He thinks he’s already thought of everything. Lulu wants to see if she can rattle him. “Aren’t you worried that I’ll sue?”

“Not really,” Ryan says. “Sure, you didn’t sign anything, but there were signs up about the cameras. I told you they were there. I took pictures of you guys all the time, and I always asked, so you knew that was happening. And I’m only eighteen. How could I have known that I needed anything other than verbal consent?”

“This is how your dad raised you, huh. He must be proud.”

“You know what,” Ryan says. “He is.”

“That’s because he doesn’t know how pathetic you are. Building a whole hotel to keep a girl interested in you. And she wasn’t, Ryan. She wasn’t ever going to be, so you decorated it with stolen photos and called it art. This is all self-indulgent bullshit and you know it. That doesn’t surprise me—you’ve been a self-indulgent bullshit artist since I met you—but even I can’t believe you’d do that to Cass.”

“I didn’t do half of what I could have,” he spits back. Finally, finally, she’s got Ryan unguarded, Ryan too furious to hold back. This is who he really is—a wounded animal, and once Lulu would have felt bad, seeing him hurt. Now all she sees is how intent he is on hurting her, and everyone else who gets too close. “You want to see what I could have done to you and Cass?”

“No,” Lulu says. But when has Ryan ever listened to no?

She already knows what this will be. If the cameras were on that night, they were on in the morning. The light would have been better. They would have gotten a clear view of Cass and Lulu waking up, and what happened after.

She doesn’t know what’s crueler: Ryan letting her know that he saw it, or Ryan making sure she knows he kept it to himself. It’s the most violent tenderness she’s ever experienced, the way he assures her that he was careful when he was carving them up. He exposed them, but not the way he could have.

Lulu understands that she’s supposed to be grateful.

“This is what’s disgusting,” Ryan says. “You two sneaking around my property, getting each other off, pretending you were just friends, like nothing had changed. Like I couldn’t tell! I’m not stupid, Lulu!”

He unplugs the hard drive from the computer and tosses it in her direction. Lulu is so surprised that she catches it.

“You’re the one who releases revenge porn,” he says. “Poor Owen. You’re the one who’s always making herself the goddamn center of attention. Well, if you need some more footage to release, go right ahead. That should make you the center of attention for the next six months at least.”