Page 5 of Lesson In Forgiveness

The earnestness in that sweet voice was akin to nails on a chalkboard. Hurting her. What did she care for someone else’s happiness when she couldn’t find her own? The only joy she ever seemed to find was that brief moment when she claimed a life, taking one more bad guy down.

“They’re trying for a baby,” Anarchy continued. “The three of them want to make a family. You saw what losing Wyatt did to Liam and Sierra, Tabitha. That was Dominic’s doing. Do you really want to follow in his footsteps and bring another innocent family to its knees?”

With a cry that was part rage, part loathing, and a whole lot of pain, Tabitha scrambled off the bed, yanking at her hair. She began to pace, feeling trapped on all sides.

“Archie, go check on the kids.”

“But—”

“Now, kitten.”

Tabitha made no move to stop the woman as she darted past. This was a stupendously big mistake; she needed to get out of here before she made another one.

Jasper walked around to sit on the edge of the bed, only a pair of boxers concealing his modesty. Dangling his hands between his open thighs, he stared at her with the same eyes she saw every time she looked in a mirror. “We’ve never talked about what Dominic and Rita did to you, Tabitha. Have you told anyone?”

“What is there to talk about?” she demanded. “I completed my training to their specifications. There’s no going back. I am what I am. What they made me.”

He grunted. “For a long time, I believed that too.”

Don’t listen to him. He betrayed us, abandoned his family. Abandoned you. Did he come back for you, for your brothers? What he did brought ruination upon us all.

“Archie did some digging into their records. Hardly any females are documented as successful trainees. The majority of the girls bred by Dominic were either sold to clients when they failed a test, or murdered and buried. There are two exceptions we’ve found—Caera, and you.”

Some of the turmoil inside her eased at the mention of their youngest sister. She remembered the scene in Rita’s lab, far beneath the ground in Montana. Caera was everything Tabitha was not, yet she’d snapped and ripped the bitch to pieces when her unborn child was threatened.

“She failed the rabbit test. Too sweet, too innocent, too caring. Rita wanted to give her to the boys in training, let them have their fun until… well, until.” Jasper sighed heavily. “If Darius hadn’t thrown off the shackles of their control, Caera would be buried in an unmarked grave somewhere. She wouldn’t be loved by a man who worships her, or have the children she fought so hard to protect.”

“I know the story.”

“Of course, you do.” He regarded her patiently. “Did you know Rita drugged me when I was barely in my teens? Gave me some experimental shit that turned me into a walking erection. Dominic set me on the housekeeper’s daughter, intending to further his breeding program. I raped that girl, Tabitha. It haunts me every day I’m alive. That sin above all others will follow me to the grave.”

She flinched before she could stop herself. “Seems to me, Dominic… violated you both.” There was no way she could say the word. “He just used you as a tool.”

“He did. That doesn’t absolve me of the guilt.”

“I don’t feel guilt. I don’t know what remorse feels like. I don’t feel, Jasper.”

“How old were you when he raped you?”

The knife was out of her boot and against his throat before she realized what she was doing. The instinct to protect herself, to keep that poor, tortured child safe from any further harm, rose above all else. “You know nothing.”

If he sneezed, if he so much as swallowed too hard, the keen edge of her blade would cut his flesh. There was nothing but calmness in his eyes, an empathy that did something to the ice around her heart. “Archie found their notes, little one.”

It was tempting, so tempting, to press the blade deeper. Silence the threat to her secrets. Pacify the voices in her head for just a little while.

Stepping back, she let her arm fall to her side. As Dominic’s voice heckled her for being a coward, she returned the knife to her boot, backing toward the door.

“Don’t run, Tabitha. Stay, sleep in the guestroom.” He rose slowly, hands open and unthreatening. “You need to be around family. Whatever’s going on with you, this… you’re not yourself. We can help.”

“Help me by staying out of my business,” she snarled.

“Elias doesn’t deserve the kind of justice you give out,” Jasper told her. “You can be something different to what they made you. Killing bad guys is one thing, but taking the life of a man who’s done nothing wrong will just eat at you.”

“I’ve killed my fair share of both,” she retorted, then turned and fled into the darkness of the house with Dominic’s laugh taunting her with every step.

She bolted down the stairs, her boots hitting the treads with heavy steps. Her feet tangled together halfway down, almost sending her tumbling to the bottom. Quick reflexes were the only thing that saved her, working on autopilot, shooting her hand out to snag the banister and break her fall.

Breath heaving, her chest constricted with pressure she wasn’t familiar with, she clung to the wooden rail for a long moment.

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