35. Amal
AMAL
My knees begin to wobble and finally, finally, I’m understanding.
It’s like all of this, everything, it finally hits.
Those drawings in my mother’s diary. The name Fairbairn.
I’d thought I was searching for my father, but it was her name.
My name. And somehow, we’re tied to this thing, this Secret Society.
Jet.
Jet is gone.
They killed him. Did they do it to get to me? Or would they have killed him anyway. And Severin who had nothing to do with any of it. Is he dead too?
I recall my mother’s journal entries. The pregnancy. Me. Unwanted.
Was she made to stand where I’m standing now? I glance at that photo and I know she was. I know she stood in exactly the same place wearing exactly the same dress.
He’d raped her.
The man, her husband? He’d raped her.
When I’d thought I was Malek’s daughter it was bad enough. Finding this out? Understanding what kind of men these men are? It makes me no less a monster.
What did I hope to find when I set out to find my family? A safe place for Daniel. This is no safe place.
The priest lights the final candle on the altar.
Hundreds of flames burn within the chapel, golden light flickering over ancient stone and polished wood, making shadows dance in every corner.
The scents of melting wax and incense seep into everything and burn my throat.
I imagine the other women in red, my ancestors, standing where I am now, seeing the same masks in the golden glow of candles.
Feeling the same terror I’m feeling now.
“What is this. Tell me what the hell this is!” I hear myself asking, wanting to demand answers but too afraid, my voice a croak, my panic obvious. At least I can understand. At least I can know why they had to die.
Jameson points to the photograph. “Liliana Fairbairn. We did not know she was with child when she… left us. But your DNA proves it.”
“I told you. Look at her. She’s a Fairbairn,” the priest says. “They all have the same eyes.”
“DNA?” I ask, confused.
“At the restaurant.” Of course. The iced tea, the glass the waiter had swiped away as soon as I’d sipped from it. “We needed to be certain and now that we are, well, all will be as it should have been.”
His cryptic words send terror through me.
Jameson turns to the priest. “Has Master Robertson arrived? He’ll perform the binding ceremony.”
“I’m married. I’m already married,” I say.
“Your husband is dead. At the bottom of the sea by now,” Jameson says. “Our boat signaled the pickup a few minutes ago. The crew are headed back.”
“I don’t believe you. I don’t.” I twist in the soldier’s grip, trying to free myself.
My gaze catches on the man in the photo beside my mother. Faceless. Masked.
I’m understanding more and more who he is.
What this is.
My father. He raped my mother.
“They’re here,” a soldier says.
“About time,” Senna says, checking his watch. “I have a damn flight to catch.”
“I’m certain Master Robertson would appreciate a bit more respect, considering we took care of your Blackstone problem,” Jameson says.
Senna’s jaw tightens. His eyes narrow. But then he grins a wicked grin. “What is the expression? I scratch your back you scratch mine?”
Jameson’s grin matches Senna’s and for a moment I wonder if either of them possesses a heart. A soul.
“Bind her,” Jameson orders the soldiers whose grips are bruising as I struggle against them.
“Let me go!” I demand as I’m marched to the very center of the room, to that chain bolted to the floor. I hear the sound of it dragged across the stones and feel the weight of it as it’s hooked to the ring at the back of my choker.
Jameson follows, calm as he was when he was showing me to my room, telling me the history of the castle, quietly watching.
I’m forced to kneel and it’s useless to fight them. They’re much stronger than me and there’s only one of me and so many of them.
“Let me go you fucking bastards!” I shout and the instant I do, Jameson slaps me hard, creating a matching handprint to the one he left on my other cheek. He grips a handful of my hair that’s come undone throughout this insanity and forces my head painfully backward.
“You will quiet your wicked tongue, or I will cut it out. Do you understand?” he asks as my vision dances. When I don’t answer, he asks it again, punctuating with a firm tug of my head.
I have no doubt he would. Like a coward, I try to nod, make some sound of acquiescence, and when I do, he releases me with a shove, and I barely catch myself before hitting the stone face-first. The look on his face is one of utter disgust. He steps away, looking down at me as I sit on my heels on the icy stone floor and look up at him, and beyond him, those portraits of all the women who have come before me, my face throbbing, my lip swelling from Jameson’s slap, the tang of copper in my mouth.
“Finally,” Jameson says, tugging a wrinkle out of his sleeve. “We are ready to begin the ceremony.”