A monster, Billy wanted to say. But he was supposed to be a criminal himself in this ruse of his. Maybe not the ruthless, murdering kind. But the sort who did the menial tasks for bad men. The one who got the body from murder to dump site. Even if he neither pulled the trigger or dug the grave.

He was close to assuming what Mike was trying to tell him. It wasn't that he thought the moral compass could be switched off. It was that he assumed it was missing entirely, Mike was just very good at hiding it.

"I saw..." he was still too shaken to come up with a solid lie. So he chose the truth closest to what would pass in this situation. "...a man unlike the one I've come to know." A slow breath and he forced himself to continue. "You know already how good I am at...reading people. But what I saw there, in you...it was something I'd not seen even of a hint of before tonight."