“I’ll never forget how proud Grandma was of me that day. She said I was becoming a true Pryce. I felt so dirty afterward. I had to shower, even though the cuts and stitches made it painful.”
Sighing, I close my eyes, unable to look at Dominic in the face. My shoulders droop. It didn’t sound too bad, did it? I don’t think I left out anything major, but I also didn’t try to justify my decision to use Andy too much, did I?
Oh, come on, that animal deserves far worse, a voice that sounds suspiciously like Tolyan says in my head.
“When did this happen, Liza?” Dominic asks, soft but dangerous.
“Five years ago.” I open my eyes, stare at the empty vodka glass in my hands.
“That’s when you called me.”
“Yes.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Dominic
Liza sits on the couch, her shoulders rounded, her gaze downcast like she did something unspeakable.
She won’t even look at me. Maybe it’s a good thing—at least until I can regain some self-control. If Andy were here right now, I’d kill him. How the fuck did I never recognize what a creep he was?
The same way everyone says, “I had no idea he was like that,” when they’re interviewed about their murderer family member, friend or neighbor.
But didn’t I see signs? I just ignored them, coming up with excuses because I didn’t want to deal with uncomfortable truths.
When Andy crushed bugs around the house, I brushed it off as him trying to get rid of them because Kristen didn’t like bugs.
But didn’t you always think maybe he seemed too…gleeful?
When he said his goldfish died, its intestines squashed, because the neighbor’s cat got to it, we all sympathized. Except he didn’t look that sad, did he?
And I thought maybe he didn’t want to cry because that would be like a baby.
But now I can’t help but wonder…
I rub my forehead. “No wonder you freaked out in Hawaii.” I tried to introduce her to a man who beat and nearly raped her. A sour tang starts at the back of my throat, and I pour myself a vodka and knock it back. “You should’ve slapped me silly at the very least.”
She finally lifts her head and looks at me. “You didn’t know.”
“You should’ve said something.” Rage and regret knotting my gut, I look down at my hands. I would’ve used them to beat the shit out of Andy back in Hawaii…
…if I’d only known.
She shakes her head. “Sorry.”
That softly spoken word plunges me deeper into the cesspool of guilt and self-recrimination, and I clench my hands, veins standing out in my forearms.
Why would she have said anything? The first thing I did after seeing her again was tell her I’d strip her bare, humiliate her and take what mattered the most to her. What reason did I give her to turn to me for protection against a monster?
“Don’t do that,” she says. “Don’t act like you could’ve done something. It wasn’t your fault. I didn’t want to remind you of what happened between us.”
“What?”
Her mouth twists into a bittersweet smile. “You thought I set you up ten years ago. What happened between me and Andy…” She shrugs, swallowing. “Well, the fact is, I set him up.”
“Only because he was a sociopath. If he’d been a decent guy, it wouldn’t have worked.”
She continues as though I haven’t spoken. “I just had to leave Hawaii and have Tolyan with me in L.A. He would keep me safe. He always did.”