“You want to die?” I ask, stepping closer to the bars.
The stench of ammonia thickens the air the closer I get to his cell.
“You want me to set you free, van der Meer?” Removing the bullets from the chamber, I make a show of dropping them to the floor, one by one.
You won’t get to escape your prison any time soon.
“You’re not deserving of death.”
Unable to sleep, I scoot up on the bed with my father’s file on my lap and lean against the headboard.
Rain lashes against the window, and the blustery wind howls as a streak of lightning illuminates the room. The eerie sounds fade into muted background noise when I open the file. The man I thought was my father—who I looked up to and who kissed me goodnight—was a monster.
Yes, I was born into a dark world, but my father didn’t stop at killing traitors or enemies. He murdered and tortured women and children, too. Entire families. Anyone who crossed his path or happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I study a grainy photograph of my father leaving an apartment complex on a late winter’s night. Snow flurries are visible in the glow of a nearby streetlamp. It looks peaceful, like the impenetrable silence that follows three gruesome homicides.
The next morning, I asked him about the scratch marks on his face at breakfast, and he blamed it on a cat. Mom fussed over him like she always did when he sustained injuries.
How could she be so blind to who he was beneath the charming smiles? She worshipped him like he was a hero, and never saw through the façade. My father was like a lot of the members of the Exodus: greedy and hungry for power, but it didn’t stop there. My father was a sadist who murdered and raped women because he could.
The evidence is all here, in my hands, so what do I do with it? I’ve spent the last ten years stewing in my own anger and need for revenge.
Revenge for what? The man who called me his little princess and kissed my nose after returning home and washing off the blood of whatever family he had spent hours torturing? My childhood was a lie. Dad wasn’t my hero, and I wasn’t his princess.
I close the folder, tossing it to the side, then stare unseeingly at the window. Whatever happened to my father on that Reckoning night ten years ago, he had it coming, and now I have to decide how much I care about the truth and what lengths I’m willing to go to find out. I already let my hatred lead my friends to their death. Yes, they would have still fought on Reckoning night, but it was my suggestion to strike Exodus’s stronghold.Ibrought them there. For what?
I need a drink.
After sliding on my silk gown, I head to the kitchen to pour a glass of water, but before I get there, I stop short outside the living room. The door is ajar, and the fire is lit. I’ve only been here the one time when I stuck my head inside out of curiosity.
A stone fireplace provides the sole illumination in the vast room, crackling in the heavy silence. Luxurious leather armchairs are arranged around a glass coffee table, with cream cushions scattered on each.
I pause when I spot Darian on the couch, facing away from me. “Darian?”
He turns his head slightly sideways and drinks straight from a bottle of whiskey.
Frowning, I open the door farther and enter the room. “It’s the middle of the night.”
He takes another swig and rests his head against the back of the couch, slurring, “Go back to sleep, Cecilia.”
Is he drunk? I cross the room, coming to stand beside him. Darian stares straight ahead at the fireplace, shadows dancing across his tired face, pronounced collarbones, and ridged muscles on his bare chest.
My gaze slides down his carved body and lingers on the trail of dark hair leading into his pants. Dressed in only a pair of joggers, he looks nothing like his usually put-together self.
When he lifts the whiskey bottle to his lips again, I wrench it out of his grip and place it on the coffee table. “You’ve had enough.”
Darian shoots forward and tries to grab it, but I knock it over, and whiskey spills from the bottle and pools on the table before pouring over the side.
I cross my arms as Darian slumps back against the couch. We stare at each other for a while until he leans forward and hardens his gaze. “Go back to bed, Cecilia.”
“What’s all this?” I ask, gesturing to the whiskey bottle on its side. The state of Darian. “You’re drunk.”
“You’re not my mother.” He tears his pained gaze away and flops back, covering his face with his arm.
Something softens inside me when his chest inflates with a pained, ragged breath.
From the first moment I met Darian, he was an immovable fortress and larger than life, so what happened to reduce him to this shadow of himself?
