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Slumping down on the couch, I opened my email and typed a quick message.
Hi Reah,
I’m Yara. Ryden often talks about you, and he says you are good at finding people who don’t want to be found. I have to find someone like that. I would love to meet you if you have time. This is my number. Please call me when you have time.
Please keep this from Ryden for now. I’ll explain more when we meet.
Yara West.
14
DIG
YARA
TS: Good morning, Little Love. It looks like a great day for murder. You hurt me, Little Love, and I will hurt you back. That is the only way I can love you later without resentment.
Fuck this bitch!
“Ryden?”
He yawned and stretched.
“What is it?” He rubbed his eyes when I showed the message.
“You called Sister Mary Elizabeth, right?” he asked, his eyes half-closed.
“Yes,” I said.
“Are we meeting her today?”
“But this…”
“Without knowing who it is, we won’t be able to do anything anyway. I’ll call Enzo and tell him to keep a close eye on Irene. And then we are going to the orphanage. If there are answers there, we have to find them. Before it’s too late.”
“No, I’ll go to the orphanage. You stay. We can’t leave Valentina alone.”
“But, Yara…”
“I’ll be fine.” I stood up from the bed, then paused, turning to look at him. “Ryden?”
“Yes, love?” He looked up at me with eyes so soft, so full of worry; my heart ached.
“Have you ever wondered how our lives would’ve turned out if we had a normal family? If we hadn’t… used murder to cope?”
“Sometimes,” he said. “But it always feels like trying to imagine a place I have never been to. Foreign. Impossible.”
“Yeah. A normal life?” I shook my head, bitter at the thought. “It’s almost funny.”
He stood up and walked toward me, wrapping his arms around my waist. “We never had a chance to be ordinary. But we survived. You survived.”
“Sometimes I wonder if surviving was enough.”
Ryden rested his forehead against mine. “Maybe it’s not. But we’re still here. And we have each other now.”
“Our fathers made us into this, and the men around us kept us going. I don’t think we’re doing anything wrong. The world is imbalanced, love.” His voice turned darker. “The law is harsher on the victims than the perpetrators. The world’s built by powerful men for powerful, evil men.”
He was right.
