Page 44 of Broken Surrender
There was a chance that whoever came into her house had taken it. I rubbed my hands together, mulling it over in my head.
“So are we done with the offering thing?” she asked.
I wished it were that simple. My chest tightened. “Not exactly.”
Her eyes lowered to the bed, then she looked up at me, like she was trying to change the subject. “So what happened with Corinne? Why have you been faking her death?”
It wasn’t possible to sum it up with one simple explanation. But Lena deserved an answer.
“When she was eleven years old, she was drugged and raped,” I said. There was no inflection in my voice. Just words. Because that’s all it was now. I had killed everyone involved, one by one, and soon, they’d all be dead.
“Eleven?” she asked, her jaw dropped. I nodded. “By who?”
“It doesn’t matter now.” I ran a hand over my jaw. “Once they’re gone, it won’t matter who they were or what they wanted from her.”
“They?” she asked.
An unnatural silence passed between us, pain surging through my temple. Yes, it was a group of people who had wronged her. And I saw them each time I closed my eyes. The only comfort were those moments when they suffered.
“You’re afraid that they’ll come back to hurt her?”
Afraid wasn’t the right word.Determinedwas more accurate; I was determined to make sure that none of them would see her again, even if that meant keeping her in an underground room while I went about my life like I had already mourned her loss. But when I thought about what had happened, my heartbeat raced and I couldn’t think straight. Perhaps it did scare me. If she died, I would never be able to forgive myself. But by ticking them off one by one, everything was settled.
“They will never get near her, ever again,” I said.
“How many are left?” she asked. I clenched my fists. “That’s what you want with the Marked Blooms Syndicate, isn’t it? They’re getting harder to find.”
I let those thoughts simmer in her head. There was no point in giving her a clean answer; what I was doing was ugly. But what they had done to my sister? Filling her up with so many depressants that she was completely incapacitated? Raping a child in the name of research?
That was hideous.
Every moment that they breathed was a countdown to their last. That was the only way I could let it go.
Lena touched my arm. I flinched, jerking toward her. “I get it,” she said, giving me a hesitant smile.
“What?”
“Revenge.”
“It’s not about revenge.” Revenge would be easy. Would be simple. But what I wanted was complete destruction.
“Is it about making things right?” she asked. “I swore I would never let another man touch me like Aaron, so when John happened, I needed to do something. To take back anything so I felt like I had some sort of drive inside of me.”
I searched her bright honey eyes. She did know what it was like, then. She had taken back her power, like I was taking back Corinne’s.
“Anyway,” she said, lifting her shoulders. “I should go—”
I grabbed her hand. “Stay,” I said. I put my hand over hers, and she looked down at my hand. Despite my better judgment, I wanted Lena close tonight. Because that was the best way that I could protect her. Keeping her near me. Like Corinne.
“You’re dolled up for me,” I added. “You might as well stay.”
Lena plopped back down on the bed, running her hands over the comforter’s geometric pattern. “How do you feel about the evening?” she asked.
The evening? “Hmm?”
“That man. Was his name Finn?” My jaw ticked. She remembered his name, then. “And that other man. The one in the doorway—” I bared my teeth. Why was Vaughn coming up again? “And what’s with the violence? I always thought it was about sex.”
“Did I ever confirm it was about sex?”
