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“How about this one?” I ask, pointing to it.
“A wonderful choice.” Evelyn’s face brightens. “I love speaking with our elders. A full life teaches you so much.” Then she adds, lighter, “Including what not to repeat.”
Calista makes a dramatic face of disgust. “I’ll donate blood again.”
Evelyn nods approvingly. “Another good choice. Helping extend the gift of life.”
“Zaiya, just come with me,” Calista says with mild exasperation. “It’ll be quick.”
“I’m not good with needles.” Even saying it makes my stomach dip.
“Oh my god, you’ll barely feel it.”
I glance at Evelyn with uncertainty.
She gives a delicate shrug. “It’s not so bad if you close your eyes.”
Calista’s expectant stare pins me in place until I give in.
“Alright.”
She smiles, though it’s obvious she’s happier about finally leaving than about bringing me. “When we’re done, I’m going out to lunch with some friends.”
“Take Zaiya with you,” Evelyn says.
Calista’s face tightens before she forces a smile. The expression lasts less than a second, but I still feel it land in my chest.
“Of course,” she says. “I’d love to bring Zaiya.”
Evelyn gives her a pointed smile. “Charity before selfishness, Calista.”
Calista nods, though annoyance radiates from her. She walks off and I follow because all my life I’ve gone exactly where I was placed.
CHAPTER 11
EDWIN
Zaiya steps out of the church with the Bolton girl and that clueless boyfriend trailing behind them. Sunlight catches on her white dress and turns it almost luminous. Her dark hair spills down her back, ending just above the curve of her ass. Across the cemetery, through all that stone and death, I can still make out the perfection of her face.
This is the last place I want to stand.
Even so, I would walk through fire for the privilege of looking at her.
Daylight feels wrong on me. I belong to the hours when decent people go inside, when the world hushes enough for my thoughts to stop clawing at me. But she is here, and I won’t deny myself the sight of her.
There is rebellion in her soul. I saw it the moment she stepped into my path. Fear taught her to bury it. Someone punished her voice so much that she thinks silence will spare her.
My kind of punishment would teach her to crave it.
To crave me.
I know enough from the intel I was given to understand the shape of the wreckage that raised her. A family posed as clean and respectable, while anyone paying attention noticed their daughter disappeared right after high school. Then William Zapera tried to trade her to Barret Alcott’s son for political favors.
As the CEO of a life insurance company, her father built his fortune placing dollar amounts on other people’s grief. Her mother, Julie, is a jeweled shell of a woman who resents her daughter for inheriting the beauty she spent a lifetime trying to manufacture. They treasured their son and stored their daughter away until her body became useful.
Zaiya didn’t come here by choice. Someone dragged her into my world. Whoever he is, whoever he serves, whatever he hoped to gain from touching her, I will end him for it.
And still, beneath all of that, one shameful truth remains. I’m grateful she ended up here. In my town. Within my reach.
