Page 42 of Rule the Night (Blackwell Butchers #1)

MAEVE

He hadn’t always been known as Ethan Todd. Once upon a time, he’d been Ethan Borkowski, but I guess that hadn’t been catchy enough for an empire built on bullshit.

He’d been raised in a middle-class neighborhood just a few streets over from the one where I grew up with June, Simon, and Olivia, and he’d graduated from Blackwell High twenty years earlier.

That was where I lost him.

But I knew he’d gone to Blackwell High because I had a screenshot of his picture in an old yearbook to prove it.

It had taken me ages to find it, in part because his background wasn’t the only thing Ethan Todd lied about — he lied about his age too, claiming to be thirty-eight when he was really forty-one.

I stared at the chat on my screen, Fuzzywuzzy’s question challenging me to tell the truth.

I hesitated, then typed a lie.

Jslittlesis: I have no idea.

I didn’t want the rest of the girls to be as deep into Ethan Todd’s life as I was. Maybe it was hypocritical, but I knew it wasn’t healthy, knew how much my obsession with him had cost me.

JennyJay still had a chance of pulling her little brother back from the brink, and Nat had been through hell and back with her college boyfriend after he’d become an Ethan Todd acolyte.

Fuzzywuzzy, whose real name was Heather, was a middle-aged woman whose husband had so radically changed after falling into the Ethan Todd rabbit hole that she’d divorced him after twenty-three years of marriage.

They’d all been through enough.

Nat8965: I hate this.

Fuzzywuzzy: Same.

JennyJay: I heard there'll be a protest. At the conference.

Fuzzywuzzy: Are you going?

JennyJay: I haven’t decided yet.

Jslittlesis: Protests are pointless. I paused, then kept typing. Sorry. Feeling cynical tonight.

Nat8965: Who can blame you?

JennyJay: Totally.

Fuzzywuzzy: Something’s wrong with us if we’re not cynical at this point.

Nat8965: No lies detected.

Jslittlesis: Thanks, guys. Going to sign off. Stay safe.

I closed out the chat, wondering how many men ended their conversations with “stay safe.”

Actually, I didn’t have to wonder, because I knew.

None.

Men didn’t have to worry about “staying safe.” They didn’t even have to think about it.

I stared at my computer. Ethan Todd’s next video was queued up for viewing, but honestly, I just couldn’t. I was tired.

So, so tired.

I just wanted to crawl into bed, replay my time with Poe in the studio, remember what it felt like to be consumed by him.

Because the truth was, the whole world had felt dangerous since June’s murder. But for that hour with Poe in his studio? I’d felt safe.

And that might have been the most dangerous thing of all.