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Melanie lifted her chin and looked at her sister.
“But you don’t have to marry him.”
She looked slightly confused.
“Because I don’t want to be free.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Raven, if you think you can destroy that camp from the inside, you’re delusional. We tried to get rid of it and free all the prisoners, but it didn’t work whatsoever. You need to let this go.”
Raven shook her head. “That’s not why. The only way that place is going to end is if Fender ends it…or he himself is ended.”
“Then I don’t understand…”
Raven took a long time to answer, like she knew how crazy she sounded before she even said anything. “I can’t live apart from Magnus.”
Melanie stared at her sister for a long time, realization slowly sinking in.
“Where he goes…that’s where I go.”
Melanie was still in disbelief. “But it’s so terrible there.”
She nodded. “I know.”
“And if you’re in Paris, we can see each other all the time.”
“I know that too. But when Magnus goes to the camp, he’s gone for a full month, and I just can’t live with that kind of separation. All I’ll be doing is waiting for him to come home.”
Melanie clearly wanted to say more but held her tongue because I was sitting there.
“So, you don’t have to marry Fender. I’m not choosing to go to the camp to protect you. I’m going because I want to be there…with Magnus.”
I grabbed my glass and took a drink, feeling slightly out of place witnessing such an intense conversation that was about me, but that I wasn’t actually a part of. I eavesdropped on everything they said, but this felt different. Raven basically told her sister I was the man she was choosing to spend her life with.
Melanie clearly didn’t know what to say because she stayed quiet.
“You’re off the hook.”
I knew Raven was fiercely intelligent, but I also knew she couldn’t think straight when it came to Melanie. She didn’t see the truth because she thought so highly of her little sister.
Melanie looked at her sister again, trepidation in her gaze. “I’m going to marry him anyway.”
Raven stared. She was still, absorbing those words with painful slowness. “Why?”
Melanie dropped her gaze like she was ashamed, too ashamed to look her sister in the eye. “The same reason you want to be at the camp with Magnus…”
“No…”
Melanie kept her head down.
“How can you feel that way for the man who subjects innocent people to a lifetime of imprisonment, and then a departure from life with a cruel execution? How? Melanie, ignore the diamonds and the gowns. I know you’re scared to be on your own, but give yourself more credit than that. You can do it. You don’t need him.”
Melanie looked at her hands. “It’s not like that. It’s not about the money and the security.”
“What is it? The sex?”
“No.”
“Then what?” Raven started to raise her voice, unable to keep her anger in check.
“I know he’s responsible for a lot of terrible things, but he’s more than that. He’s just so hurt by the awful things he’s seen that he struggles to feel empathy and compassion for others—”
“Then how could you possibly care for a man who feels nothing for others?” Raven’s eyes were big and raging, full of sheer disappointment for her sister.
“Because I believe he can change. I believe he can come back to the right side. I believe, in enough time, he will be who he used to be… He’s just not there yet.”
“Even if that is true, it doesn’t change what he’s already done. He’s ordered his men to execute the weakest worker every week to keep the rest of them working like bees in a hive. He’s done that for years, Melanie. He might not be the one with the knife or the rope, but he’s the one with the blood on his hands. How the fuck do you feel anything for that monster?”
She dropped her chin again, her eyes slowly filling with tears. “That’s a bit hypocritical, don’t you think?”
“My man is nothing like yours.” Raven kept her voice steady, but her rage was making her red in the face. “He’s tried to stop Fender many times. He’s tried to convince him to run the camp in a different way. He’s tried to reason with him. They are not the same.”
The moisture toppled over Melanie’s lashes and dripped straight down her cheeks. “I know I can change him. I can…”
“You’re still going to marry him without knowing for sure?”
“Yes. Because I have faith in him.”
“Or is it because you know you have no choice?” Raven snapped. “Because if a man forces you to marry him, that’s not love. That’s cruelty.”
“He’s not forcing me.” She lifted her chin and wiped away her tears. “He’s never forced me to do anything. I can leave this place whenever I want. I stay because I want to stay. I’m telling you, he’s not the barbarian you know him as.”
