Chapter 14

U nable to sleep, I scoot up on the bed with my father’s file on my lap and lean against the headboard.

Rain lashes against the window, and the blustery wind howls as a streak of lightning illuminates the room. The eerie sounds fade into muted background noise when I open the file. The man I thought was my father—who I looked up to and who kissed me goodnight—was a monster.

Yes, I was born into a dark world, but my father didn’t stop at killing traitors or enemies. He murdered and tortured women and children, too. Entire families. Anyone who crossed his path or happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I study a grainy photograph of my father leaving an apartment complex on a late winter’s night. Snow flurries are visible in the glow of a nearby streetlamp. It looks peaceful, like the impenetrable silence that follows three gruesome homicides.

The next morning, I asked him about the scratch marks on his face at breakfast, and he blamed it on a cat. Mom fussed over him like she always did when he sustained injuries.

How could she be so blind to who he was beneath the charming smiles? She worshipped him like he was a hero, and never saw through the fa?ade. My father was like a lot of the members of the Exodus: greedy and hungry for power, but it didn’t stop there. My father was a sadist who murdered and raped women because he could.

The evidence is all here, in my hands, so what do I do with it? I’ve spent the last ten years stewing in my own anger and need for revenge.

Revenge for what? The man who called me his little princess and kissed my nose after returning home and washing off the blood of whatever family he had spent hours torturing? My childhood was a lie. Dad wasn’t my hero, and I wasn’t his princess.

I close the folder, tossing it to the side, then stare unseeingly at the window. Whatever happened to my father on that Reckoning night ten years ago, he had it coming, and now I have to decide how much I care about the truth and what lengths I’m willing to go to find out. I already let my hatred lead my friends to their death. Yes, they would have still fought on Reckoning night, but it was my suggestion to strike Exodus’s stronghold. I brought them there. For what?

I need a drink.

After sliding on my silk gown, I head to the kitchen to pour a glass of water, but before I get there, I stop short outside the living room. The door is ajar, and the fire is lit. I’ve only been here the one time when I stuck my head inside out of curiosity.

A stone fireplace provides the sole illumination in the vast room, crackling in the heavy silence. Luxurious leather armchairs are arranged around a glass coffee table, with cream cushions scattered on each.

I pause when I spot Darian on the couch, facing away from me. “Darian?”

He turns his head slightly sideways and drinks straight from a bottle of whiskey.

Frowning, I open the door farther and enter the room. “It’s the middle of the night.”

He takes another swig and rests his head against the back of the couch, slurring, “Go back to sleep, Cecilia.”

Is he drunk? I cross the room, coming to stand beside him. Darian stares straight ahead at the fireplace, shadows dancing across his tired face, pronounced collarbones, and ridged muscles on his bare chest.

My gaze slides down his carved body and lingers on the trail of dark hair leading into his pants. Dressed in only a pair of joggers, he looks nothing like his usually put-together self.

When he lifts the whiskey bottle to his lips again, I wrench it out of his grip and place it on the coffee table. “You’ve had enough.”

Darian shoots forward and tries to grab it, but I knock it over, and whiskey spills from the bottle and pools on the table before pouring over the side.

I cross my arms as Darian slumps back against the couch. We stare at each other for a while until he leans forward and hardens his gaze. “Go back to bed, Cecilia.”

“What’s all this?” I ask, gesturing to the whiskey bottle on its side. The state of Darian. “You’re drunk.”

“You’re not my mother.” He tears his pained gaze away and flops back, covering his face with his arm.

Something softens inside me when his chest inflates with a pained, ragged breath.

From the first moment I met Darian, he was an immovable fortress and larger than life, so what happened to reduce him to this shadow of himself?

Struck by the urge to comfort him, I reach out to place my hand on his shoulder, but he’s faster, grabbing my wrist. “Don’t touch me.”

An ache blooms in my chest at the hard look in his eyes, and he drops my hand like touching me disgusts him. “Just… Go away.”

His rejection stings more than it has any right to. Blinking away tears, I turn my back to him so that he doesn’t see me cry.

Sparks from the fire shoot into the air as I leave the room. Minutes later, I return with a towel to wipe up the spillage.

Darian remains silent while I mop up the whiskey, but I feel his eyes on me.

“Leave it to the cleaners.” His honeyed voice warms my back.

I ignore him as I continue cleaning, maybe because if I stop, I have no reason to stay here with him. He wants me to leave, but I can’t bring myself to walk away when he’s like this. I want to stay.

“Leave it,” he snaps, sitting forward and wrenching me back by my arm. I fall against the couch, trapped between his legs as his fingers dig into my skin.

He presses his lips to my temple and whispers, “Why won’t you just leave?”

The scent of whiskey on his breath makes me want to lift my chin and taste it on his lips. To feel his prickly stubble against my skin.

I wet my lips instead, savoring the feel of him this close. “I don’t want to.”

“I’m not good for you,” he replies as my pulse pounds beneath his fingertips on my wrist.

My first instinct is to argue and tell him that only I know who and what is good for me, but I bite my tongue, a little concerned about my reaction. Although I want to keep my guard raised, I can feel it lowering in his presence.

“Darian?” I ask instead as he releases me.

He rests against the couch, his eyes closed. “Hmm?”

“Why did you make the deal?”

“What deal?” he slurs.

“The marriage deal.”

His brows pull together, as if in pain. “I wanted him to suf…” He drifts off midsentence.

“You wanted what?” I sit up straighter. “What did you want?”

“It doesn’t matter.” His dejection has me moving closer.

I climb onto the couch, settling beside him, and study his face now that he’s half asleep and barely aware of my presence. He’s devastatingly handsome, with dark lashes fanning his cheeks and thin yet full lips that look far too tempting.

I stare at them for too long, imagining leaning in and tracing the seam with my tongue.

It doesn’t help that I know the sounds he makes when he’s aroused. Besides, it wasn’t that long ago I wanted to kill him and see the life drain from his eyes.

His gun rests beside him on the couch, so I pick it up, feeling its weight in my hand, and press it to his temple. How easy it would be to pull the trigger and end him.

His heavy-lidded blue eyes open, and he sweeps them over my face. I hold my breath as he reaches out to brush my hair away from my brow.

“I’m sorry for everything. It was wrong of me to bring you into my world for my own selfish reasons.”

“I was going to attack the party.”

He drops his hand, his eyes falling shut. “I know.”

“Kill you and your friends.”

“Yes…” Trailing off, his frown smooths. He looks younger and less troubled, the sight twisting my stomach, as I have the impulse to lay in his arms.

Conflicted, I stare at his sleeping form as the gun trembles in my hand. This is the same man who let my friends die in cold blood, who didn’t bat an eyelid. I can’t let myself forget, but I struggle to see how that man is the same man asleep before me now. He seems so…broken.

This is my chance to get out of here. Maybe even my only chance, so why can’t I bring myself to pull the trigger?

Placing the gun back down, I climb off the couch to grab him a blanket.