The Rebirth of Sin (Wicked Trinity Book 2) (29 page)

“Someone like…me?”

“You know what I mean. On second thought, maybe you don’t. You are the total dream package, Braedan. I never get men like you.”

Silence fell across the line. I couldn’t hear anything beyond my mother’s persistent knocks at the door, pleading with me to come out. 

“I’m not a dream package, Keaton. I come with a lot of baggage and too much bad history. But you? You make me want to be the man you dream of.”

Unable to rely on the strength of my legs to stand, I propped myself against the counter. He…tore me down me and built me back up simultaneously. I’d reached the incline of the world’s highest roller coaster and experienced the thrill of the deep and fast descent.

“I got off on things I never thought I would. The power trip—all of it. I never regretted my actions. I never had any remorse for anything I did.” 

-THE SECT

In the middle of the gas station, ten miles outside the Montana border while paying for gas and deciding if I wanted to add a chocolate bar to the mix, something caught my undivided attention. The screen above the cashier’s head was playing an interview from the national news. The words “Adam Tungsten’s Recant” streamed across the bottom of the screen. The money in my hand bent and balled inside my clenched fists. 

I expected Adam—or Nadine—to let the fame of their slanderous interview against Keaton go to their heads and do a few more interviews. But
this
wasn’t the fucking plan. The way Adam shook as he read the paper, it made me think someone scarier than me had gotten to him.

“Are you going to pay or what?” the attendant asked.

I threw the money at his face and walked out of the door. Picking up my cell phone, I called Nadine.

“What?” she snapped.

“Don’t ever answer the phone like that again.”

“You deserve all the bitchiness I can muster, Noah. What the hell are you doing? You tell me to get Adam to go on television. He does what I ask—what
you
ask—and then…I don’t know what the hell you did. I’m seeing and hearing about this for the first time, too. What was our deal? You can’t go over my head to speak to him. He’s scared shitless of you and now he’s fucking up our plans.”

“I’ve never known you to be this ignorant. Adam is reading a script. A script that someone else—
not me
—gave him.”

“I don’t understand,” she said, sounding completely unaware of what was going on.

I paced back and forth between the pumps and tried to make the connections. Any of the few men and women we “rehabilitated,” who I truly thought had been changed by Rebirth and would’ve been productive members of society—and therefore released—couldn’t have done this. They knew when they left everything they did was on tape. If they ever told the truth about Rebirth or anything that happened there, we would release every detail of their secrets. It would essentially kill them and everything they ever cared about if the information ever saw the light of day. 

One of the first things I did when I left Rebirth to burn was contact them all and make sure they were aware that the video feeds of their misdeeds were in my possession. If they needed proof, I faxed them a screenshot to make sure they knew I was deadly serious. I had them under my thumb and had no reason to worry about them.

So who in the hell was working in the background, trying to put a wedge between me and my control on Adam and Nadine? I had a sense it was the same person who used my moment of stupidity with Mrs. Sherman to help Keaton escape.

 I walked back into the gas station, and I didn’t know what more I could do in the immediacy until I saw her. Keaton.

I watched her work the angles. Cry when she needed to. Look shy when she needed to. Her media coach deserved accolades. I stood there watching as Keaton told every single detail of what happened to her at Rebirth. She left nothing out. And for the first time, she mentioned me and everything I did to her. 

At the end of the interview, she said something that pushed me over the edge of seeking reason.

“I never killed Gregory Mitchum, but I know who did. The real person who ran Rebirth. The person who no one thought truly ran Rebirth and is able to walk free today. Noah Oliver was the leader of the cult. He’s killed many people and admitted to me that he had. I watched him kill Gregory Mitchum, and I wasn’t able to stop him. I was bound. But it wasn’t the last time Noah Oliver would hurt me or anyone else.” She stood, removing her mic. Facing away from the camera, she began to unbutton her shirt. She slid it down her shoulders and showed the illustrations of my love written into her skin.

I called Nadine again. 

“I saw it. What do you want to do? You know this Braedan guy probably has tons of cops watching her and waiting for you. I tried to tell you about her. But noooo—”

“Be silent and listen,” I said to her. “I’m changing my tactics with her. She doesn’t know what being broken is. You were right. I was too easy on her. I’m going to break her like I did every other worthless piece of shit who stayed at Rebirth. Bring her to the warehouse and lock her down. When I’m done with the things I have to do, I will take care of her. I don’t care how long it takes, and I don’t care when you do it. Get it done. If she thought Rebirth was unbearable, she’s going to remember it fondly as her last moment in paradise when I show her my version of a
real
transformation.

“As for Braedan…” I stared at the ground as my memory flashed to Keaton’s face and her mannerisms. She was changing—transforming into the woman I tried to prevent her from becoming. Stronger. Resilient. Happy.

The anger rose and threatened to make me do something unplanned. “My connections haven’t discovered anything about who he is other than what’s already out there. I’ll figure out his angle soon, and then I will fucking annihilate him for touching an angel who was not meant for him. Keep him away from her. I’ll deal with him when everything is set up with our new place.”

“You know she’s fucking him, right? Why wait?”

I hung up on her and placed my forehead against the cold support beams, shutting my eyes. 

Fucking him. Keaton’s
fucking
him.
I know.
I could tell from the interview that someone else had been keeping her thighs warm.

I punched the beam hard enough to dent and cracked something in my hand. I looked down at it as a few bones protruded here and there. The pain was numbed for the more powerful.

I prayed for the patience to wait for the right time to deal with him. I prayed for the ability to regain my focus and keep my mission as the priority and not give into a distracting sin.

He couldn’t be immediately dealt with now because my mission was too important. He would be dealt with for touching something I possessed. For sullying the woman who was sent on this earth to be my wife. Not now. Not in the immediacy. But soon.

I made a conscious choice not to let Noah’s attempts to hurt me affect me. The man and his horrible deeds would no longer be a defining factor in my future. When I received an invite to participate in Sonja’s bachelorette party—thrown by Brandy—I gladly accepted. Had it not been for Braedan, I believed the disconnection dividing myself and my friends, keeping us at arm’s length from one another, would’ve continued to deepen. Today, the division no longer existed. 

I dressed in the uniform Brandy required as we celebrated Sonja’s bachelorette party—a schoolgirl outfit. Nathan did his best with a collegiate sweater, tie, and slacks.

I was tormented over how quickly and strongly I developed feelings for Braedan. He was all the things I’d never known. The fear of him hurting me or somehow losing him to Noah’s ways of destroying my life left me feeling bereft. The alerting alarms were quieted every time he was with me. Of the people surrounding me, he was the only one who made me feel as though I could fully let go and be weak when I needed to be. A day without him felt like we lived miles apart and had gone weeks without seeing one another. 

“Hey.” Brandy nudged me as she swayed on her stool, looking mildly drunk. “You okay?”

I gave her a smile and raised my shot glass of tequila. Satisfied with my gesture, she turned her attention back to Nathan and Sonja as they continued to debate about the social repercussions of black wedding dresses. I picked up my phone in the midst of their conversation and sent Braedan a text:

I haven’t seen you in two days. Are you okay?

I waited. Spinning my phone around while anxiously awaiting his response. I sent another:

I want to see you. I’m at the bar on 14
^th
Street NW. Crosskey. Can you come by?

An hour passed in which I’d taken one more pain pill in the bathroom and played a few drinking games with my friends; he never replied. 

“Oh my god.” Brandy slapped her hand on the bar and shook her head. “Stalker alert.” 

“He’s probably one of your many ex-boyfriends,” Nathan countered.

“When are you going to stop being a bitch to me, Nathan? We swore a truce to get along for Keaton’s sake,” Brandy reminded him.

“Since Brandy claims not to know him, do you, Keaton?” Nathan nudged me out of my daze. “He won’t stop staring in your direction.”

“How can you even see him?” Brandy asked. “He’s all cloak and dagger with the baseball cap. We should get out of here before the creep gets any ideas.” Brandy glanced to where my eyes couldn’t follow at the end of the bar. “After I get one more drink.”

Sonja placed her hand on my shoulder. “Is there something going on with you and Braedan? You seem down.”

“I’m worried. He won’t return texts or phone calls.” I stared at the mirror above the liquor shelves, contemplating leaving until the bartender placed a martini glass in front of me. 

“Compliments of the gentleman at the end of bar.”

“Tell him, thank you, but no thank you.” I said, sliding the drink back across the mahogany counter.

“It’s already paid for, and we don’t return drinks.”

Brandy took the glass, leaned over the bar, and poured it down the sink on the other side. “Fuck my second drink, Let’s get out of here.”

“Sonja, Brandy, Nathan, I’m so sorry, but I’m not feeling too good. I’m going—” In the middle of saying goodbye to my friends at the curb, my phone chimed with a call and stopped me cold. I picked it up quickly, almost dropping it with the speed at which I answered Braedan’s call.

“Hey,” I answered my voice ridiculously more sing-song than I wanted it to be.

“I apologize for my absence. I had eye surgery yesterday and the recuperation took a bit longer than I planned for.”

“Eye surgery? Are you okay?”

“Everything is fine. I’m a block up the street, waiting for you. There’s a matter we need to discuss.”

“Is it something bad?”

“I…hope not,” he replied, his voice low and soft. He promptly ended the call.

My heart was in my throat, worried over Braedan’s news. 

My friends were still in the midst of protesting my early departure. The three of them groaned and their postures sank. They were adamant in their attempts to convince me to follow them to a club up the block. Their voices became hollow, eventually fading as I walked in the opposite direction, offering them my sincerest apology with a pout. 

At the end of the block, I looked both ways, searching for Braedan. A man lingered in the distance, shadowed by the lack of a street lamp overhead. Bent over while sitting on the hood, he smoked a cigarette. A car drove by, flashing its lights, illuminating him for only a few seconds.

His ‘30s like undercut dislodged from its style sending the longer chin length strands over his face. Through the dark silhouette clad in pitch-black clothing, I knew exactly who he was. He appeared to tilt his chin up, leaving his head slanted slightly downward. 

My hurried steps brought me closer to him. My smile was untamed. Despite his somber statement telling me that we needed to talk, the excitement over seeing the man who increasingly filled my thoughts and created insatiable urges overcame my trepidation.