“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He runs his hand through his already messy hair. His body tenses as he tries to catch his breath. “Adam is dead.”
“Sin, I just saw him,” I argue.
“Goddammit, Kash!” he snaps.
Elli rushes out into the living room once again with her hand on her pregnant belly. “Sin?—”
“Go back to fucking bed, Elli,” he shouts at her. She looks from me to him, her face tight and pissed off. He turns to face her and lets out a long breath, softening his voice. “Elli?—”
She storms out of the room once again and slams the door. I’m sure this time she locked him out.
“Why?” I ask, needing to know. This isn’t how I saw this conversation going. “Why did you let me hit you? You knew he was still alive.”
“And Sin?” I ask, sitting on the plane with Adam, Bill, and the detective. “What about his assignment?”
Adam nods. “That’s another reason we have to keep quiet about my existence. Sin knows I’m not dead…”
“Now I feel bad for beating the shit out of him,” I mumble. “FUCK!”
“It was for show.” Saint gives a humorless laugh. “You guys set us up.”
“We had very little time and very limited options.” Adam doesn’t agree or disagree. Or elaborate on how he managed to get a body that would make us believe it. “I’m trying to do the right thing. The one thing I couldn’t do for Ash…” Adam trails off. “I just…wanted you guys to know that I’m still here.”
“It’s better than the alternative,” Sin whispers, answering my question.
“I’m not going to turn you in.” He was given an assignment that, technically, he failed. The Lords can punish him for that. They can send him to Carnage if they find out. They can have him killed right here in his house in front of his pregnant wife. He’s betrayed them.
Sin gives a rough laugh. “You think I give a fuck about me?” Shaking his head, he walks over to the cart once more, giving me his back, and pours another glass. It’s the most I’ve ever seen him drink.
“Then what’s it about?”
After downing it, he turns to face me. “The Lords made me put Elli through hell. Her entire life has been fucking hell. I bought her this house so she has a place to feel safe. To know that no matter what her days are like, she can come home, and I’ll protect her. If the Lords find out what I didn’t do, they will kill me and regift her to another Lord who will most likely put her through more fucking hell. And the babies…” He shakes his head. “I’d rather you think I killed your entire family than put my wife through that.”
I swallow nervously. “I’ll never tell anyone.” He’s become one of my best friends. Hell, I consider him a brother. Sin and I didn’t have a good start, but we’ve grown close over a very short amount of time. I’d do anything for him or Elli.
“But you know,” he growls. “And that’s enough.” Walking past me, he goes over to the front door. When he opens it, I take the hint and walk toward him.
Stepping outside, I turn to face him, my chest tightening as I look over his busted face, and I clench my cracked knuckles. “Sin?—”
“Goodbye, Kashton.” He shuts the door in my face, and I feel like I’ve lost another brother. A soul-crushing loneliness that whispersYou’re not enough.
Being a Spade brother who lives at Carnage limits my interaction with the world. Most don’t even know we exist. So to lose another friend is a hard pill to swallow. Especially when I only have myself to blame.
It takes everything in me not to knock on the door again. To beg him to forgive me. To apologize for what I did.
Why do I lose everyone I love? Nothing in this life is guaranteed, but at some point, you have to understand that you’re the problem. I just wish I knew how to fix myself.
EIGHT
EVERETT
When you spend most of your life in total isolation, you start to see things that aren’t there. I wasn’t allowed to have friends or go to school. I didn’t need to have a brain. That would lead to me having ideas and opinions, and no Lord wants that from a woman.
I was eight years old when I started seeing my make-believe friend. I knew she wasn’t real, but I didn’t care. She didn’t speak to me at first, but her presence was enough. She wasn’t beaten or raped. She was different, a figment of my imagination.
She was who I wished I was—a kid who got to have a life. Who always had her hair done and got to wear cute outfits.
I was lonely, and she was there for me, always hovering in the corner, willing to listen to me talk or cry. I told her everything. Who the fuck was she going to tell? No one else could see her.
