by Luis, Maria
“After receiving a tip from an anonymous source this morning, police have discovered the long-time reverend of Christ Church Spitalfields, William Bootham, dead in a Stepney flat this afternoon. The flat belongs to twenty-nine-year-old Isla Quinn.”
31
Isla
My legs collapse beneath me, and it’s only thanks to Saxon that I don’t go crashing to the floor.
His muscular arm wraps around my waist, drawing me into his side. “Breathe,” comes his gravel-pitched command in my ear, his nose rustling my hair as his palm slips under the fabric of my shirt to rest on my stomach. Across the room, my brother studies us with narrowed eyes. “Isla, breathe for me.”
Dramatics aside, I don’t think I’ll ever breathe again.
With my attention locked on the BREAKING NEWS notice scrawled across the telly in blood-red font, I watch in horror as uniformed medics wheel a stretcher, carrying what can only be Father Bootham’s body, down the narrow walkway leading from my front steps to the waiting ambulance on the street. Officers move in efficient lines through the open doorway, their faces somber. A quick pan of the camera reveals my landlord speaking with a journalist.
I look again to the stretcher, just before the ambulance’s aluminum doors clang shut, and my stomach bottoms out for a second time.
Three days.
Only three days ago, the priest sat opposite me in the confessional and told me that he worried for Saxon’s safety. Bloody hell. Why hadn’t he been more hard-pressed to worry about himself? Why hadn’t he stopped to think about what telling me would inevitably do to him?
As though sensing my inner turmoil, Saxon’s hand settles more firmly against me, his thumb caressing my skin. Back and forth, back and forth. Maybe, under different circumstances, I’d find his touch soothing—I would have, even five minutes ago—but this . . . this.
Dear God, Father Bootham.
Ruthless. Broken.
Murderer.
The guilt of yet another death sits on my doorstep—quite literally this time.
Move. I need to move.
Yanking away, I escape Saxon’s hold on quick, purposeful feet.
“Did you know?” I demand, my voice cracking pitifully as I stumble backward, putting several meters between us. I need to breathe. I need to think. And with him so close—even now—I might as well be a lost cause, forever destined to seek him out.
Saxon Priest has made me a convert.
Despite my floundering, he remains stubbornly fixed in place. Shoulders pressed back. Green eyes hard. Hands fisted down by his sides. An unholy king that refuses to kneel, even in the face of utter destruction.
If only we were all so lucky not to feel blindsided by this news.
“Saxon, did you know?”
“No.”
“You said there was something you needed to tell me about my flat, that when you went there—”
“Someone broke in,” he says stiffly, keeping his whole focus centered on me. On my periphery, I spy Peter shifting his weight from foot to foot after turning off the television. “Someone who fully intended for you to be there when they did.”
Dead.
They—whoever they are—wanted me lifeless. Saxon doesn’t need to say so out loud when all the confirmation I need is already written across his face.
This is the moment I’ve dreaded these last two months. Does it really matter if I’m wanted for the death of King John or Ian Coney when it’s all the same in the end? My identity has been blown and I’m being hunted—and then framed for the one murder that I didn’t commit myself.
You lasted two months longer than you predicted.
Ignoring the stamp of trepidation, I grit my teeth against the onslaught of paranoia. Breaking down won’t do me any good. Crying won’t do me any good. Either I fall to my knees and accept defeat or I grasp the torch I’ve been passed and dredge up whatever strength is left within me to keep pushing onward.
A new fight. A new war to be won. A new reason to look myself in the mirror and marry the Isla of old with the blood-stained woman who now stands in her place.
Saxon’s gaze skates over my face. “Bootham’s death is a warning. They’re wanting to push you out of the shadows.”
The illustrious They again.
As in, the blasted loyalists.
Good men like Father Bootham, my brain reminds me. Not all loyalists are bad, but the majority of them—idiots, the lot of them. They’re sheep all falling into line, unable to see the catastrophic effect the Crown has set into motion over the last twenty-plus years. Anger swirls in my belly. All I need in this world are the people in this house—Josie, Peter, Saxon. Everyone else can rot in hell, and I’ll be damned if I deliver myself to those faceless, traitorous bastards with my tail between my legs like I’m ashamed of what I’ve done.
I’m not.
I’d do it all over again if it means surviving yet another day to see them fall.
“They’ll have me once I’m good and ready. Not a second before.”
“They’ll never have you,” comes Saxon’s dark, sinister growl. It’s a threat as much as it is a vow, and a thread of desire sweeps along my spine. “I’ll tear their fucking hearts out first. Mark my words, Isla. Nothing will happen to you.”
My back collides with cool glass and fabric warmed by the sun. The window. The curtains erasing the outside world from view. Out there, London is reeling from the sudden death of a beloved priest. In here, it’s the quiet before the storm. We can’t stay hidden forever. I don’t want to stay hidden forever. That’s not the sort of life any of us deserve. And, hell, Father Bootham deserved his ending least of all.
He did nothing wrong. Nothing besides believing in his queen and supporting her right to keep the throne. Now he’s dead, and I may as well have been the one to deliver the final blow.
“If we have any hope of coming out of this unscathed, we need to figure out how he was murdered,” I mutter beneath my breath.
Maybe he was slaughtered inside my flat. Maybe he was brought there after the deed was already done. Either way, my nerves twist and my calm disintegrates like a water balloon striking a hard surface, and it’s as I’m drawing in a deep rush of air that I catch a blur of navy blue launching toward Saxon.
“Peter, no!”
My brother ignores me completely.
His arm swings, fist at the ready, and aims for Saxon’s face. I flinch, expecting to hear the crunch of cartilage breaking or a pained growl from the man who brought me to orgasm, multiple times over, just an hour ago.
I should have known better.
With quick reflexes, Saxon bobs the punch, grabs Peter by the wrist, and yanks my brother around until his back is flush with Saxon’s chest. Bigger, stronger, Saxon binds an arm across Peter’s front, forcing my brother’s arms to dangle uselessly by his sides.
“Let me go, you bastard!” he cries, wriggling in Saxon’s immobile hold. “You did this. You did this.”
I step forward, only for narrowed green eyes to pin me in place. “Don’t move.”
At Saxon’s order, I go deathly still, my stare flitting to Peter, whose face crumples with misery. Red cheeks, flared nostrils. His eyes are squeezed shut but if they were open, I know they’d be bright with fury. And that fury would be directed at the wrong person. Saxon did nothing. He offered me a position when I begged. He saved me—twice—when I faced down the proverbial barrel and was seconds away from inevitable death. He brought us here and gave us shelter, when he could have easily walked away and wiped his hands clean of all things Quinn.
Saxon isn’t the devil in this situation.
No, that honor belongs only to me.
“Peter.” When he doesn’t so much as acknowledge my existence, I repeat, more urgently, “Peter, look at me.”
His blue eyes snap open, zeroing in on my frame. “I told you,” he says, the words escaping on an angry hiss, “I told you what would happen if you struck up with the bloody Priests and you didn’t list
en!”
Behind him, a vein throbs in Saxon’s temple.
I defy his command and take another step in their direction, laser-focused on my brother. “You’re right, I didn’t listen. But it was my choice to make and I did what felt right.”
He barks out a humorless laugh. “How’s that worked out for you so far? You’ve killed a man and now another man—a priest, Isla, a fucking priest—is dead in our bloody flat. Who killed him, huh? You? Is all this talk just some elaborate ploy to play the victim card?”
My legs shake and my heart pounds feverishly fast and, still, I stand my ground, unwilling to break. “You know that I wouldn’t do that.”
“Wouldn’t you?” he snaps back, jutting his chin forward with rash teenage abandon. “After this last week, I don’t even know who you are. My sister isn’t irrational. My sister wouldn’t hurt anyone, let alone play God and take someone’s life. And my sister wouldn’t be fucking a goddamn Priest!”
Saxon’s grip on Peter visibly tightens, his features so frighteningly cold that I’m surprised my brother doesn’t immediately turn to ice. “You don’t know anything, lad. And if you speak to her like that one more time—”
“You’ll what?” Peter snaps, thrashing his arms but making no dent in Saxon’s ironclad hold. “You’ll fuck her again? We all heard. Me, Josie. The bloody queen probably heard.” Angry blue eyes land on my face. “You had it all, Isla. The job, the money. Maybe we weren’t rich but killing people? You talk about it like it’s nothing. I figured the self-defense thing was a lie—an exaggeration, maybe—but now I know that it isn’t true at all. Mum and Dad would be disappointed, you know that?” He spits at my feet. “You aren’t the girl they raised. You’re not even half of that girl.”
Air seesaws in my chest, clouding my vision until all I see is the boy who I held throughout the night when I showed up in York, no parents in tow. His distraught wails have haunted me ever since.
But now—right now—all I feel is rage boiling deep in my gut.
Rage at the world, yes, but rage at him, too.
You’re not even half of that girl.
When Saxon opens his mouth to speak, I throw up a hand to stop him.
All these years I’ve sheltered Peter and Josie, but, clearly, it’s time that I strip off the blinders. He wants the truth? Then he’ll have it.
The cold.
Bloody.
Truth.
I step forward, bringing my nose centimeters from his, knowing that Saxon will keep him restrained. “You don’t get to cast stones from your high horse, little brother,” I utter tightly, like a wound drawstring bound to spring free, “you don’t have that luxury. Not today, not tomorrow. For five years, all I’ve done is protect you.”
He snorts, this disbelieving, rude sound that ignites my temper.
I grip his chin, taller though he is, and force his gaze down on me. “You claim I’m not who you thought I was, and you’re right—I’ve had to become this woman. Mum and Dad were murdered, and I never saw it coming. Not once.” I feel Saxon’s hot stare on my face, but I ignore him, focusing only on Peter. “And I’ll be damned if the same happens to you or Josie.”
“What would really happen to us? Answer me that. What?”
“Do you know how many people have disappeared in the last five years?” I demand sharply. “Do you?” When Peter averts his gaze, silent, I hiss, “Seven hundred and ninety-three, not counting the hundreds, if not thousands, who were never reported as missing in the first place. And you know what all those people had in common? They had family or friends or acquaintances who spoke out against King John.”
“That has nothing to do with us.”
Still holding his chin, I thrust my face close to his. “Wrong. It has everything to do with us. Because Dad and Mum saw to it. Oh, they were just middle-aged folks who loved nothing more than to traipse around the country with their kids. That’s what they showed the world. That’s what they showed us.”
But it wasn’t the whole story.
A fact that I didn’t know until I was forced to sell our family home in York to pay off my parents’ debts. Debts they’d accrued by secretly donating swaths of money to anti-loyalist movements here in London. Sure, they came to visit me every other month because they loved me. I don’t doubt my importance to them. If anything, my moving to the City only bolstered their ability to have a firm hand in what was happening here to take a stand against King John.
They died in a revolt of their own orchestration.
The coded letters I discovered in the vault, in their bedroom, revealed all. Letters I then burned to protect my siblings and myself. If they’d fallen into the wrong hands . . . Well, we’d be in the same position that we are now.
Turns out the universe is an ironic bitch like that.
“They wanted the king dead,” I tell Peter evenly.
“Everyone wanted the king dead,” he seethes, “that’s no secret.”
I shake my head. “But they planned for it. And on the day that they—” I breathe harshly through my nose, fighting the well of tears that never fails to spring up when I think of them both. “On the day that they died, they staged that protest, Peter. King John was due to head into Westminster, to sign into law that parliament would be no more, and Mum and Dad, they were going to make a move. They organized it all.”
His eyes go round. “No. No, you’re lying. Mum and Dad, they wouldn’t—”
“They did.”
I’m so wound up that I nearly miss the tension seeping into the room. Saxon’s knuckles are white where they clutch Peter’s arms and I’m sure . . . God, I’m sure he feels betrayed that I haven’t told him any of this. He trusted me. He saved me. And I repaid him by keeping secrets, no matter that he would have understood them all.
I look to him now, begging him silently to not hold a grudge against me, and I try not to feel slayed by the startled expression on his face.
Bollocks. I can’t—I can’t deal with him right now. Peter. I need to concentrate on Peter.
I turn to my brother. “They died alongside more than a hundred other people. And the king walked away unscathed.”
A ragged sob wrenches itself from Peter’s throat.
Welcome to the truth, brother mine. The cold, ugly truth.
The truth that’s kept me up at night for five years. The truth that’s guided every decision that I’ve made in all that time. The truth, for better or worse, that’s led me here to this exact moment, prepared to tear the safety net I’ve cast over him in two.
Completely irreparable.
“You say that you don’t know me,” I say, steel lacing every word, “and you’re right. I walked alone for years, knowing every piece of information that they’d gathered and sharing it with no one. I watched it all unfold, Peter. The increased disappearances. The gradual number of Brits who found themselves locked up or, worse, dead—and all because they had the wherewithal to stand up to a man so inflated by power that he couldn’t see the storm he was brewing among his own people.
“So, yes, I left the fancy job.” I smile, a thin, grim smile that bears the weight my soul has carried for more than a thousand days. “I’d hoped that working with the network would satisfy Mum and Dad’s goals. Give the people what they ought to know though no one else dared to do so. But I dared. Me, the girl you say our parents would be so disappointed in.”
“Isla.” This from Saxon. His voice is cut deep, as though filtered through the frozen tundra, and I swear I almost feel icy fingers grazing down my spine. He repeats my name again, harder, rougher, a pleading note turning the vowels curt. “Isla, what did you do?”
I meet his gaze head-on.
There’s a commotion in the hallway, the sound of pounding footsteps on the stairs, but I’m too far deep to stop now.
So, with my stare held captive by the man restraining my brother, I finally confess: “I did what my parents failed to do five years ago—I killed the king.”
32
Isla
Saxon’s scarred mouth moves, parting to speak—
No sound emerges.
Meanwhile, my heart hammers so erratically that I hear nothing over the thunderous din of adrenaline. You did it. You confessed. I should be nervous. Scared, even. Something, at least, given all the night terrors and anxiety that I’ve experienced in the last two months.
The fear doesn’t arrive.
Not in the ten seconds post-confession. Not in the next thirty either.
All there is, is pure, sweet relief when I seek out my brother’s gaze, then Saxon’s, wishing I could throw my arms around them both without appearing positively unhinged.
“It was me,” I hear myself whisper, as though they didn’t catch it the first time around. “I did it. I shot the king.”
Peter makes a strangled, wretched sound, even as palpable emotion spreads like wildfire across Saxon’s face. Dark brows knitting, a vein pulsing in his temple. The brush of relief fades to a dull throb when he rasps, “You lie.”
No.
No.
“I wouldn’t—”
“Don’t, Isla,” Peter counters, his tone begging, “you’ve done nothing but lie for years.”
Self-preservation drives me physically backward, away from the barbed comment that feels as precisely aimed as an arrow straight to the heart. He isn’t wrong. But, dear God, the words hurt. The surge of relief drains from the gaping wound my brother struck, leaving behind a hollowness that already feels ten times worse than all of the night terrors combined. I look to Saxon with a tendril of hope.
“I’m a lot of things,” I admit hoarsely, holding his gaze, pleading, “but a liar isn’t one of them. Not today. Not about this.”
Something twists in his expression.
Horror. Disgust. Doubt.
Maybe even a tragic mixture of all three.
