The Rebirth of Sin (Wicked Trinity Book 2) (34 page)

“And you always will.” He released my hand and brought his cigarette up toward his face. A winter chill kicked up, pushing the smoke in my direction. “In a way I’m sure he didn’t mean to, he helped her campaign. He made people remember what was done to you. He made people see him as a monster. Having him and his loyal subjects discredited helped your mother even more. I also think it helped you, too. You’ve been hiding, trying to keep your story a secret. It needed to be told.”

“I don’t know if it needed to be told,” I countered. “If it helped someone, I’m definitely grateful. But…what do you mean about it helping my mother’s campaign? How so?”

“She has to appear as though she’s approachable to everyone. She can’t be that way if people don’t see her struggle or see that she never had to struggle. She has to make people think she’s something she’s not.”

“My mother doesn’t have to act relatable. She naturally is.”

He moved my hand to hover over his heart. “Is that really your belief? I thought we clarified this: You don’t need to act with me.”

“I think you’re the only person I don’t put on an act for. Which leads me to a really important question I have to ask you.”

“I believe I know what that question is.”

“How?” My grip began to slip.

He quickly took my hands ensuring my arms remained wrapped around him. “Who do you think provided Nathan with the information?”

My mind whirled around in a pit of confusion. I immediately felt a twinge in my stomach. “How did you… Why would you… Who are you…?”

“I’m a person who’s cognizant of how it can be; pretending to be something we’re not. Sometimes we have to. Sometimes we’re told to behave completely different from who we are, because being ourselves won’t succeed in obtaining what we want the most.”

“If you have to pretend to be something you’re not to get something,” I surmised, my words delayed and soft, “maybe you shouldn’t have it at all.”

“Or maybe you should never listen to bad advice.” He turned around and for no immediate reason I could find, I couldn’t look at him. His tall frame made it easy to focus on other things. 

I studied the buttons on his dark blue tuxedo shirt with an unwavering intensity while keeping my chin to my chest and his face out of my view. “What do you want from me? Are you in my life hoping to hurt my mother, or me?” My dream once made real had begun to break apart. Tears brimmed in my eyes. My voice trembled and grew hoarse with every word. 

I begged to no one in particular:
Please let me have this one thing in my life. Please.
“I-I would never hurt or say a bad word against my mother. If you are hoping I would be the weak one to hurt her, you’re wrong. I think she really deserves the senatorial seat. Anything I say to anyone will be something that helps her. I would sacrifice everything to make sure she had her dream.

“What have I shown you, Keaton?” He looped his arms around me, his breath tingled at the exposed scalp in the off-center parting in my hair. “Everything I’ve done with you and for you has been genuine. I’m not in your life to hurt you. I took Sander’s identity, because I knew you’d never trust me unless you thought I was someone you could relate to. For the deception, I apologize. I wanted to tell you the truth numerous times. You made it so hard for me to admit to the lies. I wanted this. I wanted you for as long as I could hold onto you without the truth sullying what we have. 

“The love you have for your mother and everyone you love—the way you won’t say a negative word to critique the ones you care about? It’s nice. It’s rare. Too many don’t know the meaning of loyalty. Even the people who you’d consider family. But, we all have our roles to play, Keaton. Some of us play it better than others.

“I’ve been told I’m an incredibly good actor. Actually”—he pinched my chin, creating a space between it and my chest—“for a long time I thought I couldn’t act. It was the only thing I had, the only outlet I had when I was growing up. But if I needed verification, I received it. I played a part and made many people buy it. The character became real. I did it so well I lost myself and embodied the person for a while. A tragedy made him go away, and you made me become myself again.

“Sometimes the idea of an individual becomes greater than the actual person. One can stare straight into the eyes of the idea and not recognize the person for who they truly are, or what they once stood for—especially when the person embodies everything they’ve ever wanted. The brain is an interesting instrument; it will trick the eye into viewing things as it sees fit, even if it’s a distorted actuality. You’ve been staring into the face of someone you’ve seen dozens of times and didn’t place his true identity.” He brushed his lips against my forehead, whispering, “See the real me, Keaton.”

He was the brightest spark in my life, and I couldn’t handle it if it was snuffed out soon after many tragedies darkened my reality. I was afraid of what his words could’ve meant. Pulling myself out of common sense and the process of deduction to uncover the truth, I fell into denial. Ignorance was a tempting, safe, and comfortable space over a black hole of crushing disappointment. I wanted my fantasy for as long as I could cling to it. It was all I had left.

Unfettered tears began to stream down my cheeks. Deep down, I didn’t need to open my eyes to know the truth; the man I’d fallen for was not Sander, and his real name wasn’t Braedan.

When I opened my eyes, a proverbial snow drift enveloped me, burying me alive, and kept me from any movement.

 His hazel eyes glimmered and his sharp cheekbones and broad jaw sharpened under nature’s perfect lighting, casting the dark and the light on visually appealing areas of his face. 

His hair dislodged from its sleek and molded style, falling partly over his flawless face. “I didn’t get a chance to say it previously. Since your vision is finally clear, and you see me for who I really am, I want to say it now. It’s”—he sank his teeth into his bottom lip as they twitched to form a skewed grin—“indescribable what it feels like to see those beautiful eyes again, Keaton.”

Standing before me was a ghost in an expensive suit and a beautiful face. A ghost with enchanting hazel eyes, hiding the monstrous man beneath it all. His voice didn’t hold any hints of the heavy weightiness and almost cartoonish villainous cadence it once did. It was naturally soft-spoken and almost timid. It was completely devoid of the confidence and arrogance of the man I came to loathe. The emptiness and tragic evil I used to see behind his eyes was no longer there. I could see miles of a history, and it was as much painful as it was alluring. 

He was the same man who made up the source of my nightmares. He had shed his skin and taken on a new character that threw my mind into a confused and befuddled mess. The man who had saved me countless times—who gave me orgasms like I hadn’t ever felt and made me fall for him—was the same one who made sure I endured unforetold horrors at the House of Rebirth.

I gazed upon his face before this night and saw nothing short of a paragon of healing staring back at me. Staring at him now, the differences were so subtle, I should’ve known.
I should’ve known.
I was so hungry for everything Braedan gave me, I didn’t allow myself to see the truth.

The ability to speak was stolen from me. I was encased in concrete and unable to run like my mind screamed at me to do. It wouldn’t have mattered, he caught me with his deception, and the strong emotional entanglement was etched in stone.

The man of my nightmares smiled at me as though he knew how much he’d splintered me…and might’ve reveled in the knowledge.

“Shiloh?” My voice cracked and shook with sadness and outrage.

He adjusted his hand underneath my chin and rubbed his thumb against the swell of my trembling bottom lip. “Even underneath your anger, I can see in your eyes what you wanted to wait until the morning to say, and Keaton…” His mouth moved over mine, kissing me sweetly and eliciting the sensation he had always had when he touched me. His mouth opened, depleting me of my will. His cold thumbs swept across my cheeks, removing the tears, increasing my tremors. Separating his lips partly from mine, he gazed down at me with his naturally heavy eyelids halfway down his eyes. “…the feeling is intensely shared.”

“Keaton, are you out here?” the sound of my mother’s assistant rushing out into the snow-dressed garden pulled me from staring at the man in front of me. “There you are. Your mother has been looking all over for you.” Pacey paused and blushed when she saw Shiloh.

Releasing me, he put the smoking cigarette down on the pavement and ground it against his heel before shifting his foot and kicking it into the snow.

“She’s been looking for you as well,” Pacey gazed at Shiloh. “She would like to see you two together before you leave, if that’s okay with you.”

“I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to turn in early. Apologize to her for me and tell her I will see her at the dinner tomorrow.” He leaned forward and the scent of his cologne dizzied my senses. “Your mother invited me to dinner at her home tomorrow. I couldn’t decline. I would never pass by an opportunity to be with you. I…can hardly wait to see you again.” 

He ran his hand over his hair, pulling it back into a neater style off his face. Very gently, he kissed my cheek sending an excruciatingly painful fever down my spine. He stood up straight, but left very little room between us. “I never gave you the answer to your question about my intentions: You were mine once,” he whispered, thumbing my bottom lip as it remained detached from the top, “and you were stolen from me. I came back to reclaim you.” Turning to the assistant, he began to walk way. “Have a pleasant evening, Pacey.”

Pacey watched his exit and began to fan her neck despite the frigid temperatures. “Are you ready to come inside?”

My body remained frozen, unable to tear my eyes away from the trail leading to the monster who hid underneath a cloak that contained everything I’d ever wanted in a man I could love and shepherded me.   

“Keaton?” Pacey stepped forward, her brow lifting in concern.

“I-I have to go,” I told her quickly, picking up my phone. 

My thumb hovered over the number for the local authorities, but I was unable to initiate the call. I had no idea what to do when my tormentor became my hero and the man I had grown to love showed absolutely no signs of the man I once knew. 

There could’ve been clues, and it could’ve been that I was so enthralled with someone who gave without taking that I ignored them just like I excused the blinding truth held within the features of his face. 

I had no one left to protect me, because I couldn’t protect myself from my own stupidity.

“You haven’t scratched at the surface of it all, and because your vision is obstructed, you may never see what’s right in front of you.”

“…there is a lot of truth to Reven’s story and a hint of truth to Noah’s. If you were smart, you’d know which parts of each story to believe. Put them together and you’ll find out the real deal behind all of it.”

-THE SECT

The knock on the door vibrated through my head. The mirror was clouded with two lines of white China, waiting to take me up to a place out of my down. The knocks on the hotel door became more persistent.

“No, I don’t need any fucking towels,” I shouted.

“It is I, your god and master who has come to make his right hand return to the path from which he strayed.” When I didn’t answer, Shiloh dropped the act. “Open the fucking door, Noah.”

I stepped over the coffee table and opened the door to my hotel for Shiloh. “I told you no, and my answer hasn’t changed.”

He pushed past the door, winning me over strength only because I was aching to get high. The rare times I was around him, I could always kick his ass to keep him in line…or away from me. It became a routine: He’d annoy me and I’d fuck him up. Eventually, he grew tired of it and left me alone. 

He had our parents, he didn’t need me. To my mother and father, Shiloh was everything. He was a perfect model for good at the school in our community, and he always did whatever he was told.