Page 125 of Sadistic

My stomach drops. "Ingrid?—"

"I know what the plan is. Redirect his mania toward Bembe, let him become the solution to everyone's problem." Her laugh is bitter. "Use his sickness as a weapon."

"How did you?—"

"I suggested it." She takes a sip of tea, hands trembling slightly. "God help me, I suggested using a sick man's delusions to solve a cartel problem."

The weight of that confession settles between us.

I think about Njal—the good times, before his mood swings got worse.

Teaching him to cook in his tiny apartment kitchen.

The way he'd laugh at my terrible jokes.

Now he's out there, mind fractured, about to be aimed like a missile at another problem.

"You don't have to do this," I say quietly.

"Yes, I do." She sets down the mug with a decisive click. "If I don't, he shows up at your wedding tomorrow. Manic, armed, convinced he's saving you from Satan himself. How many people die in that scenario?"

"We don't know he'd?—"

"I do know. He called me six times today. The last message was fifteen minutes of him explaining how Doran is literally a demon wearing human skin and only he can see it." She pulls out her phone, shows me the call log. "He's completely gone, Revna. The Njal we knew isn't driving the bus anymore."

I stare at the evidence of his calls, each one probably more desperate than the last. "I should have seen the signs earlier. Should have pushed him to get help."

"We all should have. His family, the club, me." She pockets the phone. "But we didn't, and now we're here. The question is what we do about it."

"So you're going to—what? Convince him Bembe is the real threat?"

"He's already primed for it. Paranoid about the cartel, about threats to you. I just have to..." She pauses, looking sick. "I just have to nudge his delusions in the right direction."

The moral implications make my head spin.

We're talking about using someone's mental illness against them, turning their sickness into a weapon.

But the alternative is Njal showing up tomorrow, causing chaos that could get him and others killed.

"Why tell me?" I ask. "Why not just do it?"

"Because you loved him once. Maybe still care about him." She meets my eyes. "You deserve to know. To have a choice in this."

"What choice? Stop you and risk my wedding becoming a massacre? Or let you do this and live with knowing we used his illness against him?"

"Those are the choices." She doesn't sugarcoat it. "Sometimes there are no good options, just different degrees of awful."

Footsteps in the hallway make us both tense.

Dalla appears in the doorway, hair wild from sleep, wearing an oversized shirt that says "Future Doctor, Current Mess."

"What are you two doing up?" She notices our faces, the tension. "What's wrong?"

"Ingrid's about to go weaponize Njal's mania," I say flatly.

Dalla freezes. "Excuse me?"

Ingrid explains quickly, efficiently.