by Logan Fox
It doesn’t have to—I know Zachary wouldn’t hesitate to slice into me. I can see it in his eyes.
“I don’t understand,” I say.
I saw what Zachary did last night. He has to be bisexual to some extent to have done what he did last night. So why is my father and Gabriel’s relationship such a sticking point with him?”
I search his face, trying to find meaning in his words. “You can’t blame me for what my father did. It was his choice. I had nothing to do with it.”
Zachary’s eyes narrow to slits. “Back then, maybe. But now? You expect me to believe this is all a coincidence? You arriving here just before we’re ready to strike?”
I frown hard at him. “What does that have to do with—?”
He leans into me, snarling. “I know who you are. Nothing you say is going to change my mind, little girl.”
Who I am? He’s always known—
“If you’re not on that bus when it leaves, I’ll come find you, and I’ll make you bleed.”
He smiles.
Claps a hand over my mouth.
And drags the tip of the blade down the inside of my thigh as I whimper in sudden panic.
“Only this time, I’ll use my knife.”
Chapter Forty-Seven
Trinity
I barely have enough strength in my legs to drag me up the stairs, but somehow I make it all the way to the fourth floor of Saint Amos. It’s still early—the sun hasn’t even risen yet—but already I hear the distant sound of doors opening.
Saint Amos is coming to life.
But I’m dying.
It has nothing to do with the shallow cut on my thigh. It was the fear that came after. It has drained my spirit to the point where I’m wondering if I’ll live to see sunlight again.
I could have gone to my room. Climbed into bed. And fallen asleep…possibly forever. But I came here instead. I came back to Gabriel.
I know he’ll take me back because that’s what he does. It’s his job to forgive people.
Sometimes, he even does it on behalf of God.
Maybe I should confess. Serve penance. Maybe then my life won’t be so fucked up anymore.
Makes sense. This was all my fault. I went there. I slept with them. What did I expect? That I’d wake up to breakfast in bed?
No, I hadn’t expected that. I’d hoped.
But Zachary made me realize something I should have realized a long time ago.
The men down there in the back of that library? They are mentally unstable. I’d be too if I’d suffered like they had. I don’t blame them for that.
But they need help.
I stop outside of Gabriel’s door, lift a fist, and bang it on the wood. Then I lean against the wall beside it as the world takes a slow tumble.
Am I in shock? If Zachary had pushed that knife less than an inch up, he would have—
“Trinity, what are you—?” Gabriel cuts off with an angry sound. “Who did this to you?”
Oh.
Right.
The bruises on my face.
The cum stains on my dress.
The blood trickling down my leg.
He’s wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt. Glasses resting on top of his head. He looks like my father sometimes did on Saturday mornings when he slept in and would come downstairs at ten o’clock in the morning for his first cup of coffee.
Gabriel and my father had a lot in common, come to think about it.
I straighten, hug myself. Stare at Gabriel.
“There’s…”
He holds out a hand. Wants me to come inside. I look past him, into the small, dimly lit antechamber. Past that, to his room.
No fire this morning.
A suitcase, packed.
Ready to leave.
But I thought he was staying? That’s what the Brotherhood’s entire plan hinged on.
“Please, child. Come inside. I’ll make you some—”
“There’s something I need to show you,” I say.
Gabriel’s gaze searches my face. “What is it?” His voice is low.
I swallow hard, and wish I could look away. But his brown eyes have mine trapped, his face blank. “It’s…”
His voice is clipped when he says, “Speak, child.”
“It’s in the bell tower, Father.”
Chapter Forty-Eight
Trinity
My heart’s pounding like a bongo drum. Father Gabriel holds out a big bunch of keys he’d taken out of a drawer in his apartment and glances at me over his shoulder.
He doesn’t say anything. He just frowns, and puts the key in the lock. But when he turns the key nothing happens.
Because it was already unlocked.
He opens the door. A slash of light paints the blank wall inside. Gabriel steps inside, turns, lifts his hands. “What do you want to show me?” he asks.
I rush into the small room and slap my hands on the bare wall.
“It was right here. Pictures, photos, articles.” I turn, and stab a finger into his chest. “About you. Everything. It all leads back to you!”
He grabs my wrist and twists my hand. I yell out in pain, my body moving to the side on instinct.
As soon as I yell, Gabriel releases my hand and takes a hurried step back, the metal desk rattling when he backs into it. His fierce expression dissolves into shock. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
I scramble away from him, my back slamming into the wall.
This can’t be happening. Where the fuck did it all go?
They’d kill me if they knew.
Shit…Did the Brotherhood find out about this room and take everything down?
“Why did you bring me here?” Gabriel has a hand on his heart, but not clawing at it like he’s having a heart attack or something. Just…flat. Like he’s counting his own heartbeats.
“It’s gone,” I murmur. “They took it.”
“Who? What?” He looks around. “Trinity, talk to me. Tell me what happened.” He steps closer, reaching for me, his eyes darting to my legs, to the blood. “Tell me who did this to you.”
But I can’t. I mean…what the fuck am I supposed to say? Yeah, so, there’s this bunch of guys, they say you’re a criminal mastermind. And they have evidence, which was all here, but now it’s gone.
I’d sound like a lunatic.
“You can trust me, Trinity.”
His one hand connects with my shoulder. Then the other. He squeezes my muscles, ducking down so our eyes are level.
“You can tell me anything.”
“What other sins have you committed?” I ask quietly. “Besides fucking my Dad, obviously.”
Gabriel’s face hardens. “That’s between God and me, child.”
“You said I can trust you, but I won’t. Not until you tell me everything.”
He releases me, steps back. His eyes narrow as he studies me. Then he takes in the room again, turning as he crosses his arms over his chest. “I don’t know why I thought things would be different,” he says, so quietly I step forward on instinct to hear him better.
“What things? Are you talking about you and my dad?”
“I thought I could…explain.”
“He cheated with you on my mom and you expect me to trust you?”
Gabriel runs his hand over the dusty metal desk, and my gaze follows the trails he leaves behind right to the marks my butt made when Apollo set me down on the edge.
Gabriel outlines that heart-shaped smudge in the dust as if he can see into the past.
An invisible hand grips my throat, and not nearly as kindly as Zach or Reuben ever did.
“Dear child…” he murmurs. “There’s so much you still don’t know. So much I have to tell you.”
And then he opens one of the drawers.
The screech it makes drags ragged nails down my back.
Tell me? What the hell does that mean? Is this…is it about the Brotherhood?
No. He’d never tell me if he was guilty. No one in the
ir right minds would.
“So tell me,” I say.
I step closer.
Gabriel reaches inside the drawer and comes out holding an envelope. He glances at me from the corner of his eye, his back still turned, and frowns. “Is this what you came here to show me?”
He holds up the envelope.
TRIN
There’s a heart over the I.
Tears blur my vision.
Suddenly I don’t want Gabriel to see anything. I want him to keep talking. But when I lean forward to take the envelope, he moves it out of reach.
His brown eyes dart over my face, hunting.
“What is it?” he asks.
I have no way of knowing, but the second he asks that question, it’s as if I can see right through the fucking envelope.
“A photo.” I lick my lips. “It’s a photo of you.”
He tilts his head a little. There’s even a hint of a smile on his mouth. “Of me?” That smile stretches. “I hope they got my good side.”
I laugh, but it sounds like I’m seconds away from losing my mind.
Or maybe I have already.
Gabriel lifts the envelope a little. “May I?”
My head nods, but it’s as if someone else is doing it for me. My eyes move, but not because I ordered them to.
I watch, frozen in place, as Gabriel opens the envelope.
Takes out the photo.
The coy smile he’d been wearing melts away. For a second, his face could have belonged to a corpse.
Then his gaze flashes up to mine. “So young,” he murmurs.
He tips up his chin, staring down at the photo a second longer. When his eyes lock with mine again, my body goes ice-cold.
“Who left this here?” he asks.
I can’t move, let alone speak.
Gabriel comes closer, glancing between me and the photo, eyes slowly narrowing. I stifle a gasp when he grabs my jaw, tilting my head back so he can stare at me at just the right angle.
His eyes widen a little.
“So much of your mother in you, isn’t there?”
My stomach drops.
“And to think,” Gabriel says, his mouth breaking into a fond smile, “She swore to Keith and me that she’d never have children.”
He turns the photo to me, drawing my eyes.
Middle row, two from the left. A young Gabriel Blake, hands behind his back, stern expression on his face.
“But then she fell pregnant. A boy, did you know that?”
Middle row, four from the left. A young Keith Malone. Solemn, bleak. But so were all the kids in that photo.
My eyes fly back to Gabriel.
“She didn’t keep that baby though. Or the next. But she kept you, Trinity.” Gabriel’s eyes move back to the photo, and my gaze follows. “She kept you, because you were special.”
Middle row.
Three from the left.
Inches shorter than the boy to her left and the boy on her right.
A young, pretty Monica Stevens.
My mother.
So petite looking there between Gabriel and Keith.
“Do you know why you were special, Trinity?”
A tear breaks free when my eyes shift so I can look at Gabriel. Again, premonition fills me with a cold, frigid dread.
Don’t say it.
Don’t say it.
DON’T SAY IT!
But he does.
“Because you’re mine,” he whispers. His grip on my jaw tightens. “And I wouldn’t let her.”
To Be Continued…
Copyright © 2020 Logan Fox
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review.
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FIRST EDITION
www.authorloganfox.com
Deliver us from Evil
Blurb
Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Luke 6:37
Gabriel
No daughter of mine should be so easily misled by wicked boys.
Trinity's naivety is shocking, but that will change.
I will teach her the ways of the world, just like I taught Monica.
Soon she will love me.
Just like Monica.
I will start a new life with Trinity, away from judgmental eyes.
But first, she must repent.
Deliver us from Evil is the third and final book in the Sinners of Saint Amos dark bully reverse harem romance series.
Contains strong language, violence, and sexual situations some may find triggering.
This is the last book in a series. Cannot be read as a standalone.
No cheating. HEA guaranteed.
Theme Song
everything i wanted — Billie Eilish
Playlist
Dangerous — Son Lux
Ma And Pa — London Tewers
See the Light — Sofa Surfers
Temple Priest — MISSIO
Repeat After Me — KONGOS
Serpent of Old — Seven Lions
Lake Of Fire — Nirvana
Poacher’s Pride — Nicole Dollanganger
Joan of Arc — In This Moment
Check out my Deliver us from Evil Playlist!
Chapter One
Trinity
It’s amazing, the things you don’t notice the first—or the hundredth—time around.
She kept you, Trinity. She kept you because you were special.
When I first came to the bell tower with Apollo I never noticed the stale, chalky smell inside this small room.
Do you know why you were special, Trinity?
Gabriel is a handsome man, especially with his warm brown eyes. But I never noticed the spots of bronze in his eyes before.
Because you’re mine.
I never noticed his shaggy eyebrows. The shape of his nose. How similar his eyes are to mine. Suddenly, it’s impossible not to notice.
I wouldn’t let her.
Gabriel—my father—scans my face like he has so many times before. But this time, there’s hidden meaning in his gaze. He’s not checking to see if I’ve finally found God. He’s staring at his daughter’s face. Picking out his likeness, or perhaps my mother’s.
He brushes his thumb over my lower lip. The intimate gesture sends a surge of panic through me that freezes me solid.
But only for a moment.
Then self-preservation kicks in.
I shove Gabriel away and whirl around, bolting out of the tiny room. But I barely take two steps before he grabs my hair and yanks me back.
I fly into him, and we both crash backward into the wall. He slips an arm around my waist and drags me back. When I realize he’s taking me further into that tiny room, I put everything I have into my struggles.
I grab the door frame as I pass. Gabriel makes an angry sound in his throat, then he rips me free with a hard tug that leaves behind some of my fingernails.
I scream again, as loud as I can.
He throws me away from him, and I catch a glimpse of the enraged snarl twisting his face before I hit the wall.
Bright pain lances through my head.
Gabriel crouches at my side, face disturbingly blank even after our scuffle. I groan and try to sit up, try to move away, but that makes my head hurt even more.
He touches the side of my face. “I didn’t want it to be this way. I wanted to tell you. I wanted you to know the truth. But they fought me on it. Both of them. Said it would confuse you.”
Gabriel shakes his head, breaking eye contact for a second. “I should have fought harder, child. I should have insisted. But…”
When he looks at me again, there’s something terrifying in his eyes.
Despair.
“I loved them, Trinity. Both of them. I know it’s impossible to understand, but it’s the truth.” His voice goes hoarse, and he runs those same fingertips down m
y cheek. “I did it for them. And I’d do it again.”
He smiles, but it’s faint and more sad than happy. “They’re gone now. It’s just us. But we can start again. Me and you. We can be a family again.”
He wants me to be his daughter? If I could have, I would have laughed in his face. How the hell can he think I’d want a sick, perverted man like him for a father?
But I can’t even stand, let alone argue. “Please, just let me go,” I whisper. “I won’t tell anyone.”
He grabs my shoulder, squeezes it. “Shh.” He shakes his head. “It’ll be perfect, you’ll see. Now you wait here. I’ll be back with something to help you sleep. And when you wake up, it’ll be a new day. A new life.”
It’s amazing, the things you don’t notice.
I’d always thought that tiny spark, that delightful little gleam that Gabriel got in his eyes was a kind of righteous joy.
Now I see it for what it truly is.
Madness.
Gabriel leaves, locking the door with a finality that makes my skin crawl. I have to get out of here before he comes back. But there’s no way I can open that door and this room has no windows.
My heart starts knocking in my chest.
I’m trapped.
Chapter Two
Rube
I open my eyes to darkness and cigarette smoke, a combination that never fails to give me heart palpitations.
Triggers come like a thief in the night. Ambushing my mind, my body. I’ve stopped fighting them because I’ll never win. Same reason I stopped fighting my Ghost.
As if my sudden panic wakes him, Cass fumbles a hand down my arm. “Jus’ Zach,” he murmurs, still half asleep as he laces his fingers through mine. He squeezes my hand, and then he relaxes, already asleep again.