All's Fair in Revenge

Present

Three Hours

Three more hours. That was the timeline the last guard gave us. Well, Cian, not me. I hadn't yet settled from the sudden change of venue and the guard didn't appreciate the slew of curses and insults I hurled his way.

"Are you ready to talk about it?" Cian had spent the last twenty minutes staring at me, his thumb rubbing his jaw raw in thought.

"No."

He shakes his head. "At least you're finally being honest."

"You're hardly in a position to criticize."

"Sounds like common ground on which to start."

"You want to talk? Let's start with your lies, shall we?" I run my tongue over my teeth. "Are they dead?"

His eyes shifted under tensed lids, his jaw ticking. "Would you believe me if I told you?"

"Probably not." With all the lies that had passed through that mouth, I'd never believe a word of it. "Well then, at what point did you decide it'd be funny to seduce the sister of your victim?"

Cian's chin lifts. "That's not fair."

"No. It wasn't. How about another?" I adjusted the strap of my overdress and let it fall off my shoulder. "Let's talk about the pleasure you must have had meeting up with Nathara, both of you giddy with the myriad of ways with which to humiliate me. Did you mock me? Did you mimic? Did you plot, and plan, and scheme around what to say, what to do, where to touch me?"

Cian stops pacing outside our shared wall of iron. He's inches from where my hands wrap tightly around two bars until my knuckles are white and my muscles burn. "That's not—"

"Was it amusing for you to use my grief against me? To seduce the sad, lonely woman?"

"Godsdamnit, Hana. It wasn't like that." He presses two fingers to his temple. The tick in his jaw stutters. "I never set out to hurt you. There is so much more to it than all that. You've taken this extremely complicated, nuanced thing and whittled it down to accusations and blame. But I am not the only one who committed wrongs. I have failed you in ways I will never be able to reconcile, but I'm not the only one."

"No, you're not," I agree. "But I haven't killed anyone you care about now, have I?"

"Not yet."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

He walks to the makeshift window and leans against its upper stone. "Nothing, Hana. It means nothing."