Chapter 26
Refusing Isabella is the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and that alone should scare the hell out of me.
I had her right there, looking up at me like I was the answer to a question she was too innocent to be asking.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
She shouldn’t have looked like that. Shouldn’t have knelt so easily.
God, her lips. Wet, stretched, trembling while I fucked her mouth like I’d been dreaming about it for weeks.
Christ, the way she looked up at me.
Her throat fluttering around me, choking, gagging, still trying to take more—still fucking trying—and all I could think was yes, yes, that’s it, that’s where you belong, don’t stop, don’t you dare stop …
I should have fucking come inside her mouth. I should’ve painted her tongue and made her swallow every drop while I whispered what a needy little thing she is.
I had to … Fuck, I had to stop …
She made that sound when I did it—that broken little whine. And fuck if that didn’t hit me harder than coming ever would have.
She did this to me.
She thinks I denied her.
Truth is, I denied myself, because the things I wanted to do to her were too unholy that her innocent mind couldn’t fathom them.
Funny, isn’t it? I play the fucking hero by pulling back, pretending I’m just some cold, selfish, cruel bastard. The kind of guy who uses and walks away. Like I’m doing her a favor by staying gone.
But the truth is, the only selfish part of me is the one that doesn’t want to stay away.
Her fucked-up, asshole father warned me about keeping everyone away. Including me.
Now I want her even more. I want to corrupt every inch he tries to keep pure, bury myself so deep in her that his voice gets drowned out. I want to tear through every line he drew and leave her marked in all the filthy ways he never saw coming.
She’s my fucking downfall. The beautiful wrecking force that came into my life to remind me there’s still hope.
The moment she touched my world, everything I was began to decay from the inside out.
My name, my purpose, whatever dignity I thought I still had … all of it crumbled the second I tasted what I should’ve left untouched.
She’s the beginning of every bad ending, or a burning hole in hell I deserve.
But, oh well, she’s a sin I’d commit again and again, until there’s no more sanity left in me.
Sanity … Yeah, right. As if I have any left.
What if I just said fuck it and gave in all the way?
What if I gave in and let the worst version of me win?
What if I broke Daddy’s rules, because fuck him, and fuck the leash he thinks he has on me?
And suddenly, my mind isn’t a happy place anymore.
My fingers claw into my hair, like I’m trying to rip the thoughts out by the roots. My head won’t shut the fuck up.
Thinking turns into overthinking turns into remembering shit I buried on purpose. Every memory starts breeding with the next one—linking, comparing, cross-contaminating—until it’s one frothing mass of what if, what the fuck, why did I, why didn’t I.
My pulse is loud, obnoxious, beating against my skull like it wants out.
Stay away …
Always stay the fuck away …
I can’t help remembering that day.
That fucked-up day that, out of all the shit that passed for my childhood, stayed carved into my skull like a scar that never shut up.
We were playing hide and seek with Cain and Judas, running wild through that oversized mausoleum I was forced to call home.
Atticus, our golden-boy older brother, was off on some bullshit business trip with dear old Dad, so the house was quieter than usual.
Cain asked our mother to invite Judas, our smug older cousin, to come play.
Of course she said yes. She always did. She never told Cain no. That’s why he asked in the first place.
“Why do I have to be the watcher again?” I’d snapped, brows pulling tight.
“Last time, alright?” Judas said, already walking off like it was settled.
He was four, maybe five years older than me. Always acted like he was above it all. Cold as shit for an eleven-year-old. Never smiled unless it meant something bad for someone else.
“One last time,” Cain mouthed like a coward playing hero, then bolted like he always fucking did.
I stayed behind, lost in the maze of corridors, chewing on the same bitter disappointment that never seemed to go away.
Alone again—because of course I was. They were both older, which I guess in their minds meant smarter, braver, more important.
It gave them the divine right to treat me like baggage they forgot to ditch.
Maybe I’m still biased.
Or maybe they were just dickheads then, and nothing’s changed since.
I guess we’ll never know.
“Fine,” I mumbled, turning to the wall. “One … two … three …”
I heard some movements that drew a scared gasp out of me. “Four … fiiive … six …”
I tried to peek, but nothing. “Seven … eight … nine …”
I hesitated.
“Ten. Ready or not, here I come!”
I moved through the cavernous house, quiet, every step tighter than the last. I wasn’t really trying to find them. I was just trying not to walk straight into one of their bullshit traps.
After about five minutes—though it felt like a goddamn eternity—I was still searching.
“Guys?” I called out. “I don’t like this game anymore.”
I kept walking like an idiot, until I ended up outside Mother’s chamber.
She was there. Not alone. Whispering in that soft, syrupy voice she used when she talked to him.
“Look how much you’ve grown,” she said, her gray eyes gleaming as they settled on him.
I thought she was talking to Cain. But no. She was looking at Judas. Fucking Judas. Smiling like he’d hung the damn moon. Her voice went all sugar and silk as she reached out and stroked his cheek like he was some goddamn miracle.
“Thank you, Aunt,” he mumbled, all shy and grateful, soaking it up.
Bullshit.
All this time I thought she’d just loved Cain more. That maybe I was second place.
But no.
Turns out I wasn’t even in the running. She didn’t hate me because she had a favorite.
She just didn’t love me.
What if she loved me instead?
What if she loved me just a little?
Then her eyes landed on me, and just like that, the warmth dropped dead on her face.
Gone was the sweet aunt act. Now she looked at me like I was a fucking stray that wandered in off the street. Like I was some threat, some disease hovering too close to her precious Judas.
Her whole body shifted, as if I was the danger. As if I hadn’t spent my whole life choking on the scraps of her affection while she handed the rest of them gold.
Why did I show myself?
“What are you doing here?” she hissed, her eyes wide and wild.
“I-I was just …”
“We were playing hide and seek with the boys,” Judas spoke up.
“Games are for children.” Uncle Phillip stepped in. “And you’re no longer a child, are you, Judas?”
Judas shook his head and lowered his gaze. “No, sir.”
“Then get the fuck out of my sight,” he hissed. His eyes were already back on my mother. “I have to talk with my sister.”
Judas marched off, but I didn’t move, like that cold, self-satisfied fuck didn’t just spit venom as if he owned the room.
Philip Manson.
He was our mother’s brother. Judas’s father. A smug piece of shit no one actually liked but my father, because the two of them did their dirty deals behind closed doors and acted like kings. Greedy, self-serving bastards who only smiled when someone else was dying.
“You!” he barked at me. “Didn’t you hear what I said? Get the fuck out of here.”
Shaken, I turned and bolted like hell was on my heels.
But barely a few steps in, my dumbass curiosity yanked the leash. Something in me—some sick need to know—dug its claws in.
I didn’t run to escape. I ran because I was scared.
But fuck if, I was even more scared of not knowing.
I needed to know whether they’d talk about Judas, Cain, or even me.
I tiptoed back to her room. The door was ajar, and I was able to see everything through the opening.
“I told you to stay away from him,” Uncle said, voice steady, almost bored. “I gave you more than you deserved by letting him in, and of course, you saw that as a chance to overstep. Some people really don’t know when to quit.”
“He’s mine,” she rasped, the words clawing out of her throat, breath coming in jagged bursts.
What the fuck?
“Stop saying that,” he yelled. “You’re crazy.”
“No—no, no, no, you don’t …” She shook her head violently, hair sticking to her face. “I know what’s mine.”
Her voice cracked, rose, then dropped into something desperate.
“He’s—he’s mine. He always was. He always will be.”
She swallowed, chest heaving, eyes glassy and unfocused, hands curling into fists.
“Judas is mine.”
He got in her face, towering over her. “Judas is my fucking son,” he hissed.
“No!” she spat, wild and shaking. “You stole him from me! You ripped him out of my fucking arms! He is my first born!”
His hand lashed out, fast and brutal. The crack of the slap rang sharp as her head snapped sideways. Her lip split, and blood sprayed over the floor.
I froze. Back then, I didn’t understand what I was witnessing. Just noise, just pain, just confusion.
But now, I know exactly what it was, and it makes me sick.
“He’s mine,” Uncle said, calmer now, but his chest was rising and falling like he’d just crawled out of hell.
Her eyes snapped to him. “You put him in me,” she hissed, voice trembling, shaking like her whole body was about to split apart. “You planted him like I was just a hole to fill and then you took him.”
Her hands clawed at her sides. “Our son, you bastard. Our fucking son. You stole him from me.”
She took a step forward.
“I felt him grow. I felt every sick, twisted piece of you crawling under my skin. And still—still—I loved him. I fucking loved him.”
Another slap cracked through the room, sharper this time.
She hit the floor hard, skull thudding against the wood, her body limp and barely breathing. Her cheekbone tore, blood smeared across her face.