Page 113 of Judas

“I’m sorry,” is all I can seem to mutter to her.

“Y… you’re sorry? For what exactly, Kace? Lucien seems to think you did something to Sadie to…” She stalls, the words getting caught in her throat like they’re too unbelievable to utter. That if she speaks them, then what Sadie has done becomes real or becomes a fact.

“For touching you without your consent.”

“Oh that’s fucking rich.” Words fade from a huff into an uncomfortable laugh. “Trust is a very fickle thing.”

“I told you there are things I cannot talk about and this is one of them.”

“SPARE ME the bullshit Kace. This isn’t some underlying black site, wannabe top secret complex with militaristic grade warfare going on. This is my daughter’s life! If you know something about the death of her adoptive parents, you better fucking say something. So help me God…”

Her face is flushed, the heat of her anger showing up in a red hue across her features which seem to accent the deep color of her eyes as they narrow on me. Fingers twitching at her sides, ready to find something to take her anger out on.

Lucien draws my attention over to him when he speaks, all smug and goading.

“Time’s ticking, pretty boy. It would be awful if I had to tell her all because you want to be a little bitch. It’d make my year to see her hate you.”

Refusing to engage with him, I keep my eyes on Nadia. Hate rolls off me in waves, right along with heat as my blood pressure increases. Was I fucking stupid for not disclosing shit earlier? Yeah, I guess.

“I did what was necessary to keep her safe.”

Nadia visibly bristles, her top lip curling with disgust at the half-attempt to explain. The smile she gives shortly after is what makes me worry the most. I’ve seen that look on her face—I’ve seen Lucien give the same one.

“Keep… keep her safe. Well then. We sure as fuck have seen how that panned out, haven’t we? Lucien?” she calls, turning her head to look at him next. A hand waves at me near-dismissively. “You hear that? Safety. Please, Kace, just how does murder equate to safety?” she hisses, rounding to face me again.

“I’m not going to discuss anything more in here. We can go somewhere else or not talk about it at all.”

“You do not make the rules anymore—your decision making privileges have been revoked. He already knows, and you’re making it seem like it’s true. Might as well fucking say it because if you haven’t noticed, my daughter is in the hospital because of this! She hasn’t been safe since her parents died!”

“She’s never been safe, Nadia! Not the way you think she has. Goddamnit,” I bellow back at her.

The words make her more visibly angry; a vein shows up along her forehead, stretching from her right brow up into the hairline at the center of her skull.

“Yeah? And if that is the case, why didn’t you go for her? You were out, alive, apparently doing your own thing when you could have just shown back up to the world. A true ‘rose from the grave’ like a damn phantom, and raised her yourself. But no, you scurried around the underbelly of criminal organizations and changed. You’re not the man I fell for!”

“That man is dead, Nadia!” I shout in return, not wanting to add fuel to the fire but that anger I mentioned before is starting to boil. “If I would have told the world I was alive, the Governor would have come for me again. I’d have to continue living on the run. That’s not the life Sadie deserves. Yeah, there were times where I thought about giving all of this shit up and fighting forcustody, then waiting for you, but it would have required DNA testing and I couldn’t!”

“So what did you do then? Huh? Lucien insinuated that you did some heinous shit, come out with it. You’re not getting out of this shit. I want answers, right now, or when Sadie gets out of the hospital it will be the last time you see us.”

“Don’t threaten me with my daughter, Nadia.”

“SHE’S MINE! Fuck you, Kace. I carried her and grieved you at the same time. I gave birth to her without you. The medical staff practically ripped her out of me, wiped her down with wet naps, and handed her off. I didn’t even get to hold her before she was gone. They took her from me when I never truly wanted to give her up. You had the chance to be there, to be her dad… and you blew it. Tell me what you did! Tell me, right fucking now.”

Nadia’s shaking with unbridled rage. It bothers me more than I let on by the way I’m standing stark still in my spot and refusing to back down. I have a feeling she’s going to be mad at me either way, maybe even hate me, take our daughter, and leave to spite me. If that happens, I’d rather she choose to do it because of the truth. Not due to me omitting things that led us here.

It’s like a Band-aid, right? Just rip it off?

Steadying myself, I pray like hell my tone is neutral enough to keep her from leaving me.

“I tampered with her Risperdal, made it where she had a psychotic break despite thinking she was taking them like she was supposed to.”

“OPE! There it is,” Lucien cackles.

“Lucien… stop while you’re ahead,” Nadia says in a softer voice but speaks through clenching teeth. “You… no. No you couldn’t have,” she adds. The wheels are turning anyway. You can see it in the way her body squares more fully with mine and her nostrils flare.

“You’re telling me you intentionally took Sadie off of her medication, which resulted in her killing two innocent people? How?” That last word she snaps at me. Were she a wolf, foaming saliva might have been flung at me when she asked.

Answering her as efficiently as I can, I explain, “When Sadie and Carl got back from seeing Victoria in the Carolinas, we were in one of the Amtrak cars between the airport and where Carl parked the truck. I was close enough behind her to get into her backpack and trade out placebo pills for the ones she had in her prescription bottle.”

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