Chapter 21
ChapterTwenty-One
ABADDON
My hand shakes as I hold the hot poker an inch from her cheek. One false move, and Eden will have a permanent brand on her face.
Please fuckin’ talk.
“Why do you care about Delilah?” I ask.
“Why the fuck do you care about her?” Eden spits. “You don’t even know her.”
“Doesn’t matter why I care. I just do.” I move the poker closer. “Tick-tock Eden. Tick-fucking-tock.”
“Do you know them?” Eden whimpers. “Do you know the boys? Where are they?”
“The question isn’t about the boys. It’s about Delilah. Why do you care about her?”
Eden struggles against my hand, trying to pull away. Fear lances through me. She’ll make me do it. This is the first time in two years that I’ll have to kill someone I don’t want to.
“Delilah is my real name!” she screams.
The earth stops spinning, and the world ends. I drop the poker and fall to my knees.
“He seems kind. Maybe he’ll let me visit,” Delilah whispers. Her little hands fidget with the hem of her neon pink T-shirt.
“I’m sure he’ll let you,” Jacob states, slinging an arm around her delicate shoulder. “Besides, you’re safe now. They all understand not to bother you. Esau and I took care of it.”
We sure did. Told all those stupid kids that if they mess with her, they mess with us. Jacob even told them our new dad was rich and we could come back whenever we wanted to take care of them. But I’m not sure if that’s true because when we begged him to take Delilah, he said no. Said he only wants boys.
I get that boys are awesome, but why wouldn’t someone want a girl, especially one as amazing as Di? Perhaps I should have told him she runs faster than Jacob and me. She also catches frogs, likes baseball, and prefers pants to skirts. That last part I don’t like because when Mrs. Dodgley makes her wear a dress for Sunday service, she looks so pretty, like the brightest rainbow you’d ever see.
Delilah removes the bunched-up shirts from my suitcase and folds them like they do at the mall. “You’re going to have another brother now. Are you happy about that?”
“He looks like a jerk,” Jacob says before I can get a word out. “Besides, who needs a brother when we’ve got the best sister in the world right here? I’d tell that man we don’t want him if I could. He’s an idiot for not wanting you too.”
Delilah blushes a sweet pink color. She turns to Jacob with a smile. “You get an actual parent and your own room, with your own things. I would never ask you to stay here. I’m sure someone will come and get me.”
I lock eyes with Eden. She’s not the little girl from before. She’s more somehow. Shame floods me at what I was about to do to her, at what we’ve already done to her. Our Delilah. The girl we’d slay dragons for.
I crawl in the dirt by her feet, hoping I can turn this around.
She scurries back as tears trail down her face. “Stay the fuck away from me.”
“Delilah,” I whisper. “We thought you were dead. We searched. I promise we did. For years. There’s even a grave with your name in Paris. A death certificate. You can’t grasp the pain we suffered, knowing you were gone forever.”
“Why would you?” she asks.
I pull up the hem of my t-shirt, exposing my chest. Multiple tattoos line my skin, but the one that means the most is the first one I ever received. I stare at Eden as I trace the calligraphy etched over my heart. Delilah. “I got it when I was eighteen. Ten years after the last time I saw you.” I pull off my mask, needing her to see me, all of me. “Delilah, it’s me. Esau.”
“Esau?” she whispers.
I rush to her. She flinches when my arms wrap around her, pressing her to me like she’s the only thing of value in the world. Because she is. Being without her was crushing black loneliness that stripped the world of its magic, and now, with her in my arms, I experience something I haven’t known since the age of eight. Hope.
Pebbling kisses against her hair and every inch of her face, we hold on to each other like lift rafts as we shed the ocean of tears we’ve kept at bay for twenty years. “Where were you, Delilah? Why were you hiding from us?”
Eden sniffs and pushes away from me. She’s still trembling as she pulls her legs to her chest and tries to make herself small—a sharp contrast to the woman who barged into our place to steal.
I go to touch her, and her eyes hold mine.
“No,” she says firmly.
“Please, Delilah. I had no clue it was you.”
“No, but you knew Eden. You had no problem chopping that guy up over there and making him suffer because you believed he was hurting me. So cut your arm off and shove it up your ass, Esau.”
I smile. She can’t be that scared if she’s mouthing off, right? Because she was about to shit herself when I held the poker by her face.
She frowns. “What are you smiling about?”
“You’re not scared of me.”
Her eyes scrunch, and she turns her head away. “I’m terrified of you.”
I crawl closer and touch her chin, turning her head toward me. “Nah, you aren’t.”
“You were going to brand me.”
“I didn’t know it was you.” I turn to Asmodeus. “Pass me your knife.”
He throws his knife, still standing far away from Eden and me. Pulling the blade out of its sheath, I offer it to her. “You can brand me. I’d offer you the poker, but it’s the letter A, not D or E. So you can carve your initial, your choice.”
“I’m not a psycho. I will not brand someone for shits and giggles.”
“Not for shits and giggles. To tell the world I’m your bitch.”
Eden stares at me like I’m an idiot.
“Just take the damn knife.”
Eden rushes me and grabs the knife before she pushes me back and straddles my chest. The blade tip presses against the front of my neck before she moves it down. The knife won’t do any real damage, but the wound it leaves will scare, and that’s what I want. I like the idea of wearing her on my skin and knowing we’re connected in ways without reason. “I was sold off. Young girl, still a virgin. I got a pretty penny.”
Rage. I go to speak, but she presses the knife against my lips to silence me. Once she’s sure I’m not about to talk, she goes back to carving my flesh. “Sixteen years old, and I finally had a forever home. They took me to a big house and gave me the prettiest room. We went shopping, did my hair and nails, and they bought me all the makeup I could want. It was a damn fairy tale, the poor peasant girl dolled up for the ball.” She takes a deep breath. “But it wasn’t a ball. It was a nightmare. They took me straight to hell. For five years, men, women, couples, priests, pastors, their sons, brothers, and cousins, anyone who paid the price used me. And the worst part? They took away my faith. If it weren’t for Maxim Fedorov and Mikhail Smirnov, I’d be dead or worse.”
“Where are the people who adopted you,” Asmodeus asks. His voice is so cold it could freeze hell.
“They live in Ridgemont. Thomas and Liza Haliburton.”
“Fuck,” Asmodeus growls before locking eyes with me.
I nod at my brother. “Let’s go.”
“Take care of her, Iblis,” Asmodeus orders before we run to his Porsche 911.