Page 110 of Kiss Me Honey Hone

Roisin’s gaze swept the room, lips curling with disdain. “Look at this lot. All of them blaming their mental health for the terrible things they’ve done. It’s pathetic.”

“What got you in here?”

She snapped back to him, smile twisting. “The very thing that ends us all, darling. That eventually kills us all.”

“Which is?”

“Love, darling.Lovegot me in here. Falling for the wrong man.”

“Frank?”

“What a rotter.” She gave a dramatic wave as if recalling a man who didn’t put the rubbish out rather than a man who abducted, maimed and killed young girls. “I should have seen the red flags. It’s notmyfault. I was merely a woman in love, deceived like everyone else.”

“Will you ever admit it?”

“Admit what?” Her voice was sugary sweet.

“That you tortured and killed people.”

Roisin gasped, hand flying to her chest in mock shock. “Is this the poison your professor has been feeding you?”

“They’re not lies. Can’t you admit it? Even to me?”

She leaned forward. “I’ve never lied to you. Not once.”

“What about my sister?”

Roisin’s mask slipped, just for a second—a flicker in hergaze, a crack in her polished façade. Aaron saw it, the truth Kenny had been teaching him to read.

“Your sister is a very disturbed individual.”

“Because you made her that way.”

“Did I make you how you are?”

Aaron’s breath hitched, Kenny’s voice echoing in his mind.“I care about the man you’ve become on your own.”

So Aaron shifted, asked what had haunted him since childhood. “Why did you lock me in the cupboard? Drug me?”

“To protect you, darling.”

“From you? From what you were doing?”

Roisin laughed—a sharp, grating sound making heads turn. She tossed her hair back, revelling in the attention. “No, sweetheart. Fromthem.”

“Them?”

“Your father. Your sister.” Her smile tightened, eyes gleaming with a wicked light. “You were my precious. My angel. I wasn’t going to let anyone hurtyou. They had the devil in them. What was I supposed to do?”

“If they had the devil in them, why didn’t you leave him?”

“I couldn’t. I was bound to that house.” She hiccupped, breath catching, as if recalling a terrible ordeal. The agoraphobia she had once claimed. “I was a prisoner. Just like you were. But now you’re free. I saved you.” She touched her eyes as if there were tears falling. There weren’t. Crocodile ones, maybe. “That’s what gets me through the long, lonely nights in here. Knowing that I savedyou, at least.”

“Where is she?”

“Who, dear?”

“My sister.”

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