41. Chapter 36
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
We’ve done terrible things, hurt people, killed people All out of greed and some fucked up desperation that craves approval from a man who tortured us. But, I’ve never hated myself like this. Cora’s screams make me want to rip myself apart. Tear Reaper’s fucking face off.
We are monsters. She trusts us, and we’re sending her away.
“Papa,” Cora whispers, her face crumbling. I feel like I’m crumbling. “Papa will hurt me again. He has been for years.”
Delilah shakes her head, backing away, until she crashes into Reaper. Turning, she swats him away when he tries to wrap an arm over her shoulders, but he grips her wrists and pins her to his chest.
The pain contorting her features makes my guts feel like they’re being torn out.
“Stop,” he growls. “Listen. Even if you don’t like what she has to say. Listen.”
My stomach roils. I don’t think I want to listen.
“Papa.” Cora shakes her head. “Rune isn’t nice to me like he is with you. He…” She glances up at reaper, almost for reassurance. “He’s done bad things to me for years.”
Delilah tries to break from Reaper’s grasp, releasing an angry little snarl, but he forces to her remain still.
“You’re a fucking—” she doesn’t say it. She stops herself.
With an anguished cry, Delilah turns and presses her face to Reapers chest, knees growing weak as a terrible, heart wrenching sob escapes her. He wraps an arm around her to keep her upright, but then she pushes him away, slapping his chest, hitting him over and over as his arms fall to his sides.
He just stands there, letting her hit him. Letting her take her anger out. Eating it up, absorbing each hit with an inhale like he’s taking her rage into his lungs. My chest squeezes, wanting to stop her.
He doesn’t deserve her anger.
None of this is his fault.
Not entirely.
Delilah hits his chest one more time so hard, he actually rocks back on his heels, then she spins to face Cora. She stalks forward, little hands balled into fists, then grips her by her chin.
“Why didn’t you fucking tell me?” she grates, anguish and sorrow and pure rage coloring her voice. “You should have told me.”
Cora wipes a tear, letting Delilah’s rage sink into her as much as Reaper had. “Which time?”
Delilah shakes her head, backing away and before Reaper can grab her again, she runs, shoving past Breaker in the doorway, into the house.
I step forward to follow her, but Reaper says, “Give her a minute.”
***
Breaker has refused to let Cora go ever since we returned to the library, sitting her on his lap as he rubs her back. Like if he keeps her attached to him, within arm’s reach at all times, we can’t take her from him.
The driver is out in the van on standby and Cora has just spent the last twenty minutes telling us, in horrific detail, why she can’t return.
“We knew this was possible,” Viper hisses, his eyes flashing dangerously. He glares at Reaper to my left before glancing over his shoulder to make sure Cora can’t hear us. I can practically see the many ways he’s envisioning killing Rune swirling in the blue of his eyes. “We aren’t sending her back.”
“Fuck.” Reaper presses his gloved fingers to his eyes, but then pulls them away, glancing at the thick black fabric before ripping the gloves off and throwing them to the floor. Like he can’t stand the sight of everything they represent.
The school.
The order we were given.
What we are.
“What the fuck am I supposed to do? Ignore his order?” he asks.
“Yes,” I hiss. I pinch the bridge of my nose, trying to calm my thoughts.
A cracked noise, like a sob echoes from just beyond the doorway and Reaper’s gaze snaps in that direction. I march forward, fear of what I’m going to find making me want to puke.
Please…
I step outside the door and she’s there, crumbled on the bottom step, her face in her hands.
She heard everything.
“Princess,” I whisper, moving toward her, but she turns, scrambling to stand. Before I can take another step, she bolts up the stairs.
Dammit.As much as we wanted her to know the truth about her father, seeing it, witnessing her devastation, is so much worse that I could ever have imagined. Cora didn’t spare any details, and I can’t decide if I’m going to vomit or jump in the van and drive hundreds of miles to kill Rune myself.
“Shit,” Viper says behind me. I turn to face him in the doorway, gripping the frame so hard I don’t know how it’s not cracking. “She heard?”
I nod as I move past him to talk to Reaper. My body screams to run after Princess, but we have to figure out what to do about Cora. We have orders to take her back. We already know what will happen once Rune and Zane realize she’s not being returned. Zane’s family will start a war. But the thought of sending her back, of Rune getting his hands on her, and worse, Zane, makes me want to burn them alive.
We aren’t supposed to care about their feelings, but we’re watching them fall apart and it feels like we’re being torn to pieces.
We have orders.
We have this mission. We were so close to having Princess, that I can still taste her. Now this.
And now…
Fuck.
Now the thought of being away from Cora actually makes my chest hurt. Seeing Delilah in pain just makes it all worse.
“We can’t send her,” Viper says from behind me. “You said she’s ours.”
Reaper’s eyes darken. His gaze lifts to Cora clinging to Breaker like he’s a life raft. And I think he is. “She is,” he says, the strain of indecision making his voice thick. “But we also have orders.”
“Fuck orders, Reap. She’s ours,” Viper hisses, like he’s reminding Reaper what the single word means.
He doesn’t need to be told.
When we claim something, we never let it go.
“He’s hurting her,” Viper says, voice turning so cold it sends a chill up my spine.
We suspected when we took her that Rune was abusive toward her, but we never once imagined this level of depravity. She was still just a girl, barely even of age, when he first attacked her. Knowing all she’s endured, everything she went through in her childhood, on top of this? I refuse to send her back to that.
“She’s not going,” I tell Reaper. His eyes snap my way, narrowing. I can’t tell them what she confided in me, but I will make it clear I’m not sending her back so she can marry that sack of shit. “I refuse to send a woman back into that.” I point to her. “I refuse to send her, period.”
Reaper fists his hands, staring at me for a second. I know what I’m asking brings up the past. That day when our lives changed forever. When Reaper decided he would not follow an order. It set into motion an entire series of events that has led us all here. I wonder if he sees the similarities like I do. I bet he does. The consequences of defying that single order have chased him for the last fifteen years. We’ve all suffered so much because of that one decision.
When I think he’s about to argue, he just backs away and nods, eyes moving over to Cora and Breaker. “Then we’ll deal with the consequences.”
I can feel Viper’s relief as if it were a living thing. “Shit,” he breathes out, turning toward Cora. “I was really worried about you for a minute, Reap.”
When Viper sits next to Breaker on the couch, he scoops her up, pulling her into his lap. The second she’s situated, she presses her face to his chest.
How did this happen? We took them three weeks ago, and somehow in that time they’ve crawled under our skin. We’re now defying orders, we’re taking stupid chances by spending too much time with them, being too soft by allowing them to sass us at every turn, then to top it off, we started to fucking care about their wellbeing.
Then, when we tried to detach ourselves, take a step back, it just made the ache in my chest worse. It made being away from them so hard that I had to lock myself in my room most days and pray for sleep to consume me, so I’d stop thinking.
This isn’t how it was supposed to be.
Now we’re fucking fucked. And the worst part is we did it ourselves. We made the mistake if fucking them that first night. Of bringing Cora. Of letting them close to us. Talking to them. Watching them.
“The way you all doubt me is insulting,” Reaper says shoving his hands into his pockets as he watches Cora on Viper’s lap.
My brows knit. It makes my mask pull uncomfortably around my eyes so I scratch my brow as I face him. “What do you mean?”
He shakes his head, not responding.
“What do we do when he demands we return her?” I ask. Viper says something to her, and she starts crying again, flinging her arms around his neck.
“Fuck if I know,” Reaper says. He tries to run his hand through his hair, but it lands on his balaclava and he lowers it, shoving it back into his pocket in annoyance.
Breaker catches my eye and stands up to join Reaper and me by the door. “How did we miss this?”
“I don’t think we wanted to see it,” I say, but the way Reaper exhales tells me maybe he not only saw it, he weaponized the knowledge. That maybe this was his plan when he took her.
I cock my head to the side. “You knew it was this bad, didn’t you?” I ask him, watching his reaction.
His black eyes meet mine and my heart crashes against my ribcage. I shake my head. Asshole. He wanted Delilahto know. And now? She’ll never forgive her father.
“How?” I ask. “How did you know?”
“I watched her, Strike. If you watch people, they give away their secrets.”
Breaker sighs. “I don’t know why we listen to you. You’re a fucking asshole.”
“Because you know I’m always right.” Reaper’s eyes dart to the doorway and the dark foyer beyond. Even though he’s a manipulative dick, I know he’s worried about our Princess. He may do anything, regardless of who he hurts to achieve what he wants, he may be callous, and cold, and truly dark at times, but I also know him. He may have wanted her to know about Rune’s relationship with Cora, but he doesn’t want Delilah’s pain. He’s already experienced so much of it.
But he does want Rune’s downfall.
I nudge his arm with my elbow, even though it earns me a deadly glare. “Go to her.”
He shakes his head. “No.”
We both look back at Cora. He rolls his shoulders, rocking his head from side to side. Reaper’s shoulders ease, but I can still see the tension in his body.
“You go,” Reaper says. Our eyes meet. “We all know it was going to be you who brought her to us.”