Cillian’s smile twitches. “You grow up fast in my family.”
“So it seems.”
He adjusts his position. Now, even without moving, our shoulders are pressed together. I don’t want to move away and give him the satisfaction of knowing that I’m aware of his proximity.
So I ignore it.
Heat races up and down my arm, but I ignore that, too.
“Have you murdered anyone?” I ask abruptly.
“Fuck,” he groans. “I knew I shouldn’t have put that in your head.”
“Well?”
He closes his eyes for a moment and his body goes still. “Would you judge me if I said I have?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“Damn it,” he growls through gritted teeth.
“You really have killed someone?” I gasp.
He meets my eyes levelly. I find myself transfixed and confused in equal measure.
How can a man with such beautiful eyes be capable of doing such horrific things?
“I have,” Cillian says quietly. “But would it help you to know that the person in question was a horrible man? That he deserved to die?”
“You don’t get to make that call.”
“Why not?” Cillian counters. “If I hadn’t stopped him, he would have lived free. He would have sold more children, destroyed more lives.”
I freeze. “He was a human trafficker?”
“That, and more.”
I glare at him, searching for flaws in his story. “And you’re not just making this up to justify the fact that you’re a murderer?”
“No,” he says with a wide-open expression. “I told you—I’m not a liar.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“I believe you.”
His smile is so bright that it puts the moon to shame.
Then it falters.
Just a little, but enough for me to take notice.
“It still wasn’t easy,” he admits. “Killing him. I knew everything he’d done. I knew the kind of man he was. But killing him wasn’t easy.”
“Good,” I say. “Killing another person should never be so easy. No matter what they’ve done.”
Cillian nods thoughtfully. Lost in horrible memories.