Ruthless Regret (Ruthless Games Duology #2)

Chapter 42

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

ASHLEY

I take a deep breath to steady my nerves as Zain clicks play on the video. Even though I’ve seen it before, my memory of it is overshadowed by the fear and panic I was feeling. The fear is still there, but it’s different now. It’s not a fear of Zain anymore, it’s a fear of what we might find.

When my younger self appears on the screen, I’m struck by how raw and vulnerable I look. Tears are streaming down my face, my voice cracking with every word. But although it’s painful to watch, I force myself to do it.

"God," I whisper, "I was in such a state."

Zain nods, but doesn’t speak.

My younger self is hunched over, arms wrapped around herself as if trying to hold herself together. Every few seconds, she wipes at her face with shaking hands, but the tears keep coming. I can feel the devastation radiating from the screen.

"I don't remember being this bad. How can I not remember this?"

Zain doesn't respond.

Holson begins his questioning, with Ramsey standing silently in the background. Despite her emotional state, my younger self answers, her voice trembling but her words clear.

"I needed to talk to him," my younger self says on screen. "I th-thought Mom and Dad were fighting. I w-wanted to ask him if he knew w-what was h-happening."

There’s a pang in my chest. The reason I went to Jason's house that night seems so trivial now, in light of everything that happened.

Holson mentions Zain standing over the bodies with a knife, and despite her tears, my younger self firmly states that she didn't see any knife, and my eyes latch onto something odd.

"Stop. Can you rewind that bit?"

Zain complies without a word.

"There." I point at the screen. "Look at Ramsey's face when I say you didn't have a knife."

Zain hits play, and we watch the moment again. Ramsey's expression shifts, just for a second. A flicker of ... something. Frustration? Determination? It's gone so quickly I can't be sure.

I touch Zain’s arm. "Did you see that?"

"Yeah. He didn't like that answer at all."

He presses play again and we continue watching, our attention on Ramsey this time. It happens a few more times. Every time my younger self insists there was no knife, Ramsey's jaw tightens, his eyes narrow. It's subtle, but it's there. All the while, Holson keeps pressing, his questions becoming more leading.

"Are you sure, Ashley?" Holson asks on screen. "This is important. Your brother and Louisa were murdered, in their beds, by someone with a knife. You found Zain Ryder in there. He must have had the knife."

My younger self shakes her head vehemently. "I ... N-no. I didn't s-see any knife."

The first interview ends when the door opens, and another voice informs the detectives that my dad had arrived. Zain pauses the video and looks at me.

“You were gone for at least fifteen minutes, before they started the second interview.”

"I don't understand. I was so upset, so traumatized, but I was still clear about what I saw. Or didn't see, in this case. Play the second one."

Zain does as I ask, and the contrast is immediate and jarring.

My younger self sits straighter, her face tear-stained but composed. My dad is there now, looking worried, angry, and upset.

How was he able to sit there with me, knowing his son had been murdered?

"My daughter is thirteen," he says. "You had no right to question her without a parent present."

I remember that moment clearly—the relief when my dad arrived, thinking it was all over. That he’d make everything better. How wrong I was.

When Holson asks about the knife again, my younger self hesitates, then agrees. The change is startling.

"Stop." Nausea rises in my throat. "Look at Ramsey now."

Zain pauses the video, leaning in closer.

"He looks satisfied," I whisper. "Like he's getting exactly what he wants."

"They wanted an easy win," Zain says, his voice hard. "I was there, you saw me over the bodies. It was an open and shut case. They didn't bother looking any further, not when they had the perfect suspect in custody."

"But how? How could they make me change my testimony so completely?"

"I don't know. But this is important. Whatever happened between these two interviews—that's what we need to figure out."

He restarts the recording, and we watch in tense silence. My younger self describes the scene, now agreeing that Zain had a knife. There's no trace of my disagreement from the first interview. And all the while, Ramsey stands in the background, his expression unreadable but his eyes never leaving me.

"Yes," my younger self says on screen, her voice hollow. "Yes, he was holding a knife."

I remember saying them, but now, knowing the truth, it sounds like a lie. Like I’ve rehearsed the words.

And just like that, a fragment of memory flashes through my mind.

Ramsey's voice, stern but reassuring: "You're confused, Ashley. It's normal after what you've been through. But we need you to really think. To remember clearly. For Jason."

I gasp, the force of it making Zain tense beside me.

"I ... I think I remember something. Ramsey talking to me. Telling me I was confused, that I needed to remember clearly."

His eyes sharpen. "Do you think he could have been using your emotional state against you?"

The realization hits me hard. "He made me doubt myself. Made me think I wasn't remembering right."

"And in the state you were in, you'd be susceptible to suggestion." Zain’s voice is grim. "They had their suspect. They just needed to make sure the story fit."

"They used my trauma, my love for Jason, to make me say what they wanted. To close the case quickly."

We sit in silence for a moment, then Zain speaks, his voice low and intense.

"They didn't care about the truth. They just wanted to wrap it up neatly."

"But if they were willing to do this, what else might they have overlooked? What other evidence did they ignore?"

Zain's expression darkens. "The entire investigation was a fucking joke. They dismissed every piece of evidence if it didn't fit their narrative."

"But how do we prove that?"

Zain runs a hand through his hair, then gives an abrupt nod, as though he’s come to a decision in his head. "I have the case files. Not the sanitized version they presented at the trial, but everything. Interview transcripts, evidence logs, forensic reports—all of it."

“What? How?”

“It doesn’t matter how. But if we go through it all, we can make a timeline. Everything that happened that night, everything that happened during the investigation. Then we look for gaps, inconsistencies."

"We need to find out more about Ramsey," I add, the detective's face flashing in my mind. "Why was he so determined to pin this on you? Was it just about closing the case quickly, or was there something more?"

“I have someone looking into him. If anyone can find anything that might explain his actions, he can."

My eyes stray back to the video, frozen on my younger self’s face.

What really happened the night Jason and Louisa were killed? How much did the detectives miss—or deliberately overlook—in their rush to close the case?