“My father would’ve cut me off,” she said. “Without Christian’s money, Bonner bourbon would have gone under, and worse, my father would’ve been right about me. Just a girl. Unfit to run the family business. We would have had nothing.”

Of course. It always looped back to the money.

“We would’ve had each other,” Kaden said.

“I was so young when Christian started hurting you. It was the same way my father controlled my mother… I didn’t see any way out. Christian wanted the marriage. My father wanted the Durant money. And I traded one monster for another.”

Kaden pressed a hand to his chest and found himself aching to believe her. But he knew that this was just another manipulation.

“That doesn’t explain what I did to that woman in the bar,” Kaden said. “Why no one remembers me until I tell them my name, and even then, they barely seem to remember that I ever existed.”

“Don’t you think that if I could take a person’s memories, I’d have used that power to stop your father from hurting you?”

Her words took the wind out of him. “I…”

“If no one remembers you, then that was a choice they made,” she said. “But I remember you, Kaden. And I was there, at the harvest. I would never forget you. No matter what you did.”

“What do you mean?”

“Something horrible happened that summer,” she said. “Bad enough the whole town let it go. A month after you left, Nolan Haywood’s body was found in the river. Maybe if the town chose to forget you, there was a reason for that.”

The words swirled around in Kaden’s head. He knew his mother was a viper, knew she was stirring the pot. But his memories from that summer had been fermenting in his head like the corn mash for so long that her words seeded enough doubt to temporarily stun him into silence. What if she was right? Not only had the town forgotten him, but apparently Kaden had given up the memory that Irene and Nate had ever broken things off, something everyone else remembered just fine.

Quinn’s accusations from the night before flashed through his mind.

Kaden dropped his head into his hands. It didn’t make sense. If he’d somehow been responsible for Nolan’s death, people wouldn’t choose to forget that. They’d want justice.

Unless.

The back of Kaden’s neck prickled. Maybe that woman’s memories weren’t the first ones he’d taken.

He shook his head. It wasn’t possible. This was just Sylvia trying to get into his head. How could he feel so at home with the Haywoods if he’d been responsible for Nolan’s death? None of this made sense, and yet…

“You don’t think… I couldn’t have…”