Page 90 of Art of Sin

“I… I don’t know what to say.” He turns away from me, hands anchored on his crown. “Fucking hell, Deirdre. All these years, I didn’t know I was living with a fucking guillotine over my head. He could have—any time—fuck, why are we even alive right now?”

Why?

“I don’t know.”

Nate spins and grabs my shoulders roughly. I don’t resist. I deserve his rage. His loathing.

“You faked his death certificate. You kept this from me for a motherfucking decade. And now what? Now you’re going to martyr yourself out of guilt?”

My laugh sounds like a sob. “I guess so, yes. He wants me. Only me. Marco is gone, Nate. It’s just Julep now. If I go to him, you’ll be safe.”

Nate freezes. “You’ve talked to him. Jesus. Don’t be naive, Deirdre, there’s no way he’s going to forget about me. I’m the one who stole all the money.”

“Money I told you where to find.”

The wrapped stacks of cash were stored under a floorboard in Julep’s bedroom, which was always locked. But during the times I was locked inside with him, he didn’t bother hiding the location from me. Above everything else, he was confident in my dependence. My powerlessness.

Nate shakes me hard. “Stop trying to protect me! Just stop! You’re not my fucking mother or my fucking sister. Especially not since you were the only goddamn thing that kept me sane those four years.”

“I’m sorry,” I gasp, clutching his arms. A sob tears free. “Nate, please. I can’t lose you.”

Anger drains from him with a full-body shudder. His arms close around me. We hold each other up in the midst of falling under the weight of our lives.

“Let me help you,” he whispers in my hair, voice thick with tears. “I’m not some scared little boy anymore.”

I lift my face and see the fear and love in his eyes, the depth of our bond that transcends all others. I kiss his throat, his jaw, and finally his lips. He sighs, returning my chaste affection. There’s no lust between us, just a sweet echo of two kids who survived hell together.

“You’re the bravest person I know,” I tell him. “Much braver than me. All these years, you’ve been living life, tackling it with courage and grace, while I’ve been pretending. I’m done with this farce. I’m going to make this right, and maybe, just maybe, I’ll be able to try this life thing again.”

“You’re going to kill him?” he whispers, scanning my face.

I nod. Or die trying.

“What about Gideon?”

Pain thumps through my chest. “He’ll be all right. He’ll… understand.”

Maybe someday.

Nate watches me, expression grave. At length, he sighs, arms releasing from my shoulders.

“Do you remember the night we met?” he asks, then continues without waiting for an answer, “I’ll never forget it. I woke up with this tiny, fierce, dirt-streaked girl with knotted hair and a mouth like a sailor standing over me, waving a knife and screaming at some rough-looking dude.”

A smile twitches my mouth. “He tried to touch you while you were sleeping. I couldn’t let that happen.”

Nate’s thumb grazes the tears on my cheek. “Because there was no one who stopped it from happening to you, was there?”

“No,” I whisper, careful to not think of what happened after. The proof that in some twisted way, my stepfather had loved me, exacting terrible vengeance on my behalf.

“We’ve survived some real fucked-up shit, haven’t we?”

I laugh hoarsely. “Yes, we have.”

“Do you know why I think we’re still here, Dee? Because despite everything we went through, all the physical and emotional abuse and victimization when we were young, we have something to offer the world. Something unique. We understand true suffering. I wish you believed that it means we deserve to know true happiness.”

Gideon…

“Maybe someday,” I whisper and kiss Nate’s cheek a final time. “You’ll see me again. I promise.”

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