27. The Sinner
“This was the cost.” His words move in circles round and round in my mind. He speaks of costs, yet he hasn’t suffered nearly as much as I have. He speaks of costs while being the perpetrator of my pain and suffering. He has the nerve to utter the words, and not beg for my forgiveness.
He says that he was going to marry the girl in order to keep Sammy and himself alive, yet Sammy is gone, and he is alone. How can I even know with a certainty that Sammy is even still alive? How can I trust a single word that slips from his deceitful mouth?
He is a liar, and has betrayed his oath to me. The one where he promised before his God to care for me. His father is nowhere to be found, once again slipping between my fingers like a cockroach hiding from the light, and making his escape from my justice. Yet he abandons his son and only heir to my wrath.
He’s lying. The thought slithers through my mind, the monster rattling its cage again, demanding that I let it mete justice on this man who has taken so much from me. I picture my finger tightening on the trigger and his head exploding, just like that fucking bastard’s did just moments ago. My whole body tightens in reaction, my eyes tearing up and my fists clenching, as I force myself to don my mask, which shelters me from the prying eyes of others. I can’t bring myself to do it, at least not yet. Not until I know where Sammy is and what has happened to him. For now, I will keep my monster tightly leashed, and Zeke will continue breathing.
Abe moves behind me, his large frame squatting down and checking Ruth’s father for anything that may be on his corpse, and be useful to us, while my mind continues to whirl with thoughts of betrayal. Perhaps I was too hasty and shouldn’t have blown his brains out. Maybe he could have told us more about Noah Rothesay’s plans, or where the slimy reptile might go to hide.
I reacted poorly, and let my anger overtake my better judgment. I can’t allow my emotions to rule me. If they do, I will become a prisoner to them, and yet, I crave that destruction. That freedom to just let the monster out and wreak mayhem on the world which continues to disappoint me. Like the man before me, imploring me with his eyes to believe the sincerity of his words. I was a fool once, and it almost cost me my life, but never again.
“Did you tell your father that night what we were doing? Did you betray us, betray me to the Brotherhood?” The question has been circling in my mind since I awoke from my coma. How did Noah Rothesay know where we were that night? How did he manage to attack us when he, by all accounts, should have been in a drug-induced stupor?
Zeke’s green eyes turn cold at my words and stare at me without flinching, daring me to murder him, as if he knows deep down that I won’t. I want to pull the trigger and maim him, just for thinking that he means that much to me.
He does, doesn’t he?My mind whispers, calling me out for my false bravado. It’s the reason I didn’t immediately put a bullet in his head, when I first saw him about to commit the marriage blood act. This stupid bleeding heart of mine, still believes there is something more inside of him, something that wouldn’t have hurt me in that way, despite his actions being to the contrary. Lies, it’s all lies. He would do anything if it benefited him, because he is no different than his father. Opportunist, manipulator, liar.
“I swear to you, on all that I have ever loved, on Gabriel’s soul, that I did not betray you. He tricked us. He never took the drugs like Peter did. Somehow he knew what we were up to. He feared that I would murder him after my demand that I marry you. He knew, Snow.”
A sizable tattooed fist goes flying past my peripheral vision, and connects with the side of Zeke’s head, the force causing it to move at an unnatural angle as skin meets skin. A grunt of pain meets the connection, and my stunned eyes trail back over that fist to the arm connected to Abe, who is seething in fury, his chest heaving and his amber eyes wild. “You don’t get to say his name! You don’t ever let his name cross your disgusting lips! You were not worthy to ever have loved Gabriel!”
Zeke grimaces, raising his bent fingers and reaching to touch the spot on his head, which is already swelling from the impact of Abe’s hit. “I loved him, Abe. You can strike me as many times as you want, but that won’t change that truth. I never would have betrayed him to the Brotherhood or my father. My biggest regret is that I didn’t stop him. I did nothing to save him from himself, but I could never have hurt him in that way. I thought you, of all people, would know better.”
“I don’t know you. I’m not sure I have ever known you.” Abe turns his angry eyes on me, his lip curling in a snarl, as his nostrils flare and his face is filled with emotion. “Don’t believe a word he says, Dinah. He is a liar and manipulator, just like his father. You would be well served just to put a bullet in his brain now.”
I drag my hands down my face, exhaustion overtaking me and a headache starting behind my eyes. The tension in my shoulders and the pain still pulling from my side, tells me I have overdone myself with the fighting, and I need rest if I am to continue forward. We have already been here too long and can’t dally any more. What I seek is no longer here, and while we wait for leads on where to pursue Noah, who might have Sammy with him, being caught here by Brotherhood forces we would have to fight off, would be negligent and put everyone at risk.
“Get everyone out of here and back to our safehouse. Have all the soldiers gather any supplies and weapons that we can use. What we seek is no longer here.”
“What about him?” Abe questions with cold malice.
My eyes return to the pitiful, broken creature before me, and a pang of pain shoots through my chest. I close my eyes for a moment, hoping, praying for some wisdom. “He comes with us. He is now a prisoner of war.” Just like that, I have made a decision that Ezekiel Rothesay will not die today, and I know despite feeling the rage emanating from Abe, he will not contradict me. It’s the wrong choice; you should kill him now. The monster shrieks, demanding Zeke’s blood, but I slam a door on him so I can clear my thoughts.
“Let’s go, cunt. I’m sure we have a prison you can get acquainted with.” Abe yanks Zeke roughly to his feet and drags him by the back of the neck, stumbling out of the room.
Fuck. I hope I just did the right thing. The question is, who is it right for, me or him?
I move silently as I creep into the room that they had placed him in, still arguing with myself about why the fuck I am doing this. I tried for hours to rest in bed beside a sleeping Abe, but my mind would not rest despite my exhaustion. I needed answers, ones that only he could provide me with.
The room is in complete darkness, other than the waning moonlight that feeds through the only window, as I stealthily move toward the bed he is lying on. I can see the outline of his large body, shrouded by darkness and the blankets covering him. Once again, I question myself on what I think this will accomplish. If he wants to continue to lie to me, there aren’t too many options available to me, other than taking his life, and yet I hesitated before. Why did I do that? Why not just have ended him there and moved on?
Perhaps it was the way he fiercely defended his love for my brother. There was hurt and anger in his eyes and voice when he uttered the words, denying his betrayal. The way he implored us to believe his version of how his father had known. Could any of it be true?
Was that why I was here? Did I believe his account of what happened? Did I believe that he didn’t lead them to my brother, and play a role in his death? I didn’t know. I couldn’t make up my mind, and everything was filled with confusion and contradictions. The truth was my heart was warring with my mind, and the only common ground that both could find, was that Zeke held all the answers.
His soft, even breaths reach my ears in the room’s quiet. I trail my fingers along the knitted blanket covering his resting form. One of the guards had reported the extent of his injuries to me. His father almost beat the life out of him, and yet here he still is, breathing, living, resisting the command to die at his father’s hands. Is that because the honor is mine? Is he waiting for me alone to take his life?
The monster urges me to do further damage to him. To cause him additional pain and agony, so he would have an inkling of what I felt. I reach out and pull a discarded pillow from the end of the bed, holding it in my hands, my grasp tightening on the soft material, and before I can reprimand myself, I reach forward and place it over his sleeping face, holding it down and pressing my weight into it. YES! The monster within me crows with satisfaction.
Zeke immediately startles awake, fighting against the surface trying to suffocate him, to deprive him of oxygen and life. His hands bat against me, the fingers that were broken and taped together doing their best to try to pry the pillow from my grasp. I climb on top of the bed, a buzzing happening in my ears, straddling his chest and putting all my weight down on the pillow, while his body bucks wildly, trying to dislodge me. Die, fucking die, like I almost did.
Just a little more, just a few moments more, and I will have my vengeance. At that thought, my grip falters, and I instantly withdraw my hands from the surface of the pillow as he yanks it away, breathing harshly and trying to suck in gasping breaths of oxygen. What the hell was I doing? What have I almost done? Anger and confusion fight within me, along with fear. Fear that I have finally lost control of myself. I could have killed him just now.
“Dinah…” His panicked voice breaks through my confused thoughts, and I return to the present moment, staring into a pair of green eyes that seem to glow even in the muted light. He is so beautiful to look at, a work of art even in his battered, frightened state. What have I done?
Here I sit straddling a man who I once believed I could love, but I just almost killed in a moment where I lost control of myself, and let the monster within me take over. A man I have known all my life, but never truly knew who he was, and what he was capable of. A man who hurt me so profoundly, that I will never trust anyone ever again not to do the same.
“Why, Zeke?” I’m not sure why I asked, as my stomach clenches at the words. I already know the answer deep within my heart and soul, but a part of me needs to hear him say the words. To listen to him utter the truth, so both my mind and heart can finally find the evidence that they war against.
So they can finally understand that I will never mean enough to him, that he will always choose someone above me. I knew it was selfish of me to want him to love me in that first and infinite way. I wasn’t his first, not even his second. Abe and my brother held those positions securely in their grasps, regardless of whether one was no longer breathing.
Maybe I just wanted, no, needed, to hear that I had mattered. That some part of him genuinely cared for me. That it wasn’t all a game. I wasn’t a prize or a means to gain more power and wealth. I needed to hear the words because finally hearing them would set something free inside of me. Something rancorous and dangerous. Something that still demanded that I take his life.
Sorrow, rage, pain, and hate battle with compassion and heartbreak, creating turmoil inside of me. I don’t want to end his life, not truly. All I desire is to understand why he would do this to me. His breathing slows as he watches my emotions cross my face, my ability to hide them non-existent.
“He would have taken you both. He would have had you raped and tortured before he finally took your life. He would have set all his men on you like starving, rabid animals. He was never going to let you live, Snow, but he gave me a choice on whether to make it a quick death by my own hand, or to lose both of you at once.”
A shuddering breath exhales from his lips, loud in the silent room. “I couldn’t bear the thought of you being passed amongst his men, being brutally raped while he watched, and enjoyed your suffering. I couldn’t… Dinah.”
My head spins with the images he paints with his words. Is that what his father threatened him with to gain his compliance? Could it be that he believed he was sparing me from a more horrific fate by taking my life? I remember the anguish in his eyes, and how he hesitated with the blade, and I thought for a brief moment he might stab his father instead.
Fuck! I drag my hands through my hair violently, yanking on the strands and wrestling with the truth of his words. I can feel the heat and heaviness of his gaze upon my features, waiting for me to decide whether I believe him. Every inch of exposed skin feels the blistering caress of his eyes as if they are trying to reclaim me, to make me understand that he never wanted to hurt me. He just had no choice. The heat of that emerald gaze tries to sneak its way back into my heart, trying to desperately crumble the defense walls I no longer want him to scale.
“Why didn’t you promise me? Why, even in that moment, did you let me go to my death denying me, Zeke?” A tear slides down my face as his eyes track the movement with the moon’s light. Of all of his actions that day, that hurt me the most. That at that moment, he wouldn’t give me that one bit of peace as I left this world. That betrayed me more than the blade he had plunged inside of my flesh.
His trembling hand rises to my face, his fingers gently caressing the side of my jaw, wiping away the despondent tears that are falling without my permission. “I couldn’t, Dinah. I tried to tell you with my eyes. Had I spoken the words, he would have reneged on his deal to keep Abe and the boy alive.”
His hand wraps around the side of my neck and pulls me forward, until my upper body is almost flush with his, and his face is mere inches away from mine, and I allow it to happen. “It destroyed me to hurt you. It almost killed me to lose you. You have no idea how much you mean to me, Snow. How much you have always meant to me.”
He lifts his head, his lips meeting mine in a soft brush of warmth, once, twice, and on the third time, my lips part, allowing him access. There is no hesitation as his tongue slips inside to tangle with mine, as our mouths plunder and consume each other. Seconds turn into minutes until finally, I pull away, needing air, my lungs heaving and my heart constricting in my chest.
The reality of what I just let happen has me scrambling off of him, and jumping to my feet, putting distance between myself and the bed. What the fuck is the matter with me? Why did I do that? I swipe angrily at my mouth with the back of my hand, brushing away his touch and the feel of his lips on mine, but his taste still remains.
No, I can’t go back to the way things were before. I can never trust him again. He hurt me, and he chose to continue in a world where I was gone. He saved Abe and thought he was providing me with mercy—a mercy he could live with—but that destroyed my whole world.
Does that deserve forgiveness? Can there even be forgiveness after something so life-changing and dreadful? I don’t know. Every part of me is twisted up and confused, all of my emotions warring with each other over the man I almost allowed myself to suffocate.
“How do I know you are not just telling me what I want to hear, Zeke?” I put more distance between us, opening the door to the room even as my heart begs me not to run from this, or run from him.
“You can try to run from this, Dinah, from me, from us, but you will never get very far because you know the truth as well as I, even though you want to ignore it. You have always been mine, just like I have always been yours. We were fated long ago. I made a horrendous mistake that I will pay for, for the rest of my life, but know this, Dinah; I will never let you go again.”
His words spur me to rush out of the room like my body is on fire, without a look back at the broken and sorrowful man still on the bed. The need to get away from him overwhelms all of my senses. In this moment, I am more confused than I was when I first arrived here, wanting answers from him. I make my way out into the hallway, rushing away from the room as if something or someone is chasing me, and only when I manage to make it outdoors into the dewy, predawn light and inhale a deep breath of clean air, does my heart finally stop galloping in my chest.
Fuck, what have I done?