She nods, and a few minutes later, I return with the box of pizza and another bottle of wine.
“I’m not hungry,” Zoe says, but I place two slices in front of her anyway before I take a seat, closer to her this time. I need her like I need my next breath, and I do not know how to tell her.
“You must keep up your strength. Eatsomethingat least.”
“Keep talking.” She picks at a slice of pepperoni, pinning me with her unwavering emerald stare. “Or I eat nothing.”
Genevieve’s heart-shaped face, obscured for so many centuries, is now a permanent fixture in my mind. So similar to Zoe, yet the woman in front of me has a depth, an energy, and a spirit all her own. “Genevieve convinced me to help her. To give her as much information as I could about Thorn. About how he broke the others.”
With a shudder, Zoe sets down the plate, and I arch a brow but continue anyway. “For two days, Genevieve endured Thorn's torture, and when I tended to her, to heal her enough for him to start anew the next day, she asked me question after question. She brought me back, Zoe. From a place where every second was endless agony, darkness, and despair. And yet, I could not do the same for her.”
“What happened to her?” Scooting closer to me, so close our thighs press together, Zoe links our fingers, and her touch gives me the strength to continue.
“Thorn kept the women separated most of the time. He thought it would amplify their fear. They could hear one another’s screams, but were only rarely in the same room. He occupied a network of tunnels that once served as a water system for Florence. The cisterns were perhaps ten meters apart. We…were not careful. I spoke too loudly, and Thorn—or Regina—I do not know which—heard us.”
“Oh, shit.”
“An appropriate response.” Leaning my head against the back of the sofa, I stare up at the ornately carved ceiling rails and the light fixture I restored to its original beauty when I bought this building. “Thorn knew Genevieve had a form of magic within her, but he did not know what it was. She told me she had been blessed with a gift. One that would allow her to bind her consciousness to his and destroy him.”
“And could she?”
I shake my head. “We never had the chance to find out. Thorn killed her in front of me. I was powerless to stop him, and after I cradled her dead body in my arms, he forced me to massacre all of the other women, then the men. He planned to start anew in another place. And he had chosenmeto accompany him.”
“He was going to keep you?”
“I was too powerful a tool to waste,” I say quietly. “But Genevieve…the memory of cradling her in my arms as she took her last breath…it woke me up, if you will.” I scrub a hand over my face. “I only wish it had not taken me so long to build up enough strength to fight him. If I had been faster, some of his victims might have survived. But in the end…I broke free.
“Thorn had never seen the part of me I keep hidden. My wings. My angelic talents. He did not know I had the power to visit Hell. All angels do,” I add when Zoe’s eyes widen. “I used my talents against him and Regina, stunned them so they could not fight back, and delivered them to Lucifer himself.”
Zoe reaches over and brushes a tear from the corner of my eye. “I’m so sorry.”
I press her fingers to my lips, then my cheek. “There is nothing that can change the past, my sweet Zoe. Only the future. You can help ensure Thorn's reign of terror ends here. I believe you may be descended from Genevieve’s line. If so, it is possible you can resist his control as she did.”
“That still doesn’t answer the most important question, Sin.” Zoe hasn’t moved her hand away, and she leans closer so she can rest her head on my shoulder. “What am I?”
Twenty-Four
Zoe
I feel almost normal nestled against Sin, the spicy aroma of pepperoni pizza mixing with the expensive wine and his own unique scent. He presses a kiss to the top of my head. “I do not know, my pearl.”
“Pearl?” The idea that he’s given me a nickname—one that obviously means something to him—is enough to make me chuckle. Or at least smile.
“An expression I picked up long ago. A pearl starts from a grain of sand inside its oyster.”
“So, I’m an irritant. Something hard and foreign?” I should be angry, but the way he says the word…I like it.
“You are an unknown. A surprise. A beautiful, beguiling puzzle. And I very much want to figure you out.” Sin leans forward, keeping me close, and retrieves our wine glasses. “Will you indulge me?”
“In what? A drinking game?” After today, I wouldn’t say no to a couple of rounds of shots, but not even someone as rich as Sin would play a drinking game with wine this good.
Sin chuckles. “No. Merely some questions about your past. And a test or two of your abilities.” He takes a sip of wine, then stares into his glass. “You mentioned your grandmother when we first met. Can you tell me about your parents?”
“They…” I swallow hard. “I never knew them. They were in the army and they both died when I was eight. I don’t even remember them.”
“And your grandmother raised you?” Sin plays with my hair, then starts to massage my scalp in the most delicious way. Sexy, but also comforting.
“Uh-huh.” The wine must be going to my head, because it’s like I’m dreaming and awake at the same time. I’m here, sitting on Sin’s couch, staring out over the San Francisco skyline, but I’m also somewhere else, somewhere I can’t move, with a movie of my life playing out before me. “She always said I was her miracle.”
