Freida McFadden

Je ne suis pas prête à lui faire le même aveu. Je ne peux pas passer à l’étape suivante de notre relation tant qu’il ignore encore tellement de choses à mon sujet. Heureusement il n’insiste pas.
- Viens, dit-il. Allons nous prendre des sushis.
À un moment ou à un autre, il faudra aussi que je lui avoue que je n’aime pas les sushis.

Elle a commis une erreur de jugement incroyable. Elle a sous-estimé une personne extrêmement dangereuse.
Moi.

1 MILLIE
Trois mois plus tôt
Après une heure de récurage, la cuisine d,Amber Degraw est quasi immaculée.
Étant donné que, d'après ce que j'en vois Amber prend tous les repas dans des restaurants du quartier. J'ai l'impression que mes efforts sont vains. Si je devais parier, je dirais qu'elle ne sait même pas allumer le four ultra-sophistiqué. Elle a une belle, une immense cuisine équipée d'un tas d' appareils qu'elle n'a pas dû utiliser une seule fois, je suis prête à mettre ma main à couper. Elle a un multicuiseur Instant Pot, un Rice Cooker, une friture Air Fryer et même un truc qui s'appelle deshydrateur. Il semble quelque peu contradictoire qu'une personne utilisant huit types de crème hydratante différents possède également un deshydrateur, mais qui suis-je pour juger?
Oui bon, d'accord, je juge un peu...

Je retiens mes larmes, même si je ne sais pas pourquoi je cherche à garder la face. Personne ne me verra pleurer sur la banquette arrière de ma Nissan. Il n’y a plus personne qui se soucie de moi. Mes parents m’ont éjectées de leur vie voici plus de dix ans.

Si je peux me rendre indispensable, elle aura plus de mal à me virer si elle découvre – et quand elle découvrira – la vérité.

J’ai parfois l’impression que cette femme a une personnalité double, tant ses passages du chaud au froid sont rapides. Elle prétend qu’elle plaisantait, mais je n’en suis pas si sûre.

𝑴𝒆𝒓𝒄𝒊. 𝑶𝒖𝒂𝒊𝒔, 𝒃𝒆𝒏 𝒅𝒆 𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒏. 𝑴𝒆𝒓𝒄𝒊 𝒂̀ 𝒕𝒐𝒊 𝒅𝒆 𝒎’𝒂𝒃𝒂𝒏𝒅𝒐𝒏𝒏𝒆𝒓 𝒒𝒖𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒎𝒂 𝒗𝒊𝒆 𝒔’𝒆𝒇𝒇𝒐𝒏𝒅𝒓𝒆.

« Douglas est un bien à rénover, et il n’est pas exclu que j’échoue à le rénover à mon goût, je l’admets. » (…) « Alors qu’il me serre dans ses bras, je ne peux m’empêcher de remarquer qu’il a pris un peu de gras, depuis notre rencontre, ce qui n’est absolument pas la direction qu’il est censé prendre. On va devoir travailler davantage sur ce sujet, entre autres. Douglas est toujours une œuvre en cours. » (…) « J’ai cru un temps pouvoir changer Douglas. Qu’avec mon aide, il s’améliorerait, comme je l’ai fait, moi. J’ai l’impression au contraire qu’il ne fait que régresser. »

I believe that any human beings is capable of terrible things if you push them hard enough

My mother always says the only way two people can keep a secret is if one of them is dead

I never thought I was going to get you back. Whatever happens from now on, I’m going to be there. I’m going to make the time we have together the best time of your life. No matter what.

I felt like an absolute failure as a woman. My uterus was damaged, my eggs were poor quality, and all our attempts at IVF were expensive disasters. I was wracked with guilt that my “normal” husband couldn’t have the child he wanted all thanks to me, even though he swore again and again that he didn’t blame me. Meanwhile, my boss Denise was utterly unsympathetic about my need to rush out to appointments with the fertility specialist, or about the meeting I had to reschedule when my single successful pregnancy aborted itself after three short weeks.

News articles proclaimed Aaron Nierling to be a genius, who successfully evaded the police and the FBI for over two decades before his eventual capture. He is exceptionally charismatic and charming—at least, when he wants to be. He is a narcissist and a psychopath, who likely killed at least thirty women without a trace of remorse. He is insane. He is a monster. He is also my father.

You don’t even realize you have everything until your whole life falls apart.

For the first time, he doesn’t look so sure that our son is innocent. He had no idea when he married me that I was the daughter of a convicted murderer. A psychopath. Now that he knows what’s running through my blood and what I might have passed down, he’s finally starting to believe that our son isn’t the perfect child he thought him to be. And it’s all my fault.

Jason and I were about as boring and normal as you could get. It didn’t make any sense. How could a nice, normal couple like us produce a child like Liam? I never got it. Not until this morning. When I found out my father had been in jail for murder for over forty years.

“Well, for starters, sociopaths don’t have normal human emotions like empathy. They have no concern for the feelings of others. They also have a very high threshold for disgust, which has been measured by a lack of reaction in these patients to photos of mutilated faces. But sociopaths don’t care about faking emotions. Psychopaths, on the other hand, are excellent actors. They’re intelligent, charming, and fantastic at manipulating emotions. They can make you believe they care, when in fact, they feel nothing.” “So they’re good liars.” “They are pathological liars. They can tell the most outlandish stories without blinking an eye. And the other salient characteristic of sociopaths is a weak conscience. They feel very little guilt or shame or remorse. Psychopaths, on the other hand, have no conscience. Can you imagine what that’s like? To feel no remorse whatsoever for your terrible actions?”

On top of that, sociopaths have a very low tolerance for frustration or for discharge of aggression.

Everything my mother says is another punch in the gut. My father is alive. Punch. My father has been in prison for over forty years. Punch. My father is a murderer. Punch. Punch.

I love Hannah. I really do. I love her more than I love my own life. She’s my daughter. She’s my little girl. But Liam is my favorite. I can’t help it. From the moment he was born and I became a mother, I knew no matter how many other children I had, he would be my favorite.

I hate what my life has become. I used to have everything. A loving, faithful, sexy husband. The job of my dreams. A baby on the way. And then in three short years, I lost it all. I wish the floor would just swallow me up.

When I was younger, before I met Derek, I would hear stories about women stuck in abusive relationships. I never understood why any of them stayed. I thought they were foolish or weak. It never made sense to me until it became my life.