“It was because of you.” My jaw clenched so tightly it began to tick.
“A lie,” he snarled, shoving the gun into my ribs. “The woman prior to Keaton? The one you told the harbingers to rape repeatedly? The one who became pregnant, and had her baby aborted by you? The one who killed herself by self-immolation and nearly burned the theater down?” Spittle flew from Shiloh’s angry turned-up mouth. “You left because the only people on your side chided you for what she did. You were a jealous son, burning so brightly your vision became obscured, and you assumed you lost your power. You used Keaton to regain your control because you knew she was my weakness, and it’s the only reason why you agreed to take her.”
“I’m always the one willing to do what needs to be done,” I reminded him. “You’re always the scared little fucking boy, pining for a family, like our parents made you to be by fucking with your head.”
“Don’t you understand, Noah?” A relaxed and misplaced smile tightened his mouth. “I’m not bringing up our memories to try to cure what’s broken with us. We will never resolve what’s kept us apart. This is about Keaton. I want her to see you for what you really are. What you always were—a deranged bastard who lived to torment everyone who cared about him. I never understood why our parents punished me so severely until now. I understand now. They recognized true evil, because they were. They knew you were an exacerbated version of what they were, hopeless to be molded and manipulated, and they were scared of you. In one final act to gain what was never yours, you had someone tamper with their plane and caused their deaths. It was all for not.”
I kept up my stone-cold act, ignoring the emotion taking hold to prevent myself from being provoked, like Shiloh wanted, and act without thinking. “Was this trip down memory lane therapeutic for you? Being that Keaton’s dead or unconscious, it didn’t, did it? Dead or alive, she’ll never love you, Shiloh, just like I told you she never would. Despite how much she wants to deny it, I made her fall in love with me.”
“Beg to differ.” A small and strained, throaty female voice chilled me to my bones.
Keaton? Fuck, no, it couldn’t be.
Shiloh released me, but kept a tight hold on his gun. I turned to my right to view Keaton—she was barely able to stand or remain awake. Her skin was a sickly shade and the gun I thought I lost was in her hands. Dried blood decorated her thighs. Bruises were on her face and body that I couldn’t remember putting there—I only remembered the scars on her ass, tallies of the times I fucked her, and different versions of the word whore written in jagged little lines from my knife. Barely able to stand on her own she held onto one of the posts of the bed as if her life depended on it.
“Well, fuck, you’re pretty good at playing dead, princess.” I forced a smile.
“Like you cared if I was,” she spat at me.
“Oh really? I’m the bad guy here?” I glanced back at my poor excuse of a brother. “The scale is pretty heavy on both ends.”
“Do you know what a person who’s been abused for years is like, Noah?” she asked me. “What they begin to feel and do to appease their abuser? Do you? Because I’ve done it. I’ve done it with you.”
Shiloh walked swiftly toward Keaton to touch her, examine her and ask if she was all right while requesting the gun in her hands. She declined with a gentle shake of her head.
I had to act fast to get her back on my side and remove the gun, pointed at me, from her hands. “Even if you were yourself, you would’ve never had her. Keaton…has a type. Don’t you, princess?” I projected my voice, staring at the places where Shiloh touched her: her face, her hands. When he kissed her forehead after a few shared and whispered words I was prepared to rip him apart with my bare hands. “Would you get your fucking hands off her? She’s not for you. She was meant for me. I know what she wants and needs. You never could.”
“A lot of things have changed since you left, Noah,” she said to me. “I no longer need anything you have to offer. Which…honestly, isn’t very much.”
“Enough,” I bellowed, drawing on the word and lowering my voice. “Give me the fucking gun, Keaton.” I extended my hands, just shy of touching her.
She cocked the gun, despite Braedan requesting she give it to him. She adamantly shook her head, her eyes dead set on me.
I stared at her, my jaw unhinged. “You can’t be fucking serious. My brother is a lunatic who lies. Everything he told you was a lie. And the sweet sensitive guy I’m sure he tried to pretend to be with you wasn’t real.”
“It was real,” she guttered. “I saw the place where the cult used to be in Bruce. I know him better than I know you, and I know everything you ever said to me was a lie.”
“It was fake,” I proclaimed, grasping at more straws with more lies. “He never lived there. We never lived there. I told you about our life. I know Nadine did at one time, too. We grew up wealthy and in a regular home, not some compound. He’s just trying to garner your sympathy. I’m what’s real and what you want. You don’t want kittens and flowers, Keaton. You want a man who can give you the pain you need and the pleasure you want. You want me.” I stepped forward, trying to seal my seduction with a smile. “I love you, Keaton. You know I do. Put the gun down, or at the very least, point it in the right direction.” I shot a cutting look at my brother.
“What I know is that I’m most thankful for the fact that I never fell in love with you,” she said, her words spaced out and soft. “You were right about Rebirth. Sometimes the monsters created were worse than the ones that came there. There is one source of all the worst evil that ran rampant in that place, and that is you, Noah.” Her finger trembled as she pulled on the trigger.
My body shot backward as a burning fire ripped through my chest. I could almost taste the gunpowder. I brought my hand to it, coming back with blood. When I looked up at Keaton, I felt it again, only for a second before blackness became my background and foreground.
SHE COULD’VE RAN out of the hatred fueling her actions. It could’ve been that she no longer had the energy. As I embraced her, she slipped out of my arms, and three shaky limbs met the floor while the gun remained in her hand. Her eyes were wild with a hint of madness and flooded with furious tears.
Eager to assure her that the worst in her life was over, I crouched down, tucking her arms around her body and bore the weight she couldn’t endure to help her to stand. “You deviated drastically from our plan.”
Through all the pain I knew she was feeling, a lightness illuminated her face for only a second.
Gathering the stray strands from around her face, I swept them behind her ear, inhaling her and releasing the tension that remained with me since I learned she was missing and embraced her.
I couldn’t miss the damage Noah had left her with. The amount of blood between her legs made me grimace as though I was on the receiving end of whatever he had done to her. “It should’ve been my burden to bear. Having someone’s life in your hands is not something I wanted you to contend with.”
“I did it for me.” Her voice shook, falling in sync with the quaking of her body. “I had to do it for me.” Whatever strength she held onto began to wane as she slipped deeper into my arms. Her breathing pattern slowed, her words were slurred, and her eyelids struggled to remain retracted. “Is he dead?”
“Not yet.” Acting swiftly, intending to get her to care as soon as possible, I scooped her into my arms and kept my steps swift to exit the bedroom. “A car is waiting outside and will take you to the closest hospital.”
“Don’t leave me.” Through her whimpers, she fought to make her weak hands behave and twist the material of my shirt.
“I promise, I’ll follow.” My words were whispered against the top of her head. “I have to take care of this. We can’t leave the bodies in the house this way.”
Her eyes widened, surely unaware of the death toll Sylvester and I racked up to save her. “Close your eyes and take shallow breaths,” I told her as I descended the stairs, making my way tow
ard a scene she didn’t need to see of some unarmed men, some not, strewn across the floor in various stages of death, or already dead—the women, members of BoPN or not, were allowed to flee. The pungent scent of gasoline burned my eyes and throat, indicating Sylvester had done what was asked of him once we subdued the blockade to Keaton together. He was, however, nowhere to be seen.
Keaton shut her eyes, allowing me to carry her through the house and into a car idling by the curb, ready to transport her to medical care.
Having issues leaving her as I settled her into the seat and wrapped her in a blanket, I delayed.
Archie was at her side in the back seat, his eyes darting to mine, urging me to let her go.
“I’ll be with you soon.” My hands slipped from hers with reluctance. It was clear she wanted to hold on, and was too frail.
As I watched my best security guard and my adoptive father drive away, I pulled out a lighter, igniting my cigarette and returned to the house.
One of the gas cans were left by the stairs, and I made it my duty to douse the upstairs. I set it down at the open doorway, leading to the room holding my brother’s body. I approached his limp form and squatted down. Grasping my brother’s shoulders, I forced him to slant against the bench. I surveyed his body for the most fatal wound and placed my hand over it to cease the blood flow.
He roused back into consciousness, glaring at me as he attempted to cease from bleeding out in other areas. “It doesn’t matter if I die.” His bitter vitriol cut through his wheezing and labored breathing pattern. “She’ll always think of you as a rapist, and she’ll want me for the rest of her fucking life.”
Given what I caught a glimpse of between Keaton’s legs, Noah’s words were quicksand, sinking him even deeper into his pious nature. “Despite whatever else you might fantasize, she loves me. We’re both aware of it. I did everything you couldn’t do for her, and I’m not done yet. When I’m done, I’ll finish what I started, what you could never do.”
“What the hell is that?”
“To make sure she lives a happy life.”
“You think she will, with you?” He attempted to laugh and choked on his own blood, spitting it out from the corner of his mouth. “You can never give her all she needs. You’re a criminal, a narcissistic bastard who was coddled and loved too much. A poor fucking excuse for a human being.”
“Noah, Noah.” I sighed, keeping my smile steady on my face. “You’ve lied so much you’ve created your own false world around them. I know you recall how much and how severely I was punished. Didn’t you realize what they were doing? They were hardening me, grooming me to be the next Magnus Oliver. After being him, thanks to the opportunity you gave me, I have to say I would’ve much preferred your freedom over what they made me endure. You say I was the one who squandered the life I could’ve had, but you were wrong. You, Noah, fucked up a life you could’ve had. All the things you thought I was really befitted you. You thought of yourself as a god; you’ve been taken down from your pedestal by an angel and a devil is going to finish you off.
“You tried to make my life hell. You tried to rob me of my one chance at happiness and you failed. You tried to break a connection, to taint it, so we’d never find each other, but you failed to accomplish that as well. I have Keaton’s love, and I love her, too. You may be right about how she will always view me. I’m not going to make excuses for what I did to her anymore. I learned and know better. This…” I paused to allow him to chew over my words. “…is about redemption. This is about the power of forgiveness. I forgive you, Noah, for all you’ve done to me, because Keaton taught me how to forgive myself.”
“You’ll never have fucking redemption, Shiloh.” His words began to elude him, growing softer. “No one ever gets it. No one deserves it. And your fucking forgiveness? You can shove it up your ass.”
I took the gun from the floor, checking it to make sure it had bullets left. There was only one Keaton wasn’t able to discharge. “You didn’t quite listen carefully to what I said. I forgive you for what you’ve done to me. I’ll never forgive you for what you’ve done to her.” I shoved the cold metal underneath his chin, pointing it up toward his skull. “Goodbye, Noah.”
The billowing fire engulfing the house and the smoky flames were a far distance in my rearview mirror. Many miles from civilization or emergency services, it would be many minutes before anyone was able to reach the house. By then, it would be far too late. My past would burn to ashes or be unrecognizable by the time anyone attempted to save the home.
I drove straight to the hospital, despite my exhaustion, needing to be with Keaton.
The doors to the emergency room opened for me. A fairly nervous Archie approached me with his features sinking into sadness.
“Is Keaton…all right?”
“She’ll heal,” he told me.
“Then why do you look as though you have bad news?”
“Her parents are here, and Mrs. Mara wants nothing to do with you.”
“She’s upset. I have to explain—”
“You!” A shrill voice announced her presence before a small hand collided with my cheek, sending my head to the right and leaving a burn to engulf my face. “You promised you would protect my baby. All I’ve witnessed is you fail to do what you promised me. In fact, all I’ve seen lately is you contributing to her decline. You stay away from my baby girl. You stay away from her.” Flushed with anger, Mrs. Mara stared me down with a warning. Satisfied with my inability to look at her, she swiveled on her heels and disappeared from view.
“Don’t mind Sherri. She knows you did all you could. She needs a fall guy right now,” Arthur offered up in explanation. He grabbed my shoulder, pushing me toward the door and fell in step, waiting for me to follow.
“I have to see her.” I planted my feet in the ground unwilling to move.
“And I’m going to help you,” Arthur whispered, waving me on with a dramatic wave of his hand.
Reluctantly, I fell in step, standing several feet from the hospital.
My jittery hands reached for a cigarette. Halfway to lighting it, I noted the look on Arthur’s face. “Do you mind?”
“Lend me one and I might not. Better for me than a drink right now.”
I slipped another from the pack and extended it to him, lighting it with my own. In silence, we inhaled the poisonous fumes and stared back at the hospital.
“Is he dead?” Arthur asked me.
I gave him a slighted nod.
“Proof.”
I reached into the pocket of my pants and handed him a neatly folded napkin. He unfolded it as though it were a gift and smiled when he saw the contents inside; Noah’s bloodied cross necklace, the one he often wore tucked away underneath his clothing as though his faith was a shame he didn’t want to share with the world.
Arthur placed it in his pocket and gazed at me with a grim smile. “Sherilynn will leave at about five to get Keaton’s clothes from home and to change. You won’t have more than an hour or two. It’s all I can give you.”
My shoulders slumped and the cigarette almost slipped from my shaky fingertips. “Sounds as though I’m expected to never see her again.”
“Until Keaton heals and has her own say, you’re going to have to stay clear. I’ll update you about her progress when I can.”
It was a darkly faded glint of hope without enough light to instill my faith in.
“It will go faster than you think it will,” Arthur assured me as though my silent thoughts were spoken aloud.
It wouldn’t; it would last for an eternity.
The hour came not fast enough. I slipped beyond the nurses’ station and was allowed in by the law enforcement official stationed at the door. He relayed what he was told by Arthur—to provide me with access to Keaton for only an hour.
As I entered the room, the soft sounds of the machines monitoring her vitals resounded.
Compelled by an invisible force, her heavy lids retracted to take me in. “Braedan.”
Her weak arms outstretched, reaching for me. Her limbs disobeyed her, falling limply on the hospital bed.
I clasped her hand in mine, kissing the back of it.
“They gave me…” She lost her breath. “My mother…she wants to keep you away from me.” She smoothed the space beside her, her eyes pleading with me.
“I know. Rest, don’t waste your energy on me.” I removed my jacket, placing it on the vacant chair, and slipped beside her in bed. She rested her head on my chest, clinging to me weakly. As a sigh escaped her body, she came apart in my arms. The compulsion to shirk every lingering task was too strong to ignore. From that point forward, there would be nothing superseding my goal to take care of her, regardless of the new obstacle standing in my way.
Archie would be contacted when our short time together was over to make sure the remainder of my plans would come to fruition at the right time. I had nothing to immediately worry me; the only people who could care about Noah Oliver were dead.
“It’s going to be all right,” I promised her, brushing a hand down the back of her head and kissing her as she fell back to sleep in my arms.
MY RELATIONSHIP WITH Braedan resorted to periods of stolen moments on the phone during odd hours of the night and morning. He was always there, available to talk even when I thought he would be sleeping. I could hear it in his voice every time we spoke; the distance was as painful for him as it was for me, rivaling even the pain Noah had left me with.
All my wounds had healed, but a ghost pain would reach me in a place I once found disgusting when I saw the scars Noah left me with, the jagged slashes marking the days and times he attempted to break me. Derogatory words, exemplifying what he thought of me were etched into my skin, directly above them.
I kept my scars hidden from my mother when I could. I knew she’d suggest a superficial surgery to remove them. She’d already hired at least a dozen therapists during my recuperation period. If she saw something wrong with my smile, or if I startled at the sound of a car backfiring outside, the therapist was promptly fired and another one was hired in their place with one goal: to make me forget.
Seducing Virtue (Wicked Trinity Book 3) Page 24
