Page 59 of Depraved

My name. My name in her sweet voice.

I focus on her: the center of my world.

“You’re safe,” she promises. “The past can’t hurt you anymore.”

“I couldn’t stop him. I didn’t.”

Tears glimmer on her cheeks, but her voice is steady. “You were just a little boy. How could you possibly have stopped him?

My cheeks flush with shameful heat. “Maybe part of me wanted her to die. Then she could never look at me with disgust ever again.”

Karolina’s hands gently bracket my face, thumbs brushing my cheekbones. They glisten with my own traitorous tears.

I clutch at her waist, holding her close.

“What happened to your father?” she prompts softly.

The gunshot. Gore splattering on the wall. The gaping hole in the back of my dad’s head.

You’re my legacy, Brandon. Don’t let me down. His final words ring in my ears.

“He killed himself before the cops could arrest him.”

Karolina’s throat works, as though she’s swallowing down her own surge of nausea. “You said he killed your mom. Did he hurt you, too?”

“He never laid a hand on me,” I say bitterly. “He didn’t want to risk his rotten legacy.”

“Don’t say that about yourself. You did nothing wrong.”

Ice crystalizes in my veins. “Then explain to me why I was able to kill for money. Why was I capable of murdering again and again, and I felt nothing. I hunted those men down, and I ended them without a second thought.”

She considers me for a long moment. “Did you like it?”

“What does that matter?” I challenge. “I’m evil, Karolina. It’s in my soul. I was born to do this.”

“Did you like it?” she repeats, refusing to allow me to evade her question.

“I don’t feel remorse.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

I’ve never thought about it before.

“I did what was necessary,” I finally say.

Her fingers trail through my hair, and I shiver at a rush of foolish hope.

“You didn’t take pleasure in it,” she surmises.

I hear the ring of truth in her words, even if they don’t quite resonate in my soul.

“You can’t excuse what I did.”

No matter how desperately I want her to.

“You can’t tell me what to do.” She’s gentle in her defiance. “You survived, Brandon. That’s all that matters to me. I thought you were dead.”

“You have to hate me for it.” The deep-seated belief has been with me too long to let it go so easily.