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“Stasia told me you killed a priest and to stay away from you.” She smiles. “I watched you kill Rahil. And I still married you. What does that say about me?”
I let go of her hair, or I’ll pull the strands right out of the roots. “It means you’re brave.” The trust I feel for her is insane.
“Can I ask why you killed the priest?”
“He was hurting children.” My answer has always been that simple.
She doesn’t look shocked, and that is the greatest travesty, the worst PR the church suffers. Numb indifference. “Is that where you got this?” Her fingers brush against my scar.
That morning in the sacristy flashes at me, and I close my eyes. “No.”
“I looked up the priest’s murder, and there was something about a boy’s father who accused him a year before. That man died in a confrontation. Did Father Eamon kill him?”
“I did.”
She clutches her chest.
“That was an accident, though. He was my friend’s dad. He’d already slashed Father Eamon and did this to me.” I finger my scar.
Katya shrieks. “That’s where the scar came from?”
“Aye. We… There was some shoving back and forth. Lots of yelling and blood. I pushed Charles Foster, and he hit his head.” I leave out that I went to plunge the knife he used to cut me into his chest. Father Eamon stopped me. Didn’t want Charles to die, even though he cut us both pretty badly with that damn knife.
Katya looks breathless. “I’m so sorry. And no one knew you were there?”
“My da got me out of it.”
“How?”
“The usual way our fathers intimidate people.” I stand up to get my blood moving. “But he flipped when I killed Father Eamon. I did that one deliberately. Calculating. And premeditated. All on my own. Me. That wasn’t a sanctioned O’Rourke hit I carried out. Da worried me killing him would unravel how he protected me from paying for Charles Foster’s murder. He feared a special prosecutor would investigate the death of a priest who’d been stabbed by a father, who also ended up dead. A death I witnessed. He worried it all would click for someone.” I take a breath. “I was in my first year at Fordham. And since I was failing, Da pulled me out and sent me away.”
“Where?”
I stare at my wife, caught between not knowing what information about a secret Irish training camp I can trust her with, or what my heart can handle telling her about me.
“You don’t have to tell me. This is just temporary between us.” Her words shock me with the cruel reality that I may feel more for her than she feels for me. I don’t like not being in complete control of this relationship.
“That’s not why. It’s hard to talk about what happened to me there.”
“There?”
“A training camp.”
“Oh…” She bites her nails. “I heard Papa mention those. He recruitsbratoksfrom camps in Russia and Syria. I saw the result of those camps day in and day out, and I understand places like that, what happens there.”
“Not like this, little wife. It was hell. Beatings to the point of exhaustion, testing to see how we fought back. Extreme heat, then cold, no food, no water for days. I may have been this size and had a father who murdered people, but we lived like little princes, my brothers and me. I wanted to serve God. I didn’t adapt well at first.”
“I’m so sorry. No one should have purposely hurt you.” She straddles my lap and wraps her legs around my waist.
“That’s what the instructors get paid for. It wasn’t personal, I realized that eventually.”
“How long were you there?”
“A year.”
Her breath hitches, and she stares into my eyes. “Did you kill anyone there?” she asks with too much enthusiasm, proving she really is a Bratva princess who grew up in our world.
“Not there.” Another memory pops into my head. “After I got back, Da sent me to MIT to kill a guard who failed to protect Balor from being beaten up by some bullies. I didn’t want to do it. I’d heard the guy was outnumbered, but I learned at the camp not to question orders. My da amped me up, though, explaining myjobis to protect my brothers. No one threatens my family.”
