Did I care if he killed Peter? I searched inside myself and found the answer to be no. I didn’t give a fuck what he did to the man. I also stopped needing a reason for what I felt. It was tiring, and Cain accepted my decisions and didn’t want me to justify myself. It was freeing and terrifying to feel so unsanctioned.

There was a distinct yell from two voices, one Peter’s and the other one…was that my mother? No, it couldn’t be. I’d joked about it and wondered if Peter had the hots for my mother, but even she wouldn’t stoop so low. Would she? The fact that I even had to ask myself that question said a lot about how our relationship had been.

A few minutes later, Cain came out into the hall and waved me over. For some stupid reason, I was scared to turn the corner and see if I’d been wrong about her all this time and if she really would do something like this to me. Broken up or not, if she was in there, she didn’t care about my feelings at all.

Stepping into the room that only had one small light on, I spotted Peter first. He was tied up with some bright red rope with a red ball gag in his mouth and was strung up to look like a puppet on strings.

“Did you do that, or was he like that,” I asked, my tone quiet.

“I did it just now.” He cocked his eyebrow at me. “It’s not like I’ve never tied someone up and put a ball gag in their mouth before.”

“Good point, but your skill still baffles me,” I said as my eyes went from Peter’s slack face to the bed and the woman that was also tied up in a precarious position.

My mother looked like a cow that had been hogtied. Even though I thought I’d heard her voice, I didn’t believe it could be true until now. My eyes roamed over my mother’s face and her naked body, and I had to cover my mouth as bile traveled up my throat. Who did this to their daughter?

“What did you do to them?”

“Drugged them,” he said and held up the thing that looked like a handgun. “It’s a mild tranq.”

He was always so calm and matter-of-fact. He knelt and began lifting one item at a time out of his bag.

“This is what you wanted to show me? My ex and my mother are having an affair,” I asked and couldn’t stop the hurt and feeling of betrayal in my chest. My heart hurt as I realized she was never going to love me. Maybe my mother was more of a psychopath than Cain?