“He can’t go home,” she fretted. “My mother would have a mental-breakdown.”
“I passed a hotel not far from this place,” I informed her. “He can remain there while I watch over him until he sobers.”
“Okay.” Unease and the extent of her discomfort seduced her into taking an offensive stance.
Tonight I would manage to chip away at her need to keep me at arm’s length. Tonight was the night I would begin to earn my way back to where I belonged.
Subsequent to settling her father into bed at the hotel, I returned to the living area. Keaton sat cross-legged on the couch, looking undeniably uncomfortable. Despite my difficulties with keeping my urges anchored in patience, losing myself between her parted thighs couldn’t happen tonight.
Clearing my throat, I garnered her regard. “My driver followed us here and is waiting to take you home. I’ll drive your car in the morning and leave it at the curb once I drop your father off at your home.”
My consideration lifted from her jittery hands to her reddened amber eyes. Paying particular attention to the way she was dressed, I assumed she may have come from another of her mother’s many fundraising events. The dress hugged her curvy body in a revealing way. The skirt slipped up her legs, and rendered my ability to concentrate on less lascivious matters completely null. She’d gained a healthy amount of weight since she left Rebirth, and it suited her very well.
The carnal need I tried to edge down was for naught. She was building the unfamiliar inside of me, and I was unsure of how much longer it would remain tamed. I’d developed an affinity for her flavor and found it hard to get enough—it would never be enough.
I was a different version of myself. The man without the hunger he fed at Rebirth. I was the man Archie helped me cultivate to place me in a position to ensure I obtained everything I wanted. If Archie made the mold, Keaton ensured the dye was cast.
“I can’t leave him here.” She fumbled with her hands in a nervous manner. “And I’m not using your driver.”
“With me?” I strode over to the couch and sat closely beside her. “Do you mean leave him here with me?”
She cast an abashed glance down at her lap. “I called you because I didn’t know who else to call. My mother doesn’t need any more stress right now, and her camp is so busy. They couldn’t take care of this.”
“I’ll take care of your father. I’d ask you to trust me; however, I know it’s an issue for you.”
“You’re right.” She swung her legs toward me to face me. “I don’t want to sound ungrateful. Thank you for doing this. Thank you for everything that you’ve done for me since you’ve been here. I have to admit, you would be incredible as my mother’s…something.”
“I wouldn’t be very much of an asset under her employ. My reasons for assisting your mother don’t all align with ensuring she wins the senate seat.”
“In Opaque—during our first date—you said her agenda was similar to yours. If not for her, what are you doing it for?”
“For you.”
She dropped her gaze to the floor. “Don’t do that, Braedan.”
“Do…what?” Inclining forward, I placed my hand on her knee.
She instantly quivered and buried her hands between her thighs, urging the edge of her dress farther up her legs. My attention was riveted, hoping in silence that she’d raise her skirt higher and give me a reason to shirk my quickly unraveling grip on my self-control.
“Do you know how many nightmares I’ve had about you?” she queried. “Your voice. The voice you had as Reven and the power I thought you had to do those things to me? I know I should’ve hated Noah. The only reason I couldn’t hate him at Rebirth was because he gave me small pieces of kindness. Small pieces you never gave me. I always tried to see the little light in every evil. You completely stole my ability to do it anymore.”
“What have I been showing you this whole time, Keaton? What is it if it isn’t kindness?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s just not enough.”
“I’ll keep trying until it is.”
“Braedan…” She lost her words, her eyes wandered to the room where her father was sleeping.
“Keaton.” I whispered her name and fit her chin between my thumb and index finger, directing her to look at me. “Suppose it’s enough and you’re fighting against it, desiring to punish me? Allow me to do the punishing. I want you to be…you. As for what’s between us, if you want me, I’m yours. I will always be yours.”
She whispered my name again. Her parted lips solidified the invitation to possess her mouth. My lips were almost to hers when her phone rang.
Breaking away from me, she immediately wrestled her phone from her purse and examined it. Whatever she saw bothered her, and it made me curious about what the nature of the text could’ve been. “Is everything all right?”
“I have to go.” She avoided turning a glance at me and instead chose to stare at the open door that led to the bedroom. “Please call me the minute he wakes up. I have no idea what I’m going to tell my mother about why he’s here.”
“Lay the blame with me. Disclose to her that your father and I had a few drinks and I encouraged him to drink more than he should have. I’ll back up your story when the time comes.”
She steepled her trembling hands and transported her weight back and forth from her left to right foot. “I don’t want to lie to her.”
Keaton habitually fed her mother fabrications. She lied to most of the people in her life. It was what bound us together. We had both spent too much of our lives cloaking our true selves away from the world. We pretended to be what we weren’t when we were forced to face the truth. She was the crucial piece I needed to patch what was once torn and fill the vacancies. There would be no surrender, even if there was nothing left of me in the end.
“Allow my driver to take you home. It’s late, and I would feel better if your protection doubled as your chauffeur.”
“Okay.” She turned away, leaving me with parting words that made my soul stutter. “I miss you, Braedan—the way things were. Sometimes I wish you never told me who you were so I could have those moments again. The moments where you made me realize I’d never felt it before you came along.”
“Felt what, Keaton?”
“Happy.”
The better part of the evening, I worked feverishly on my plans, verifying whether everything would fall into place at the perfectly timed intervals I had set while speaking with Archie. He assured me that my houseguests were provided with minimal provisions and our other plans were unfolding as expected.
Before bidding me goodbye, he disclosed a new development. I had skilled individuals monitoring my brother from afar, and as I assumed, Noah had made all the moves as I predicted.
Noah felt powerless, and would try to recapture what he lost. There was only one place where my brother truly held any power. It was practical of him to rebuild what he lost and prepare for his new Reven. He had lost cognition of his new reality; he would never have Keaton in the way he once had her.
Hours into the night on the brink of morning, Arthur stumbled into the room. His clothes and hair were askew, and he’d done a poor job of cleaning himself. Remnants of his sick decorated his dress shirt.
“I ordered breakfast.” I pointed to the tray on the coffee table, containing only a glass of water and a pill. “It’s a special breakfast for you.”
“We didn’t uh…” He shot a surreptitious glance back toward the bedroom.
“No. Why would you think we did?”
Clumsy in his actions, he sprawled on the couch opposite my chair. “I have no idea how I got here or in that bed…and you?” He gestured over to me as though it was enough to assume what he had meant.
My forehead tightened with an exaggerated upward tilt of my brow. “And I…what?”
“It’s not that I’m saying your feminine looking or acting. You’re masculine in that respect, but you just look…something. I’ve worked with a
lot of actors and the ones that are—I suppose—meticulous about their appearance like you, are usually gay.”
Obviously the man was still reeling from the effects of his inebriation. “Your daughter called me to help you.”
Slouching his shoulders, he folded his hands across the space between his gaped open legs. “Keaton…” Tension strangled his words and his features. “I failed her again. I continuously fail in my job to protect her.”
I inclined forward with interest and concern, matching his position. “Mr. Mara—”
“Please. Arthur.”
“Arthur…I’m not exactly familiar with you and your wife to say this, but based upon the way I was raised, I know what a good father isn’t. I believe you’re doing the best you can, and Keaton is very lucky to have you as a father. She knows who you truly are deep down, and it’s not this man.
“Your actions reek of a man who feels inadequate in giving her what she needs to help her since she was kidnapped, and is punishing himself for his shortcomings. There are things outside our grasp that we can never hope to change or prevent. You can’t continue to punish yourself for failings that are not yours to claim. Your descent into the guilt removes you from the equation when Keaton needs you the most. She needs you to be the father she once knew.”
“You’ll understand when you’re a parent,” he replied, his bite dangerously sharp. “You do everything you can to protect them, and when you can’t, you feel like a failure. Between the monster, Gregory, and those other monsters, Reven and Noah. What they did to my little girl? Noah was right under my nose this whole time and I didn’t have an inkling he was no good for my daughter.
“I don’t tell her mother this”—he studied an invisible place off in the distance—“but those men at that—what they call Cult of Horrors—destroyed her. She’s nowhere near the girl she used to be. The beautiful, wishful little light in her eyes? The light that was so full of hope, and made me believe in the good in people again? It’s gone because those monsters took it from her. There’s nothing I can do to get it back. I feel helpless, Braedan.”
I fought fiercely to maintain my resignation. It was an impossible feat. “It was my understanding she was in therapy?”
“It wasn’t—isn’t helping. I know more is going on with her. Think she and her mother are hiding things from me. When I asked Keaton about the ordeal? She only gave me a shortened version. She never told me about what Noah had really done. I had to find that out with the rest of the world on television. Noah? If I ever get my hands on him.” He reached up and made an action with his fists, pantomiming choking the life from someone.
“Do you believe our actions always come with rewards and consequences?” I asked in a gentle undertone.
“I used to.” He raised his shoulders momentarily.
“The one who got away, the person who did the most damage to your daughter, will pay for what he did.”
“If it was up to me”—he pointed at me and waved his finger—“he would pay like that Reven did. I’d burn him alive.”
I clutched my hands so tightly together, a nerve pain tingled up my forearms.
“I shouldn’t talk about this with you.” He cast a glance at my hands with concern and leveled his eyes up to me. “I see how much you care for her and how angry this all makes you. You know better than any of us what living with a dangerous cult is like. I’m sure you’re reliving some flashbacks.
“I have to tell you, Braedan.” Arthur’s back curved as though readying to eject at any instant. “I have a reason for feeling like I failed her repeatedly. I should’ve seen it before. The way she was after her high school graduation? Gregory? The one that murderous bastard Adam lied and said Keaton killed? He deserved every bit of what he got. I didn’t know it then, but I know it now. While my Sherri doesn’t reveal much, she told me this: Gregory…” He bit into his lip as it twitched. Pools of water brimmed his eyes. He quickly swiped a hand over his face, erasing the emotion. “Gregory violated my daughter the night she graduated.”
The bottom of the floor fell out and I was left to stare at him. My breath escaped me in an audible wheeze. “What?”
He seemed to ponder my question, and studied me as though I were alien to him. “He…raped her.”
My words were lost in my shock. There were no sentiments that could be spoken. The feeling enfolding me in its embrace and threatened to thieve every inch of my being. Hearing again the word I wasn’t familiar with, and given a crash course on how it worked in the real world, it evoked a deep sense of culpability.
Keaton was broken before we met, and I had a hand in breaking her twice. “Excuse me. I’ll leave you in peace while I shower and change.”
Moving briskly, I travelled to the en suite and closed the door. I ran the shower and paced. The heat inside my body became irritatingly strong. A reflection stared back at me. It cursed me to remember the dislike of the man in my reflection. The face serving as a permanent mask I had been forced to wear for her. What lay beneath it mattered the most. It was ugly and poisonous, once medicated and suppressed with alcohol. Deep inside me ran the evil poison of my parents, threatening my autonomy and individuality. It reared its head, superseded my control, and destroyed what was once delicate.
I didn’t know. Noah held the truth from me.
My lungs filled with painful shards of glass. Barely able to breathe, I caught myself from falling as I struggled for air. Fighting and growling in pain, I threw my fist at the mirror, impacting the glass with a harsh and painful crunch. The mirror shattered. Bits of glass bit into my skin, leaving the knuckles coated in carmine liquid. The agony paled in comparison to being faced with what I had done to the woman I wanted. Yet, it was enough to thrust me out of the pending panic attack.
“Everything okay in there?” Arthur questioned from the other side of the door.
“Everything is fine.” I sucked in a breath to control the emotion in my voice. “Slipped and cracked the mirror.”
“Sounds like quite a fall. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m perfectly fine.” I snatched the hand towel from the brass ring and wrapped it around my hand. “Thank you for your concern,” I stated quietly to myself. I glared at my reflection in the cracked mirror, thinking I’d never looked more true to form.
I steered the car to parallel park a few strides away from Arthur’s home. I shut down the engine and handed him the keys to the car. Glancing at the rearview, I awaited the signal from behind, signaling the arrival of my driver.
Arthur’s attention remained adhered to the crude bandage on my hand, covering the bruising and cuts on my knuckles. My limbs moved to assist me in exiting the car. I was halted by Arthur. He extended an arm, placing a hand on my chest, directing me to still.
“Have you ever killed anyone before, Braedan?” His hand fell away to rest on his lap. His empty brown eyes pointed to the long stretch of road directly in front of us, littered with cars. “Have you ever wanted to?”
I dropped my bandaged hand from the wheel and settled it on my lap. “I haven’t.” I replied to his first question with veracity. I once sat idly by and witnessed men and women greet their deaths at Rebirth; however, I never fully participated in any activity that would’ve directly led to someone’s death. Noah could never claim the same.
“Our anger has to go somewhere.” With a blazing focus, Arthur considered me. “You know what I mean? No one would blame us, would they?”
“They would,” I commented, my words succinct.
“Well…” He wrapped his hand around the door handle, delaying his departure.
“Mr. Mara?”
A cutting gaze was cast over his shoulder.
I dug into the interior pocket of my suit jacket and handed him my business card. “If you’d like me to accompany you to an AA meeting, I’d be glad to. But you cannot continue to live this way.” Keeping my face grim, I shuttered my eyes halfway. “Especially if you want to live to see the man who harmed your daught
er meet justice.”
For the first time since I’d engaged with the man, he smiled, and shortly thereafter, slid the card from my fingertips. “I think I should go by myself to the meeting first. If I’m feeling a little hesitant, I’ll give you a call.” We exited the vehicle simultaneously.
“Thank you.” He regarded me from over the top of the vehicle.
“For what, Mr. Mara?”
“Giving me something to look forward to.” With a nod, he made strides toward his home.
SHILOH SHOVED ME into the war room, showing off for one of the harbingers, Tobias, by using a little more strength than necessary. He was puny compared to me, so I played along and staggered forward.
The room was tucked away from the house guests and not easily accessed for a good reason. Video feeds from every inch of the Rebirth compound lined the walls. A harbinger halfway to dreamland ejected out of his seat and stood at attention.
“Leave us,” Shiloh barked at the lone harbinger manning the system.
Tobias scattered out of the room, cowering with his tail between his legs. We’d have a physical chat about him sleeping on the job later.
The door shut behind Tobias and we dropped the act. The room was soundproofed, but I had to be sure no one was around when we broke character. It was crucial to keep up appearances until the day came when I got rid of the weakest link at Rebirth for good.
“She can’t stay in the house anymore.” Shiloh paced back and forth like the bitch he was, fretting over the unimportant. “She needs to be with the Elites like I wanted and told you she should’ve been in the beginning.”
“She, who?” I asked, playing stupid and fucking with him.
“You know whom I’m speaking of. Keaton.”
Sighing, I pinched the bridge of my nose. “This again? What did I warn you about? You can’t take it easy on her, not even now.”
He spun toward me, his face grim. “Things have changed.”
Seducing Virtue (Wicked Trinity Book 3) Page 7
