Requiem of the Soul: A Sovereign Sons Novel

by Zavarelli, A.

  In the end, even after all my study and efforts to prove my worth, they did nothing to sway my father’s opinion of me. Perhaps that was why it was so easy for me to succumb to Eli Moreno’s poisonous praise. While my father never ceased to be disappointed in me, Eli never stopped being in awe of the way my brain worked. He told me more than once he’d never seen anything else like it. We pored over numbers together for days, weeks, months. It was the commonality that forged a bond stronger than steel. And somewhere during that time, I allowed the icy exterior around me to thaw, so he could see parts of me I’d never allowed to exist anywhere else. There were moments I smiled with him. Even moments I laughed. Those events felt so foreign at the time, yet they came naturally with him.

  I began to see him as a father figure, and that mistake cost me more than words can say. How foolish I felt when the seed of his betrayal planted itself in my mind. When I woke in the hospital, disfigured and deformed, I was the only surviving member of my family to walk away from that explosion. Eli had asked me to go in his place with my father and brother who were obligated to accompany me. How easily he swayed me with such a simple request.

  I had heard countless times from The Society and my own father that trust was a fickle beast. We had an oath to protect and look after our brothers in the organization, but that didn’t mean there weren’t defectors or traitors among us. When it did happen, the consequences were often devastating, and the price was always high. I was taught to question the motives of others, and on every other occasion, I had. But Eli had blinded me with his false admiration. His approval was a balm to the weakness inside me, and I fell for it.

  I failed my father, my brother, and everyone else who died that night. The opportunity to prove my worth to him is gone, but I can do one last thing. I can dole out the sentence for the man who sent him to the grave.

  Eli may never wake again. But whether it is in life or death, he will know the suffering he has caused. He will feel the wrath of vengeance when his daughter pledges herself to me this evening, and for every day she remains in my clutches.

  I am unfamiliar with true pleasure. The meaning behind it has always been lost to me. But I suspect it feels like this. The warmth that fills my icy heart when I consider all the ways Ivy will pay for her father’s sins. Under my rule, she will be banished to eternal darkness. She will be owned but never loved. And when she looks at herself in the mirror after tonight, she will understand true shame. I will settle for nothing less.

  From the shadows of the confessional, I run my fingers over the rosary necklace that will soon collar my wife. The ceremony is set to begin in thirty minutes when Mercedes texts me to let me know she has returned home after her preparations with Ivy. She informs me that my bride’s face will be the perfect canvas for the blade of my knife. A strange sort of envy materializes in me as I realize how closely Mercedes was able to study my captive. Since I met her in her father’s office many years ago, I have only seen her close up once. The night I gave her the ring was dark and shadowed, and it did not afford me so much detail. And though I have studied the photographs in her file for countless hours, it is not the same as breathing the same air as she does.

  I return my sister’s message with instructions to gather some things and stay at the compound tonight. After the phone is returned to my pocket, I lean my head back against the wooden partition and close my eyes, only to be interrupted by the bustling sound of someone entering the chapel.

  “Just give me five minutes to myself. Please, Abel.”

  I recognize the lilting melody of Ivy’s softness, followed by the growl of her brother.

  “I’ll be watching,” he warns her. “Don’t think about doing anything stupid.”

  There’s a rustling of fabric, and the soft slap of feet against the stone flooring. She isn’t wearing the heels I bought her. Silly, foolish girl.

  For several minutes, I listen to her walk around the chapel. I can’t see her, but I can imagine her seeking out sanctuary for herself. Somewhere to hide and never come out.

  When the door to the other side of the confessional opens, I suck in a breath and ease my body back into the darkness as Ivy steps inside. She lowers herself onto the kneeler, mere inches away from me, the thin mesh panel the only thing that separates us.

  Her scent fills the space as she shifts and sighs, murmuring the Lord’s name in prayer. She smells clean and natural with a faint lingering hint of what I think is lotion or shampoo. It is a refreshing change from the cloying sweetness of expensive perfume I am often surrounded by in The Society.

  Through the mesh, I can just make out glimpses of the dress I bought her. Black lace clings to her figure like it was made for her. My fingers itch to feel her flesh beneath that fabric. To grab and squeeze and claim her untouched beauty. The small taste of what my eyes can reach isn’t enough, and I catch myself leaning forward with a craving for more. Abruptly, I stop myself, coming back to my senses.

  What a dangerous game she could be.

  This menacing thirst coursing through my blood feels unfamiliar, and I try to justify it away. Four years is a long time to go without feeling the warmth of a woman’s body beneath me. It should only be natural that I want to taste what belongs to me. That would make sense, except I don’t just want to taste Ivy. I want to devour her completely. She can never know the power of this desire. I must keep it under control.

  She doesn’t seem to be aware of my presence on the other side as she bows her head and makes a whispered plea. A request that her God, no matter how powerful, won’t be able to grant her. I can only imagine what she must think I am.

  Has she considered what it will feel like when my fingers fall upon her skin? Is she haunted by visions of me spreading her thighs apart and laying claim to the sweetness of her flesh?

  I think not. If she were smart, she would not even entertain the idea of what a monster like me might do to her. Her fate is best left to be experienced without the stain of whatever horrors her own imagination has conjured, as she is well aware worrying cannot save her now.

  I believe she has already accepted the future that’s been written for her. She’s staring at the wood panel, blank. So still, so emotionless, it almost feels like I’m looking into a mirror. And then, without warning, she draws in a ragged breath and brings a trembling hand to her lips. Her shoulders shake under the weight of her sudden despair, but she refuses to shed a single tear. She is stronger than I gave her credit for. And I think I could find eternal fascination in her suffering. I make a silent vow to myself that before the night is through, she will cry for me.

  Several minutes pass, and she uses them to steel her faith. I wonder if she will pray to her God when I lay hands on her tonight. She does not yet bear my mark, but there is nothing to stop me from sliding open the window between us and forcing my cock down her throat. A taste of things to come. My fingers dig into the edge of the wooden bench beneath me as I close my eyes to imagine it, and the wood groans under the weight of my frustrations.

  When my gaze jolts back to the window, I find her wild, startled eyes peering back at me. Only a sliver of light pours in through the narrow gaps in the wood on my side, keeping me hidden within the shadows. I don’t believe she can actually see me, but she can sense me. The predator in the darkness.

  She leans closer to the mesh divider, calling out for the priest she thinks I am, and my breath gets caught in my throat. But before she can open it, Abel’s shrill voice interrupts the silence. An angry fist rattles her side of the door, making her jump.

  The moment is over too soon, and before Ivy can discover me, he yanks open the door and hauls her out.

  11

  Ivy

  “Five minutes,” Abel says and turns to walk out of the small chapel to the side of the cathedral. It dates back a century before the cathedral was built, and they preserved it during the construction of the cathedral itself.

  My classmates and I took first Communion here years ago. As I look down the
aisle, I remember walking toward the altar in our pretty white dresses with hands bound by our rosaries. Before the ceremony, we’d made our first confessions. There had been eight of us, and I remember shifting uncomfortably in the pew as I nervously waited my turn.

  I remember the creaking door of the confessional, the smell of it as I knelt on the hard wooden kneeler—no cushion for the sinner—and spoke my sins aloud.

  The priest’s face was just a profile, barely that in the darkness behind the mesh. I hadn’t had much to confess, so I’d made things up. I thought if I didn’t, he’d think I was lying.

  Afterward, I joined the others at the foot of the altar and say my requisite number of Hail Marys and a few more than Father had prescribed because I’d lied to him.

  Being in here after all this time takes me back. I shudder and wrap my arms around myself. It’s cold, but it’s not just the cold that has me shivering.

  I walk around the room barefoot, the engravings on the tombs so old they’re just scratches in the icy stone beneath my feet. I take in each of the twelve Stations of the Cross. Witness Christ’s crucifixion. But when I get to the altar and look up at him, I think about how he could let this happen. How, if God were real, could he let this happen to me? To my dad?

  And Hazel.

  She’d run away days before her wedding.

  How could he let it happen to her?

  Or maybe this is his plan. Maybe The Society is right, and God is behind them, and God wants one of the Moreno sisters.

  I walk to the back of the church playing with the edge of the lace veil. The confessional is in the same place, and I go to it, touching the rickety old wooden door. Its grooves are dusty. No one uses this confessional anymore, I guess.

  Pushing it aside, I enter the little space I’d entered one time before. It’s smaller than I remember. The mesh is metal now, the design a thousand crosses. I always wondered if the priests hearing the confessions knew who we were. If they remembered our sins.

  I kneel on that kneeler now, then sit back on the small bench.

  “God.”

  I wipe my face, then instinctively pull my bangs down over my eye. I remember the look on Mercedes’s face when she’d seen it. Like she’s never seen anything so terrible. Bitch.

  I take a deep breath in. The smell in here is different than I expect. A hint of cologne beneath the incense and wood polish. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe they do still use the confessional.

  Sighing, I let my breath out, then close my eyes and place my knees back on that kneeler, bringing my hands together in prayer.

  “If you’re there…if you’re real…” A sob breaks into my words, and I use the heels of my hands to wipe my eyes, careful of the mascara and black liner Mercedes applied.

  I want to ask him not to let this happen. But that’s stupid. It’s happening. So, I ask a different favor.

  I bow my head. “Don’t let him be a monster,” I whisper.

  Something creaks.

  I gasp, my eyes flying open, and I swear I see movement on the other side of the mesh separating confessor from sinner.

  “Father?” I ask, peering closer when he doesn’t answer. “Is someone there?”

  I hear the chapel door open, then my brother’s footsteps. It can only be him. “Ivy,” he bellows when he doesn’t see me. “For fuck’s sake, where are you?”

  I look from the closed door of the confessional to the mesh behind which the priest would sit and back as my brother roughly yanks the rickety door open, making it rattle on its hinges. He then grabs my arm.

  “You’re hurting me!” I cry out.

  “Why are you hiding? You think I’m so stupid I won’t find you?”

  “I wasn’t hiding, you jerk!”

  “Christ. You’re a fucking mess.” He wipes what I guess is mascara from under my eye, then takes a breath in. He pulls the veil down over my face and seems to collect himself.

  It’s almost time.

  12

  Santiago

  In The Society, weddings are typically a large affair. Members of the upper echelon are held to higher standards, and it is often a competitive sport between the women to see who can outdo each other at these events. They will commission ice sculptures and designer gowns and custom-cut diamonds because they have the wealth and power to do so.

  There will be none of that fanfare at my wedding. The only men here to witness the event are those who are required by IVI as witnesses. If it were completely at my discretion, it would just be the two of us with the priest, but we must all abide by the rules, and this is one of them.

  A strange undercurrent of tension runs through my veins as I study my reflection in the mirror. My leather oxfords are polished. The custom black Brioni tux is flawlessly pressed with a crisp white dress shirt underneath. Ink on my arm peeks out from beneath the cuff. But it’s the ink on my face that has my attention. Ivy is probably aware of my scars, but she hasn’t seen me with the half skull yet. I can only imagine her reaction as she reaches the end of the aisle. What will she do? Will she try to run? Will her brother have to drag her back up to the altar and force her to quiet her grievous sobs so she can choke out her vows to the likes of me?

  The thought leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

  Once upon a time, women in The Society were falling at their feet to marry me. Now, I can’t be certain my bride won’t just impale herself with a candlestick rather than give herself to me.

  How Ivy feels about it doesn’t matter. She is a means to an end. I won’t tolerate her disrespect, no matter how disgusted she may be. The same can be said for her brother. And it isn’t but a moment later that he appears in the doorway with my guard behind him.

  “You called for me?” Abel asks.

  With a nod, I gesture him into the room I’ve taken over in the rectory. The guests can wait. After what just happened, I have a pressing need to deal with Abel first.

  His gaze moves over me in swift and cunning appraisal. He thinks he is quite clever. So certain he has me fooled with his respectful façade.

  I take a sip of my smoked scotch and set the glass on the table before returning his gaze. “Did I fail to make you aware of how I felt about Ivy being touched by anyone other than myself?”

  He shifts his weight as his face pales in the dim room. I can see his mind working, wondering how I could possibly know how he just grabbed Ivy in the chapel. I could tell him, but that would ruin the illusion that I have eyes everywhere, and I want him to feel it.

  “I’m not sure I understand—”

  I take two steps toward him, my face a mask of serenity. He isn’t anticipating it when I slam my fist into his gut, and he doubles over, coughing and sputtering like he’s never taken a punch in his life. His ignorance and weakness only serve to fuel my infuriation. I hit him twice more in the gut before he collapses to his knees and curls into a fetal position, choking out his repentance.

  “I thought you wanted me to keep her in line.”

  “It’s my job to keep her in line.” I ease my leather oxford against his throat, pressing until he’s clawing at me with wide, panicked eyes.

  From the doorway, my best man and close friend Judge watches with a bored expression. There is nobody who would stop me from draining the life from Abel even at this very moment.

  “Repeat after me.” I dig my heel into his throat so hard his eyes bulge from his face. “After you walk her down the aisle and give me what is mine, you will never touch Ivy again.”

  “I won’t,” he croaks, digging his nails into the tops of my shoes, destroying a perfectly good pair of Italian leather.

  For that offense, I release the pressure on his throat and force the tip of my shoe between his teeth so hard, I can hear them cracking as he gags and gasps for air. Once I am satisfied that he has tasted the dirt he is worthy of, I smear his bloody spit across his chin and leave him lying there as he stares up at me in disbelief.

  “Fucking Moreno.” I spit the words out and retrieve my drin
k, choking it down in two more swallows. “Get out of my sight. Now.”

  He drags himself upright, unable to look at me as he heads for the door with his fists clenched. Judge steps aside, and Abel disappears down the hall as I turn back to the mirror to adjust my clothing.

  “I see you haven’t lost your touch.”

  A familiar voice echoes from behind me, and when I turn to find my oldest friend, I am stunned by his presence. Angelo Augustine was a classmate back in our Catholic school days. He’s also a Sovereign Son of IVI, hailing from Seattle. We have kept in close contact over the years, but I have not seen him in the flesh for at least six. Letters and phone calls were our only method of contact, given that visiting him in prison was too risky for The Society.

  “Should I expect a SWAT team to arrive as witnesses too?” I ask dryly.

  He chuckles, but the expression fades to darkness soon after. “I have been released early.”

  “How?” I tilt my head to study him. He hasn’t changed much since the last time we met. His features are much like my own. Dark hair. Arctic eyes. He could have passed for my brother and often did when we were younger. Before the explosion.

  “Details for another time.” He steps inside the room. “Tonight is about you.”

  “You’ll be staying then?” I inquire as I pour him a glass of scotch.

  From my periphery, I see Judge nod to indicate he’s going to give us a minute before he disappears down the hall. I wasn’t expecting a visitor, but I’m not about to leave him here without understanding the reason for his return.

  Angelo takes the glass and swirls it in his hand, inhaling the scent. It’s a natural inclination amongst the Sovereign Sons. You never know what might be poisoned. But I attribute his actions to memories of times past rather than distrust. If there is anyone in this world Angelo knows he can trust, it is me.