of rot. Of mindless rage. The kind that grows in the parts of you meant to be nurtured but instead are neglected until they wither and die.

I stalked toward him, closing the space between us until he had to crane his neck to meet my eyes.

“I hope you’re fucking suffocated by the weight of every single one of your failures,” I said, voice low and razor-sharp. “And that you rot in the hell you’ve built for yourself.”

I spat on the ground between us, savoring the way he flinched.

“You will get nothing from me.”

I turned to leave, but his voice stopped me mid-step. Seems like he had more fucking balls than I gave him credit for.

“Think of Cali, Fane. Of your mother,” he said, each word deliberate. Then, after a pause that bristled with his arrogance: “I’ll let you consider my offer a little while longer…son.”

I didn’t turn back to face him, but it didn’t stop the small smile from ghosting across my lips. I had resigned myself to just…let him be.

It was probably a little too forgiving of me to imagine he’d begin to fester in any type of guilt. Perhaps a long-ago wish of mine that I’d attached to the single shooting star I’d kept for myself during one of those many nights Cali and I lay beneath the night sky had been answered.

I kept walking, heading past Sunshine and toward Cali’s house—our house.

The frosted, still, and pitch black night like a curtain closing on every part of my life that he had ever existed in. In its wake, a blank slate where I knew I deserved the sort of love she’d always held for me.

This person who had chosen me, over and over.

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