Chapter 4

Enya's and my friends left with Enya and Ryan shortly after, leaving me behind in that empty hotel room.

The weight of everything crashed down on me at once. The next thing I knew, everything went black.

When I came to, I was in a hospital bed.

Enya dozed at my side, clutching my hand tightly.

The moment she noticed that I was awake, she shot upright.

"Eric, you're up… I went too far at the hotel yesterday. I'm sorry," she said, gently stroking the back of my hand. "The doctor told me I'm pregnant. Can we please stop fighting? Ryan and I made mistakes too, but nothing happened between us. I swear."

She took out one of the photographs I had treasured for years. Ryan and I were still teenagers then, smiling innocently into the camera.

"The friendship you two share is precious," she said softly. "It shouldn't fall apart over a misunderstanding like this. He wants to apologize to you too. He'll come by the house tomorrow. I'll stay out of the way. Will you give him a chance?"

I looked at Ryan's young, smiling face in the photo, then slowly closed my eyes and let out a sigh.

I thought of what Dad used to say when I was a boy. He had told me not to hold a man to impossible standards if he had spent his whole life fighting just to survive.

After a long pause, I nodded.

Ryan showed up the next day with everything I loved to eat in hand.

Enya waited until I had taken a few bites of it before she stood up to leave.

"Talk things through," she said, and then she was gone.

Once her car had faded from view, Ryan smiled at me.

"Do you know what I hate most about you, Eric? It's that fake generosity of yours. You hate me, but you always act like you're the bigger person. Doesn't that disgust you?"

I slowly set down my fork.

"What are you talking about?"

He ignored my question and played an audio recording instead. Their moans and breathless gasps echoed through the room, and I felt a crushing pressure closing in on me.

My body trembled uncontrollably. Even so, I forced myself to stay calm.

"I'm not falling for the same trick twice."

Then Enya's voice came through the speaker.

"I mainly handle divorce cases. If word gets out that my marriage is falling apart, it'll damage my reputation. I need you to bear with me. As compensation, I had the IVF procedure done using your sperm instead."

I had never told anyone about the IVF—not even my closest friends.

I wanted to seize Ryan by the throat and shake the truth out of him, but my arms hung limp at my sides. Only then did I realize that the food had been laced with something.

Ryan saw the horror register on my face, and his smile grew even wider. He calmly struck a match.

"Eric, if this house goes up in flames, who do you think Enya will choose to save?"

I fought to keep my composure as I said, "If Enya is what you're after, you can have her."

Before I could say another word, Ryan's slap cracked across my face. "Who the hell do you think you are, saying I can have her?"

His eyes twisted with hatred. "You still make me feel like I'm beneath you. You talk about our friendship, the tuition you paid, the things you gave me, like they're proof that you're better than me. But they aren't. You were just born into a life I never had. So tell me, why do you think that gives you the right to judge me?"

The flickering flame cast light across his twisted features. For the first time in 13 years, I saw him for who he really was.

"The world belongs to the strong," he said. "Idiots like you deserve to be eliminated."

With the match still burning, he called Enya.

"Enya! Eric started the fire! He's trying to kill me!"

In the split second before the fire consumed everything, Enya rushed through the flames without hesitation and pulled Ryan to safety, leaving me trapped beneath the collapsed roof.

When I finished recounting everything, I turned my gaze to Oscar.

"Everything I did to Ryan was nothing more than giving him a taste of what he had done to me."

Oscar shot to his feet and ordered, "Send a team to Eric and Enya's former residence immediately! Ryan's remains are most likely still there!"

The police searched the property. Before long, they discovered a box of cremated remains belonging to an adult man.

In the observation room, Enya stood behind the glass, her face wet with tears.

"I'm not saying that Ryan was innocent, but you had the law on your side! You could have taken him to court! Why did you choose to become a killer?"

I met her eyes without flinching.

"If I had died in that fire, how exactly was I supposed to take him to court? So tell me, Enya—are you crying because you're afraid of what the law will do to me, or because Ryan is dead?"

She froze.

Before I could say anything else, Oscar burst through the door.

"Eric, those ashes don't belong to Ryan! You've been playing us all along!"

I smiled.

"I never said they were Ryan's. They're my father's. And if everything between Ryan and me had started and ended with that fire, then why did I go on to kill five more people?"