Page 39 of Broken Obsession

“For a guy who just claimed he doesn’t get angry, you sure seem pissy all of a sudden,” Eden drawled. He held up both hands in surrender when Ares took a step over Zonnie’s body. “Okay, okay. Light. I don’t have any intentions of dying any time soon. Relax.”

Why was the topic of death such a trigger? It was especially confusing considering the setting and what was obviously about to happen.

“Shouldn’t I be the one with the attitude here?” Eden pointed out with a huff. “You called me in the middle of the night—it’s freezing, by the way—all so you could show me a stranger?”

“Admittedly, your reactions have been unexpected. I anticipated more…resistance? Disgust? Panic?” Ares shrugged as though any one of those would have made sense. “You do realize what’s happening here, don’t you, Starling?”

“One,” he held up a hand and began ticking off fingers, “my name isn’t Ransom. Stop calling me that. Two, I’m not your fucking Starling, and you’re not a god. Three,Edenstopped giving a shit about other people the second my family was wiped out. No one gave a damn about them. No one came to their rescue or tried to save them.”

Hell, there’d been two witnesses that night, one who’d left just before the killers had entered, and one who’d been walking his pet derf across the street during, and neither had spoken up. In fact, when they’d been called on by the police, they’d adamantly stated they hadn’t seen or heard a thing despite the surveillance footage—which had conveniently disappeared the next day—showing otherwise.

“Other people’s suffering has nothing to do with me,” Eden said.

“Crab mentality,” Ares grunted.

“That’s bred from insecurity or jealousy,” he corrected. “I’m just…numb.”

Ares’ red eyes glinted in the light cast from the single light orb flitting about the ceiling, something about that last word resonating with him. Reaching back, he slipped a hidden dagger from somewhere and twirling the handle in his palm.

He bent down, making sure Zonnie saw the knife, and then yanked the piece of duct tape off his mouth with a rough flick of his wrist.

Zonnie whimpered and curled in on himself. “Please! Please, I told you everything you wanted to know!”

Crouching down, Ares roughly grabbed a handful of the man’s hair. “Tell him. Tell him what you told me.”

Zonnie stared at Eden. “It was meant to be stupid fun. We were high and bored. I’d gotten into a fight with my dad, and Inzer—”

“Hold on.” Eden finally felt his heart constrict. “You know Inzer Yezaers?”

“Interrupting is rude, babe,” Ares chided, then gave Zonnie a shake with his hold on his hair. “Keep going.”

“I…” He tried to glance between them, but Ares’ firm grip prevented him from being able to turn to look at the Black Hart directly. “Inzer mentioned he knew where we could blow off a little steam. Said there was a place nearby that always collected their weekly funds for the bank that day. Sedos was interested because his mom had cut him off again, and he was out of bolt. I just went along for the ride.”

Bolt had been a popular drug five years ago, but the police had finally cracked down and weeded it out after years of failed attempts.

Actually…that’d happened roughly a year after the deaths of Eden’s family…

“We thought it’d be easy. Take the money and go. But the owners fought back and—” Zonnie instantly stopped talking when Eden spun on his heel and threw up in the corner.

“What’s his last name?” Eden spit, and then, when he didn’t get an answer fast enough, growled. “His last name?!”

“Dephik,” Ares replied. “Meet Zonnie Dephik. He’s the one responsible for killing your family.”

“No! I told you, I only—” Zonnie’s words were cut off when Ares stomped down on his face.

“My bad. He’s the one responsible for killing your mother. According to him, his friends did the others.”

The way he said it, cold, clinical.

Like he was talking about a sandwich order or some shit.

Eden would have been insulted by it if not for the rest of it. The part about how someone he’d known, someone he’d called a friend, had also been involved.

Hell. Inzer had come to their fucking funerals even…

Inzer Yezaers had been a friend of his since elementary school. They’d grown apart as they’d gotten older, but had kept in touch. Since they’d attended the same college, they’d taken to meeting for lunch every now and again.

Eden had invited him over a couple of weeks before the robbery to study.