Climbing from the bed, I tucked a sheet over her nakedness.
Standing over her, I murmured, “I want you to think I’m the hero in this, Nila Weaver. I want you to believe I’m the saint and that all of this was my concoction.” My eyes rose to the blinking red camera in the top of the room. Isaluted it. “But I’m not the one who loves you. And I’m not the one who’s playing the game better than I ever thought possible.”
Bending over her, I kissed her parted lips and gathered my clothing from the floor. “It was all his idea. The only way he could keep protecting you. The only way he could stay alive to save you another day.”
Looking at the camera one last time, I hoped my brother would forgive me. With a heavy sigh, I gathered Nila’s unconscious form and carried her away.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Jethro
I WAS DRUNK.
Motherfucking obliterated. Off-my-tree intoxicated.
There. I admitted it.
Drunk as a fucking alcoholic.
I’d been clearheaded all night. But the moment Kestrel took my woman into the bedroom and stripped her, I couldn’t do it anymore.
I wanted to delete all knowledge any way possible.
It didn’t work.
I winced, opening my eyes.
Where am I?
Instead of darkness and flickering flames from the fireplace, the windows welcomed pink, tentative dawn.
The room swirled, balancing on a stomach full of liquor.
Dawn.
The blank slate of a new day.
Dawn.
The eraser of yesterday’s mistakes and the pencil of today’s new ones.
I groaned, blocking out the pink light with smarting eyelids. I wished the awakening sun could eliminate the past couple of months. I wished everything could be washed away, granting a fresh start.
What happened last night?
The moment I probed my pounding brain, I wished I hadn’t.
Thanks to Kestrel, I’d done what I didn’t think I would ever be strong enough to do.
Plans I never thought I could put in place. A future I never thought I could earn.
My mind slipped a few hours into the past.
When I left the billiards room, I followed strict orders on where to go and what to prepare.
And I did—just like the fucking pussy I was.
As the Third Debt depicted, one man would rape, the others would wait their turn. An orgy with witnesses. A night of entertainment for devils and a night of horrors for angels.
