"You took me in for him." My voice doesn't sound like mine. "Three years ago. It wasn't luck. It wasn't kindness. He put you there to find me and take me in and hold me until he was ready."
"No." Will says it fast, and there's something desperate in it, like this one thing matters to him. "No. That part was real. I want you to believe that even if you believe nothing else. Three years ago I found a starving kid behind the bar and I took him in because that's what I did back then, before all this, when I was still just a guy running fights and doing okay. That was real. You were real to me." His jaw works. "He found us after. A year in, maybe more. He came to me with money I couldn't say no to and told me to keep doing exactly what I was already doing, keep you close, keep you fighting, re
