Chapter 28 #3
The calmness in his voice made my skin crawl. I stared at him, chest tight. “That still doesn’t justify what you’ve done.”
He shrugged casually. “Maybe not to you.”
“Not to any normal person,” I snapped. “Your response to finding out that your friends murdered a little girl was to murder all of them, and you don’t see the slightest shred of hypocrisy there?”
Rhys leaned forward, eyes narrowing. “Don’t pretend you can’t see the difference,” he said in a low voice. “They killed an innocent kid. I killed a bunch of child murderers.”
“That still doesn’t make any of this right,” I said, voice rising.
“You should’ve just gone to the police and turned them in.
And if they didn’t take you seriously because of all the money and family influence and lawyers, then you could’ve gone to the media and exposed them, along with all the corruption. ”
“Is that what you and Peter would’ve done?” Rhys replied, lifting a sardonic brow. “Written a big exposé?”
“If the police wouldn’t listen to us, then yes, we would’ve found a way to publish what we knew,” I said hotly, folding my arms. “Because we were looking to hold people accountable for what happened to Carly. Looking for justice.”
“Justice.” Rhys repeated the word slowly, as though he were testing it out. “You really think that’s how it would’ve ended?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t be so na?ve, Alissa. How often do you think journalists actually get justice for people?”
Heat flared in my chest. “So you think our work is pointless?”
“That’s not what I’m saying.” He leaned forward, forehead creasing.
“People like you do important work. You drag ugly shit into the light that powerful people desperately want buried. But it’s only half the battle, isn’t it?
Because where’s the justice for those who have the money or influence to work the system? ”
I opened my mouth, but he kept going.
“You know how many journalists spend years exposing horrific shit, only for the people responsible to barely suffer any real consequences?” he asked.
“Their reputations take a hit for a while. Their names become toxic online. Maybe they even lose a job or disappear from public view for six months.” His eyes darkened.
“But eventually, their life just… goes on.”
I didn’t respond. Just kept listening, lips pressed in a thin line.
“Look at the Panama Papers,” Rhys continued.
“Massive global exposé. Journalists risked everything to uncover it, and what happened to most of the people involved? Fuck all. In fact, the only consequence of the whole thing was that the main investigative journalist got assassinated with a car bomb.”
I swallowed hard. That was true.
Rhys let out a bitter, humorless laugh and went on. “Epstein is another example. Everyone knows powerful people were connected to him. And yet somehow most of them just kept living their lives, free and clear. Didn’t they?”
I folded my arms tightly across myself. “I guess so,” I muttered.
“I know your work matters, Alissa. I’m not attacking you. I’m just saying, exposure and justice aren’t the same thing.”
I hated to admit it, but deep down, I understood the point he was making.
I thought about all the stories Peter had assigned us over the years.
Corporations poisoning towns and paying fines they’d barely notice.
Politicians exposed for horrific behavior who still kept their seats.
Rich, famous men credibly accused of rape over and over again while their lawyers buried everything beneath settlements and NDAs and procedural delays until the public lost interest.
Rhys leaned back slightly, watching me now. “With enough money, enough influence, enough protection… people can survive almost anything,” he said. “The Legacies would’ve survived too. I just made sure they didn’t. And now, maybe Carly can rest a little easier.”
“Is that how you justify it to yourself?” I asked, tilting my head. “It’s your way of sticking up for the little guy? Makes you feel all righteous and noble?”
“Yes to the first thing, and no to the second. I don’t hold any illusions about being righteous or noble,” Rhys replied. “And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t getting anything out of this.”
I blinked, thrown for a moment. “What do you mean?”
“Let’s just say… I’ve had certain urges my whole life. My grandmother recognized the signs in me at an early age and helped me get it under control.”
“Your grandmother?”
He nodded. “My grandfather wasn't the only smart, successful one in the family. He married a very intelligent woman. Psychologist. And like I said, she saw what I was at a very young age and tried to help me manage it. She did what she could, but eventually she understood it couldn’t be fixed. Only controlled. Redirected.”
“Redirected how?” I asked, eyes narrowing.
“She knew how much I cared for her, because believe it or not, people like me can feel love. And she knew I’d never break a promise to her.
So she made me promise I would never hurt anyone who didn’t deserve it.
” A faint, almost reflective smile crossed his face.
“And I agreed. It seemed reasonable enough. A fair trade-off for a relatively stable life. So I never hurt anyone.”
“Until this year, you mean.”
“That’s right.” He leaned forward again, lips curving into a smirk. “I can’t even tell you how fucking good it feels to finally have the chance to act on it.”
I dragged a hand over my face, suddenly exhausted again. “I guess that answers my next question, then,” I said. “I was going to ask how you could butcher people or run them off cliffs and not feel any guilt. But now I get it. You're a sociopath.”
“The correct term is actually antisocial personality disorder. And you know, it could be worse.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah. I could be one of those guys who kills anyone and anything, just for fun.” He cocked his head again. “Then you wouldn’t be safe here at all. But you are. I’d never, ever let anything happen to you, Alissa.”
I should’ve felt relieved hearing that.
Instead, a strange heaviness settled in my chest. Because every new thing Rhys revealed about himself made him harder to reduce into something simple.
And I wanted him to be simple. I wanted him to be the kind of monster people talked about on true crime documentaries. Empty-eyed. Cruel. Sadistic in every direction. The sort of man who would kill anyone just to watch them bleed.
But he wasn’t like that.
He’d protected me. He’d kept Jasmine alive too. He’d spent years forcing himself not to hurt anyone at all. And apparently he was also capable of love.
If he was just pure evil, then hating him would’ve been easy. Instead, I was trapped in this horrible gray area where part of me could still see the man I’d been falling for before I learned the truth.
Worse, some traitorous part of me still had those feelings, coupled with a sense of relief that he wasn’t the worst kind of psychopath after all.
The thought made me feel sick.
But… not sick enough to stop noticing the way his voice softened when he looked at me. Or the intelligence and care in his eyes. Or the intense steadiness that always seemed to radiate from him, even now.
Maybe that was what made him so dangerous. Not that he was incapable of humanity, but that he still possessed enough of it to make people forget what he was capable of.
“I’d never let anything happen to another innocent person, either,” he went on. “It’s like I said. I would only ever kill someone who deserved it. And child murderers? They deserve it. No question.”