“Rev—”
“Because I’ve done it before.”
My brows furrowed in confusion.
He shook his head slowly back and forth as if he were trying to get me to see the light. “I’ve killed before, and I’ll kill again.”
A tremble ran through me at his words. My savior couldn’t be so soulless. He saved lives, rather than taking them. He dried my tears and comforted me, which wasn’t part of a killer’s profile.
With my stomach rolling in revulsion, I argued, “No…no, you’re not like that.”
“But I am.” He exhaled a tormented breath. “Right now it’s easy in your frame of mind to think of me as only a knight in shining armor. But that’s just make believe. When my club, my brothers, have been threatened or in danger, I have fought with them. And I have killed with them.”
I sat in a dumbfounded stupor as the veil of my ignorance concerning Rev and his brothers was stripped away. Besides my time with Mendoza, I had never been in the presence of a murderer before. When I was a little girl, I had seen the faces of Death Row inmates on signs when groups of protestors were petitioning my grandfather for clemency. They had scared me as a child, and they scared the old Annabel of a few months ago.
But if I was truly honest with myself, the new Annabel was only slightly alarmed. Maybe it was because I had been through enough to see things weren’t completely black and white in the world. There was a gray area which many unsuspecting people were pushed into against their will. Maybe they were defending themselves against violence and it got out of hand or they could have been avenging those they loved. Who was I to pass judgment?
Rev must’ve misread my silence because now he was the one putting distance between us as he rose off the bed. “I’m sorry if I’ve scared you. I don’t want you to think badly of me. But I want you to be able to say I was always honest with you.”
“I appreciate that.”
“I’m not so sure you do right now, but I think you’ll come to appreciate it in the next few days. I think it will make it easier to get on a plane to Virginia once we get back to Georgia.”
“I’m not going back to Virginia.”
His brows shot so far up his forehead they disappeared into his hairline. “Did you not just hear what I said?”
“Every word.”
“Then what is your problem?” he demanded.
A borderline hysterical laugh burst from my lips. “My problem? I’m pretty sure I have more than just one problem, and at the moment, your past is theleastof them.”
“You’re not thinking clearly.”
“Have you ever just walked up to someone and shot them for the hell of it?”
He narrowed his eyes. “Of course I haven’t. Who the fuck do you think I am?”
“So if you’ve reached that point of violence, basically you’ve only killed when you had to—when you or your brothers were threatened or because an innocent girl was being held against her will?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“Then I’m thinking perfectly clearly when I tell you nothing you have said would induce me to want to leave.”
Rev stared wide-eyed at me. “How can you of all people condone what I have done? Maybe you think it’s okay, but if you knew all the things I’ve done, if you really stopped and thought about it, I’m not sure you would feel the same way.”
“It’s not for me to judge you.”
“Bullshit.”
“Excuse me?”
“Anyone with a moral compass has the right to judge me.”
I rose off the bed and crossed the room to stand closer to him. “Do you regret what you’ve done in the past?”
Rev stopped his manic pacing. After running his hand over his beard, he replied, “Yes. Yes, of course I do.” His eyes, which were somewhat cloudy, met mine. “Regardless of what type of person they were, I took their life. I took away someone’s son, someone’s father, someone’s husband.”
