The Land Where Sinners Atone

by Mason, V. F.

  And like all thieves should… he will pay dearly for it.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “Is it possible to love someone… but still not be able to forgive them?

  I can never forget what he did.

  But I also don’t know how to handle this betraying heart of mine anymore.

  I’m at a crossroad, standing in front of two long paths.

  Neither of them is easy nor pretty.

  One of them has unknown written all over it, while the other…

  Has a man standing at the end of it waiting for me to cross the line to him, his hand extended to me.

  What do I do?

  In this battle between my pain and heart, who wins?”

  Phoenix

  Phoenix

  The minute we enter the house, I spin around to face Zachary, who points at the office with a stone-cold expression on his face while tension fills the air between us that I can almost touch.

  Only because my child is sleeping upstairs, my sweet baby girl who was stolen from me before I could even see her or claim her as mine, I do as he says, following him with our shoes thumping loudly in the house and, with each step, announcing the upcoming doom.

  I stayed silent all the way to the house. James must have felt the mood, as he didn’t say anything, instead drove rapidly toward the mansion with light music playing on the radio. The sound grated on my nerves so much I wanted to smash the damned thing, but I reined in my urges, because this fury belonged to no one but Zachary.

  Once he closes the door to the office, I say quietly, with each word scratching against my throat, “How could you have done this?” All the way in the car, I thought I’d scream at him or try to destroy his house from this raging inferno inside me, but instead, I’m so calm it almost scares me.

  Scares me, because I don’t know when the outburst will come as it always does in such situations; there is always a limit to one’s cup. And when said cup cracks… it won’t be pretty.

  It will burn everything in its wake.

  I have no strength left in me to pull the pieces of my soul together in order to survive. Zachary delivered the last shot that irrevocably destroyed me.

  “You took away my baby. Named her just like I wanted. Made me believe she died. I begged for them to show me her body, and they refused. Can you imagine what kind of pain I was in? Lying on that bed and wishing to die with her.”

  “Phoenix—” he starts, but I shake my head.

  “Shut up. Just shut up and fucking listen to me now, Zach.” My voice is cold as steel, ready to cut off whatever he says to justify his actions.

  No explanation will be good enough for me anyway, so he might as well not waste his breath on it!

  Hollow laughter ricochets between us as I place my hand on my chest. “And then when I got out, you made me your mistress. I have to live with the fact that I let you touch me! What kind of a monster are you, Zach?” His jaw clenches while his eyes get this unreadable expression that I’ve always wanted to understand, but I no longer care. “My baby! She is my baby! You had no right to take her away!” Sliding my hands into my hair, I pull it harshly and step back when he makes a move in my direction, too afraid I’m going to kill him with the first sharp object I come in contact with. “They hit me, kicked me, slashed my skin with knives, but all that paled in comparison to when the doctor told me my baby died.” A sob escapes me, and I cover my mouth with a palm. “How could you have done that? How could you have claimed my daughter as yours?”

  “When I ordered that, I didn’t know you were pregnant,” he shouts, removing his jacket and throwing it on the table where several pens scatter all over it, sliding down onto the floor. “I got a call that she was born premature. The doctor from the prison didn’t give her any chance to survive.”

  “So you thought you could take her?”

  “I wanted to save her. Okay? I wanted to atone for what I had done to an innocent life.”

  I chuckle, although it lacks any humor, my hands fisting. “Of course, not for destroying mine. At least you had enough conscience left to take pity on my child.”

  “I had no choice! She would have died without my help. And then I saw her, and I just….”

  “You just what, huh?” I ask, picking up a book from the desk and throwing it at him without thinking, and it hits his chest, hopefully bringing him as much pain as possible. “Fell in love with a child who’s not yours? The King gets what he wants, right?”

  Anger crosses his face. “She is mine, Phoenix. You can say whatever you want, but you can’t—”

  Is he serious right now?

  Scooping up various desk pens, I continue to throw them at him all while shouting, “She is not your daughter, Zach! She is my and Sebastian’s daughter!”

  He comes toward me without caring about the stuff hitting his face and neck, grabs my arms forcefully, and presses me harshly against the bookshelf. “She is not his!”

  He can repeat that until he turns blue, but it won’t change the facts. “He is her father, and you are a man who stole her from us!”

  “I stole her from you!” he growls into my face. “Sure as fuck not from him. Did he listen to you when you wanted to tell him? Read any of those letters or did he throw them away? Was he the one taking care of Emmaline for the last three and a half years? Sebastian might have been the sperm donor, but he sure as fuck is not her father.”

  Oh my God.

  The audacity of this vicious person is beyond my comprehension.

  The monsters indeed hide their rotten nature well with the various masks of good or semi good people and strike you with their evilness when you least expect it.

  And no matter how much you want to wash it away from your skin, you can’t.

  “If it weren’t for you, he would’ve been the one taking care of her. Once I safely delivered the baby….”

  He cages me in, splaying his palm on either side of my head while I try to push at his chest, but the muscles are so tight it’s impossible to get free of him.

  I start to think imprisonment by him is my life’s curse with no way of breaking it. For what have I done to be forever trapped with this monster?

  “Really? Would he? Or he’d be ordering a paternity test.”

  I jerk back as if he slapped me, but he doesn’t take pity on me.

  Oh no, the monster goes right for the throat.

  “Sebastian is all about trust, isn’t he? You already broke it in his mind when you lied to him. Do you really think he would have rushed to the hospital to save your child?” He waits a bit before adding, “And do you really think he would have ever allowed you to come in close contact with her? She’d be lost to you.”

  “He wouldn’t have done it. Because he isn’t you!” I scream into his face, and his jaw tics.

  “Exactly, darling. He is not me. Emmaline wouldn’t have been alive if I left it to Sebastian to decide.”

  “She wouldn’t have had to fight for her life if it wasn’t for the attack you organized.” My chest rises and falls from my heavy breathing, “Everything that happened is your fault.” I hit his chest, holding back tears threatening to escape. He doesn’t deserve to see my pain, only rage and fury. “You are the villain in this story.”

  “And I take full responsibility for that. But you want me to regret taking Emmaline? To atone for my sin?” He chuckles, and it sends shivers down my spine, breaking goose bumps on my skin that freeze my body. “So she would what? Be born in prison until she couldn’t stay there and be taken away to the system? I will never ask forgiveness for this.”

  “Sebastian—”

  “Hale would have done nothing!” he screams, his deep voice bouncing off the walls and coating the space in an even grimmer atmosphere. “She would be lonely, alone, and unloved. I think both of us had enough of that in our lives, so I wouldn’t wish it for our child.”

  Oh my God, why does he keep repeating that?

  I groan in frustration, barely reining in the des
ire to scratch his face off.

  “She is not yours! Get it through your thick skull.” I kick his leg, needing to get away from him, but he doesn’t even budge, instead pressing harder into me.

  “She is mine, Phoenix! I was there when she was fighting for her life, when she took her first step and said her first word. She might not be a King by blood. That doesn’t make her any less mine.”

  With every phrase he says, the wound in my heart becomes bigger and bigger, intensifying my pain to almost unbearable proportions.

  The things he speaks so proudly of…

  They were all mine, mine and not his. Yet he deprived me of every important moment of my child’s life, and he wants me to be grateful for it? “You stole all of those from me!” Willing all my strength, I finally shove him hard so he steps back, while rage unlike anything before envelops me in a haze, when the only thing ruling me is the desire to bring him as much agony as he brought me.

  And why shouldn’t I?

  He doesn’t even feel remorse for what he has done and expects some form of gratitude for it all.

  What Zachary King wants he gets?

  Well, fuck Zachary King.

  “You took away my daughter!” Without thinking, I hit him hard in the chest, one by one my fists clenching and bouncing off with each blow. “Made me believe she died!” Hit. Hit. Hit. “How could you have done this to me? To anyone?” Hit. Hit. Hit. “I never deserved your cruelty. My daughter deserved to have a mother. And I would have been a damn good one,” I whisper the last part, delivering a few more blows, but since he stays unmovable, I step away from him, my arms falling by my side, the ache in them nothing compared to the one inside me. My knees wobble, and I drop to the floor with Zachary trying to catch me, but my quiet yet stern “Don’t you dare touch me” stills him, and he keeps the distance between us.

  My raspy breath is the only sound in the room, while I think how life always has a way of surprising me and never giving me happiness, just temporary moments of joy. “I hate you, Zach. I will forever hate you for this.” And the tears finally come, sliding down my cheeks rapidly while sobs inside almost suffocate me before they erupt in loud whimpers, shaking my entire body. I cover my face with my palms, crying into them, hoping for at least some reprieve from this pain but finding none.

  At first when I read that note, happiness unlike anything before wrapped me in its arms, placing healing balm on the wound that bled for so long. My baby girl is alive!

  However, with this also came the realization that with his one decision driven by hate, Zachary forever erased me from her life.

  I have a daughter who doesn’t know she has a mother, a daughter who in the eye of the law cannot be mine and lives by some rules Zachary assigned.

  I hear him kneel in front of me, his hands on my shoulders, but I shake them off. “I said don’t touch me. Or you think a little sex is going to fix this? Therapy, King style.” Along with hate toward him, self-loathing fills my every bone, making me almost nauseous for everything that has transpired between us.

  Despite what he has done to me, I always considered him a victim in this story as well, for he lost his wife and allowed the despair to consume him.

  The unsub has done this.

  But stealing my child? Not telling me about her right away? Making me still believe my daughter was dead after seeing my breakdown at the FBI office?

  How can I forgive or understand those?

  Zachary made his choice, and once again, I became the collateral damage in it.

  “Don’t dirty up what we have,” he says, and I wipe away my tears, looking directly into his tortured eyes that have deceived me in the past.

  Yet I don’t let them fool me into believing he has a heart.

  “I don’t have to do it, Zach. It was dirty, wrong, and disgusting from the beginning. For a second, I almost believed there could be more. However, a beautiful flower cannot bloom in rotten soil. I should have remembered that.”

  “Phoenix, please see it through my eyes.”

  I fist his shirt, bring him closer, and say, “You gave me no chance for that. You lied until you got caught. Don’t ask me for anything more.” I let go of him and get up swiftly, warning him, “I will take her away, Zach. Nothing will stop me. You cannot fight the science. One test will prove she’s mine.” With this, I walk out of the office, not bothering to listen to whatever else he has to say.

  Or more like threatened, because that’s what everyone does best in this world, right?

  Choose me as their punching bag and bit by bit destroy me until nothing is left.

  Slipping from my heels, I dash upstairs, and with long strides I’m by Emmaline’s door, needing to see her and believe with my own eyes that this little girl is mine.

  Carefully, I turn the knob and enter, the navy-blue light coming from the globe lamp and moonlight steaming through the window allowing me to see the inside of the room clearly.

  I come closer to her bed, my feet soundless on her carpet, and gasp when I find her lying on the bed in pink pajamas, the blanket by her feet while she has her arms and legs thrown in a star position. She breathes evenly with not a care in the world.

  Exhaling heavily, I go to her side and kneel in front of the bed, my hand hovering over her head as tears stream down my cheeks, and I hold in the sob, running my fingers through her hair, trying to memorize her every feature and imagining what it would have been like to see her for the first time when she was just born.

  Before the truth, she was one of the most perfect creatures I had seen in this world, and now… now, she is the most perfect creature I’ve ever seen.

  I trail a finger over her forehead, down the bridge of her nose, to her lips before cupping her cheek and leaning forward to place a soft kiss on the top of her head, wishing I could hug her right now so close so no one could take her away from me again.

  Forever protect her from the cruelty of people who are vicious in this world whenever they want to achieve something.

  Rock her in my arms and promise her that I’d forever love her no matter what she does. Her mom will always be on her side.

  And I can do none of those things, because for her, I’m just a stranger.

  I could probably take her away now, go to the nearest police station, demand a DNA test, and they would have to investigate it. Zachary might have all the money and connections, but he cannot fight nature. Even calling Sebastian might have been a good idea; despite what Zachary thinks, he is not a cold asshole who would’ve turned his back on his child.

  However, as a parent, you no longer have the luxury to think only about your needs. Your child comes first, and if I do all those things… I will shatter her perfect world.

  I lean back before my tears can slide down onto her skin, but then she stirs, wrapping her hands around mine and pulling it toward her as she rolls to the side and hugs it to her chest. “Daddy,” she says sleepily and sighs. “You’re back.” And then she groans a little before settling on the pillow, still keeping my hand close.

  Daddy.

  That’s who my daughter calls for her in her sleep, Daddy and not a mommy.

  And this one tiny word destroys me in a way all the knives in the world can’t.

  Because here, in her bedroom where everything has been built for her desires, I cannot hide from the truth that with Zachary, she became a princess in a castle pampered with attention and love so strong that she constantly smiles and trusts easily.

  The center of his universe.

  A connection formed between them, and I won’t be able to break it. How can I?

  Doing that would mean hurting Emmaline, and Zachary is right about one thing.

  She would have none of those things had she stayed with me. How many years do they allow a child to stay in prison?

  Best-case scenario, she would have grown up with Sebastian’s parents, because he would have been too busy to build his career around Emmaline.

  If he even believed me, that is, and
until that time… for how long would she have been in the system?

  And her firsts?

  All her firsts would have been inside the prison walls, imprinting in her life that Mommy did something bad, so she had to stay there.

  Phoenix, please see it through my eyes.

  Spinning around, I rest my back against the bed while hugging my knees, pressing my head on them.

  None of those are good excuses for what Zachary did though, even if I can see where he was coming from, considering he hated me with a passion and thought I deserved it all.

  But what do I do with this truth now? How do I live with it? What choices do I make that are the best for everyone?

  If I block away the pain, the agony, and bitter memories… what do I do?

  We shouldn’t live in the past, because there’s always tomorrow, tomorrow where we can change the direction of our lives, building a new future.

  Between past and future, there is present though, which should bring joy and happiness instead of constant heartaches.

  Somehow, whatever I decide now will write my fate for me for years to come, and I’ll have to live with that choice for eternity.

  It should be easy, not complicated and hard. Shouldn’t we all live by the same morals? When someone does wrong or good, we act accordingly.

  A funny thing about the heart though?

  It wants what it wants, and it has the capacity to give second chances where maybe it shouldn’t, putting itself in the line of fire over and over again, risking it all in order to bet on something beautiful.

  Can a heart fight a mind and win?

  In this fight, where I need to pick a side…

  What do I do?

  Zachary

  Pouring myself a glass of whiskey, I drop a few ice cubes in it and take a large sip, enjoying how the liquid burns my insides and keeps me grounded in the world, even if the madness slowly consumes me at the prospect of my future.

  I walk toward the balcony in my room, stepping barefoot on the cold marble, and open my arms wide. Wearing nothing but gray sweatpants, I welcome the blasting wind that should freeze me to death but instead has no power to soothe the inferno raging in my heart.