“Why do you hate your father?” he asked.
I refused to share the truth. That he’d never acted like a father. That Stephen was often distant or worse, he avoided my brother and me as though we were an inconvenience. I hated him all over again because Dad had failed to protect me from him. The man who could kill me on a whim.
Seemingly annoyed that I refused to speak, Cassius again gestured for me to go in.
Holding my head high, I refused to move.
He strolled into the cell ahead of me, walking over to the nightstand and lifting a glass of water. “You must be thirsty.”
Still, I refused to take one step inside that awful room ever again.
“Your brother Archie. . .” he said darkly.
“You leave him alone!”
“Give me a reason.”
Head down, I scurried in and joined Cassius in the cell.
He handed over the glass of water. “Apparently, he and your parents made it to the safe room. Unlike you.”
“You didn’t find him?” It sounded triumphant.
“Not yet.”
“Promise me you’ll leave him alone.”
“Do you promise not to disrupt my sleep with failed attempts at leaving?”
I brought the cold water to my lips, a rush of relief hit me with each swallow.
“Archie’s innocent.” Just like me.
Cassius made his way out, though this time he didn’t lock the cell door.
“How much money are you asking for me?”
His brows knitted together. “I’m not holding you for ransom.”
“Then why am I here?”
“I’m waiting for your father to come for you.”
“He won’t.”
“What makes you so certain?”
I couldn’t say it because anything else I gave him made me even more vulnerable.
“Then we’ll lure him out some other way.” Cassius left me standing there, stunned at his arrogance.
I was right back where I’d started. Tears stung my eyes as I tried to keep the blurry shadows at bay.
Cassius
The well-grown grass behind the house served as a pathway toward what had once been our family chapel. More recently, this part of the property was rarely visited. No one else was permitted to enter this place. Not even my sister.
Because that was where I’d carried my mother’s body after those men had left.
Even now, years later, I could still feel the weight of her in my arms.
The memory never left.
Sofia had not seen what I’d done to the chapel a decade ago. I’d hung a padlock from the thick doorway to ensure no one did.
Turning, I looked back to glance at the house where Anya lay sleeping in the dungeon. It had felt right placing her there for the night. But even as this anger ebbed for her trying to escape, I felt a pang of guilt.
Maybe because the house felt different.
There was no denying I found myself intrigued with my captive. Where there should be annoyance for the time wasted dealing with her, there was fascination. There was a sense of her value beyond what I already knew.
Capturing her again just now had stirred my diabolical side. Maybe that was why I’d dedicated myself to maintaining the chapel as a teenager. I’d been trying to suppress some aspect of me I’d sensed rising out of the boy. The same cruelty that had me bringing Anya back this morning and punishing her with solitude.
Having her here brought a surge of devious pleasure. Her attempted escape was futile. Actually, it had been intriguing to see how far she’d get. I’d followed her until she’d made it as far as the road. Applauding her courage, even though I knew she’d fail.
Once in my arms again, she’d flung her hands around my neck and held onto me as though I was her savior. Her fragrance, a subtle vanilla and light—if light had a perfume—filled my senses. Breathing her in like I’d been rescuing my lost love and not the girl I was destined to kill.
I’d placed her back in the only room that she deserved. At least it felt good to tell myself that. The old me needed to know I was up for the job.
I’d walked away from her open cell with my willpower in check. But I’d wanted to strip her bare and do filthy things to her on the dirt floor. Yet something told me to curtail this need for revenge and play it out slowly.
Make her suffering a sacred thing.
She had to know what kind of man her father was. You couldn’t live under the same roof and not see his nature. There would have been phone calls overheard. Conversations with his men. There had to be evidence that revealed his illegal activities. He was a goddamn arms dealer, for Christ’s sake. She had enough insight to be useful for a while longer.
Understandably, the press refused to cover what that man really did—mainly because any journalist wanting to stay alive stayed away from any stories around that man. There were rumors, of course, of his ruthlessness, but I was beginning to suspect Anya had even been sheltered from those, too. To protect her or him, it was hard to tell.
I’d dreamed up so many scenarios of revenge, but this, this was the sweetest. Taking his daughter was the final step before my coup de grâce. Finally taking him down and his business, too. Ending his reign as a man who lorded over the weapons market in the States.
I rested my palm on the door of the chapel, taking a few moments before entering. Recalling how, as a devout Catholic boy, I’d once found this setting comforting.
After removing the padlock, I gripped the door handle.
Not yet. . .
Within the chapel lay the physical representation of my soul. The destruction of what I’d done to the inside sharpening my sensibilities.
Pulling open the doors, I was greeted by the echoey emptiness. Moonlight flooding in through the upper stained glass windows cast shards of muted moonlight over the chaos.
As I moved in farther, my soles crunched broken glass and dust filled my lungs. The faint scent of incense that had once burned here hung in the air. Candlewax, too. A reminder of what this place had been, a refuge, a simple place to say grace.
It crushed me all over again to see the place my mom had once cherished in ruins because of me. Once more, eviscerating my heart. Slicing away all doubts over this pursuit.
A decade ago, Stephen had left his mark.
What had followed that night was me leaving mine.
The chapel’s state of annihilation remained exactly the same as that day. In what was meant to be a sacred place. Because I’d come here to beg God to undo what he’d done. Yet all that happened was an irrevocable decimation.
My mother’s faith in her creator couldn’t protect her. Just beyond the outer doors was where she’d died from her wound. The landmark of where my soul was given over to the devil—by my own will, no less.
That day, fourteen years ago, I’d vowed to see Stephen suffer like he’d made us suffer.
After he and his men had left.
After my parents’ bodies had been taken to the morgue.
After my sister had been discovered in a catatonic state in the maze and transported to the hospital.
Something inside me had snapped, and I’d returned hours later to this chapel.
I’d wrecked one sacred artifact at a time. Tearing the baldachin off the altar and ripping it to shreds. Pulling at the gold-braided material and destroying it.