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Thorne’s scent swirls around me and it digs a hole in my chest. I want him so badly, and yet I’m trembling with what this is all going to mean.
“Be thankful they didn’t spend time with you…that they left you to nannies and tutors and hidden away in boarding schools.”
“I deserve a straight answer.”
“And what if you deserve better than knowing their sordid truths?”
“You don’t get to make that choice for me.” I can barely feel my fingers.
He studies me. Scalds me with the kind of expression that makes me want to latch onto him and inhale deeply from the base of his neck. But I stand firm.
There’s a moment when his jaw clenches tight, the fine lines around his eyes crease, and I know he’s going to relent, no matter how awful and eviscerating to my sanity this might be.
“Your father would find the children.” I’m trapped in his cool, blue gaze. “We were held in the far wing at the other end of the mansion. Just one small insignificant corner in amongst the hundreds of rooms.”
Oh, god. I’m going to throw up. Breathing through my nose, I try to keep the dark spots on the edge of my vision at bay.
“She would come and inspect the boy’s room at night. The place where we all slept together for the short time any of us were required to be held at Noire House.” He’s stroking one thumb over my hip, and all the blood drains from my face as he carries on. “Hawke and I had only been there a short while, and were expected to be trucked off somewhere else with the others the following day, but she stopped by our bed that night.”
My mouth is open in a silent plea for him to stop. Piercing shards wrack my body as the heart inside my chest shatters for both him and his brother.
“Your mother liked us a little too much.”
I let out a strangled noise.
“I’ll spare you the details, but she kept us. That’s how we ended up in this world. How we came to rise through the ranks.” He senses me slumping, and gently wraps one hand around the barrel of the gun. But instead of shifting it away, he moves it down to his chest while my fingers go fully numb.
The weapon points at the spot where I know his tattoo lies—the very ink I’ve embedded in his skin. Where Thorne Calliano carries my markings and artwork and the tremor building along my nerves feels all too much to bear.
“She liked them young. We grew too old for her tastes, eventually. But you could say that it became my destiny to prevent other children from suffering the same fate.”
“You’re lying.” Tears track a silent path down my face.
“In this case, I would never lie to you. Not about this.”
Thorne studies me with a solemnity that I can’t stand.
“Then why were you with her?” I’m suffocating beneath the crippling weight of what this man is telling me—and all that he’s sparing me from hearing.
“In that photo?” He picks up the phone, glancing at it for barely a second, before sitting it on top of some papers on his desk. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s an angle chosen to make it look like there was something more between us. Back then, I would often be requested to provide VIP security, and it’s likely your mother happened to be there.”
“But—” My tears flow thick and fast.
“I never wanted you to find out this way.” He swipes at the wetness with a thumb.
That’s when I crumble. My bottom lip quivers, and I shove the metal barrel harder against his chest.
“You want to shoot me, baby? Go ahead. I won’t stop you. I deserve a much more brutal death for all my sins, but I’d gladly give my heart over to you to end it all if that’s what you want.” With one hand, he presses down on the place where my tattoo lies beneath his shirt, and my fingers itch to tangle with his and rub that part of him. To caress those inked lines against smooth skin that I’ve stared at so many nights recently.
I want to bury my face in his neck, but I’m rooted to the spot, holding him at gunpoint while the world crashes around my ears. Sobs wrack my body as emotion pours out of me like a cataclysm. All the while, Thorne holds my stare and lets it consume me.
She was a monster, just like him.
The whole time, I thought that woman was my mother, when really she was a vile creature who preyed on children.
No wonder Thorne wanted me punished for what both of my parents did to him.
A sickening thought strikes me as swift and blindingly as lightning, and I rear back, my puffy red eyes blink at him several times, and the gun goes slack beneath my fingers.
