by A. Zavarelli
Kylie’s apartment was clean and well put together, just like her. Everything in the space painted a picture of a happy life, including the family photos that hung from the wall. It explained a lot. Someone as emotionally well balanced as she was could only ever come from a family like that.
“That’s my brother.” Kylie pointed at one of the men in the photo. “He’s the doctor in the family. And my sister Kelly is a surgeon.”
“Wow,” I murmured. “Your parents must be pretty proud.”
She shrugged lightheartedly. “I’m somewhat of a black sheep. I went into the medical profession because I felt like I had to take that path to make them proud. But honestly, if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t have.”
Her words surprised me, but it was proof that even though someone’s life might look perfect on the outside, there was no such thing.
“Hope you don’t mind peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner.” She walked into the kitchen and pulled out a few ingredients. “I don’t do much of anything exciting. By the time I get home, I’m too tired to cook.”
“I bet.” I took a seat at the island bar across from her. “PB and J is good with me. I didn’t even know how to cook until…” The words faltered when I realized I was about to mention Ace. Kylie seemed to sense where I was going and took a hard left turn in the conversation.
“What about your family? What do they do?”
I threaded my fingers together in my lap, considering the best lie to give her. I always had several at the ready, but it was a lot of work to keep the stories straight. It was exhausting, in general, to lie. So I was only somewhat surprised after the day I’d had that the truth spilled from my lips instead.
“I only have a sister. Our mom passed away when we were young.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Kylie’s tone held genuine regret. “That must have been really hard.”
I shrugged like it didn’t bother me anymore, but the truth was, I didn’t know if it would ever stop bothering me. “We survived.”
She slid a plate across the bar and followed with a glass of water before she sat down next to me, and we ate together in silence. There was definitely some unresolved tension between us, and I didn’t really know what I was doing here. I just knew that I couldn’t go to a hotel or Gypsy’s, and Kylie was the only other person I knew in Vegas. But it was clear we really didn’t have anything in common, and I wasn’t entirely sure she didn’t harbor some resentment toward me.
“How about some wine?” she asked as she finished her plate and went rummaging through one of the cupboards. “It seems like we both need a glass.”
“Yes, please.” My shoulders relaxed at the suggestion. “Wine would be great.”
She poured us both a glass and then gestured to the balcony. “Want to go sit outside? It’s a nice night for it.”
I nodded and followed her out the door, and we both took a seat and stared off into the horizon where the fading sun created a wash of burnt oranges and gold across the skyline.
“Do you blame me for what happened between you and Ace?” I asked.
Kylie looked over at me and laughed. “You mean do I blame you for converting a man incapable of a relationship into a love-sick puppy dog?”
An awkward laugh burst from my lips. “Yeah, no. He isn’t in love with me.”
Kylie rocked back in the chair and lit a cigarette. “I don’t blame you for what happened. If I was a man, I’d probably feel the same about you, drop-dead gorgeous as you are. What Ace and I had was a business arrangement. I knew it could end at any time, and so did he. That’s all it boils down to.”
I swirled the crimson liquid in my glass before letting the flavor explode across my tongue, secretly trying to decipher the distinct notes before I swallowed. I always felt like drinking wine was a little like drinking the blood of the region it came from. The hard labor, the sun, and the rain that had gone into making the blend. Each bottle was unique, and this was a good one. It only made me appreciate Kylie more. I was afraid to ask her, but I knew I had to. For the sake of my own sanity, I had to know.
“By business arrangement, you mean…”
“Men hire me to do things to them,” she said. “Things that society considers taboo or fucked up, but it fulfills them.”
Her answer didn’t make me feel any better. I didn’t know if I could actually stomach the details of whatever she was talking about. My mind was running wild with possibilities, wondering what kind of sexual deviance Ace was into. It must have been evident because Kylie took pity on me.
“Have you seen his scars?” she asked quietly.
I swallowed and shook my head. Ace knew most of my secrets, and I hated feeling as if I knew hardly any of his.
“If he ever shows you his scars, then maybe you’ll understand,” Kylie explained. “What I gave to him wasn’t love. It was just what he needed to feel normal.”
“Are you telling me you hurt him?” I stared at her in disbelief.
She released a breath of smoke and turned away from the judgment in my voice. Even now, after everything, I felt protective of Ace. Maybe it didn’t make sense, but the thought of anyone hurting him was unbearable.
“Everyone deals with their traumas differently,” Kylie answered. “Just as I’m sure you have your own way of dealing with yours.”
Her response made me shut my mouth as I’m sure she knew it would. I didn’t want to believe my issues were that obvious, but maybe I wasn’t as hard coated as I always considered myself to be.
“At the risk of sounding like a mother, I just think you should be careful,” Kylie warned. “Ace has a lot of issues he’s never really worked through. I think he wants to care about you, but whether he’s capable of being in a healthy relationship remains to be seen.”
The distant sounds of traffic and city noise engulfed us.
“Do you know anything about Mary-Kate?” I asked.
“Who?” Kylie glanced at me.
So that was a no. I wasn’t about to tell her what I’d found today. It wasn’t my place to tell, and it felt like saying anything would be a betrayal somehow even though that was silly. I didn’t owe Ace anything, especially after today. Still, I had to wonder just how many people were aware of his past. Clearly, Lucian was. But what about Gypsy? Had she sent me to live with a monster intentionally?
“Never mind.” I scrubbed a hand over my face and yawned, exhausted. “It’s been a long day. I’m just tired. Thank you for letting me crash here tonight.”
“No problem.” Kylie offered me a sleepy smile. “I think I’m about ready for bed too. Let me know if you need me to give you a ride somewhere in the morning. I leave at seven for work.”
“Okay,” I agreed, though I knew it wasn’t necessary. She’d already done enough for me, and by morning, I would be gone.
I HESITATED ON THE THRESHOLD of Saint Vincent’s, half fearful that if I stepped inside, my skin would melt from my body like a scene in a horror movie. This was not a place for con artists or degenerates like me. No amount of holy water or Hail Marys could save my wretched soul. But I wasn’t here for salvation. I was here for answers, and I hoped I would find them inside.
I only half expected to find him here. Before Lucian had the baby with my sister, he would be here without fail on the same days during the week. But things had changed after the events of the past year. He was anxious anytime he had to leave his wife and child at home, so I didn’t know how frequently he visited anymore.
Regardless of my uncertainty, I gripped the handle and stepped inside. The building was large and empty. The kind of empty that made each step echo off the walls. Pausing at the holy font, I stared into the water, observing my distorted reflection in the stillness. That girl didn’t look like me. And I knew exactly who was to blame for the difference from only a couple of weeks ago.
My beating heart slowed to a crawl as I closed my eyes and dipped a trembling hand into the bowl. Even if I didn’t believe in it, maybe
there was still a chance I could wash away the sins of the past. I made the sign of the cross, not really knowing what else to do. A shiver moved over me, and I wrapped my cardigan around my shoulders as I walked down the aisle between the empty rows of church pews. At the front, I lit a candle and studied the display before I took a seat in an empty pew.
For a while, I just sat there with my thoughts. The silence was peaceful, even if I did feel out of place. I thought about Ace and the many directions my life had taken over the years. With a deep breath, I unzipped the tightness in my chest and allowed every anxious, horrible thought I’d ever had to spill out onto the floor and shatter beneath me. But I couldn’t rid myself of one awful feeling.
I didn’t want it to be true.
The things I’d read about Huck William Fallon did not fit the idealism of him in my own mind. He couldn’t be the embodiment of all my worst fears. He couldn’t be like the men I hated so much.
The door to the confessional booth swung open, and I heard the soft click as it shut. My attention remained on the floor beneath me as the soft footfalls headed in my direction.
He sat down next to me, and neither of us spoke for a while. I didn’t know where to begin, and maybe he didn’t either. I’d never particularly cared for Lucian. When he forced his way into our lives and blackmailed my sister, he swiftly became enemy number one. I was certain she’d probably kill him by the time their contract had ended, but instead, she fell in love.
Now I knew enough about him that I could respect him. But I would always be wary, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Because in our world, fairy tales didn’t really exist.
“Ace is going out of his mind looking for you.” Lucian’s deep timbre reverberated off the walls around us.
My head dipped further, and my fingers gripped the edge of the pew. “Is it true? Did he murder that girl?”
Lucian sighed, and I held my breath, waiting for a response. Ace was his closest confidant. Knowing Lucian, he would probably take the high road and tell me I needed to ask him about it myself. It was what I expected. But I guess I didn’t know as much as I thought about this man after all.
“He has a complicated past,” Lucian murmured.
“Don’t we all?” My heels drummed against the tiled floor, a nervous habit.
“Not like this.”
The weight of Lucian’s statement held so much anguish, I couldn’t help but look at him. The pain was etched so deeply into his features, it looked as though he was recalling pieces of his own past.
“Tell me,” I pleaded.
Lucian turned to me, pinching his brows together. “How do I know you won’t use it against him?”
My eyes narrowed as the accusation even though I probably deserved it. “Have I ever?”
“Not Ace,” he conceded. “But everyone else—”
“I wouldn’t do that to him.” My words came out sharper than I intended. I didn’t care if people called me a con, a liar, and a trickster. But even I had my hard limits, and Ace was one of them.
Satisfied with my response, Lucian leaned back against the pew and closed his eyes as he folded his hands together. “He’ll never tell you himself. As long as I’ve known him, even I’ve only managed to get bits and pieces over the years. The rest came from his files.”
“What files?” I asked.
“I don’t typically make it my business to tell anyone what isn’t my story to tell since I’m legally bound to confidentiality. However, in this case, I’m also morally bound to do what I believe is right. Gypsy feels that you are safest with him, and I’m inclined to agree. But I understand with your background, you would need answers to these questions.”
“Please don’t talk about me like you know me.” I glowered. “Or anything about my life.”
Lucian shrugged unapologetically. He was married to my sister, and though I was certain she’d probably given him intimate details of our childhood, I didn’t intend to discuss it with him.
“You can’t hide what happened to you forever,” he noted. “It’s only fair that if I tell you about Ace, you show him the same courtesy. Take it from a man who learned the hard way, there is nothing to be gained by hiding our demons.”
A ball of tension bobbed in my throat. I had no intentions of opening up to Ace or anyone else, but Lucian didn’t need to know that.
He stood and walked to the row of candles, his back turned to me as he observed the burning flames. “Huck was the child of a couple who belonged to a radical sect of the Baptist church,” he began. “Most people refer to them as a cult, and I’d have to agree that’s more accurate. His father was a preacher, and his mother was… by all accounts… a mentally unstable woman who believed she could abolish evil through sexual rituals. It was during one of these rituals, with a man who wasn’t her husband, that Huck came to be conceived.”
“Wow,” I murmured. “That’s awful.”
“His mother died from complications during childbirth, but Huck survived. As you can probably imagine, his non-biological father Ed wasn’t at all pleased by this development.”
Acid heaved up my throat, threatening to spill out as bitterness coated my tongue. “Did he blame Huck?”
Lucian glanced at me, considering his words carefully before he answered. “He did more than blame him. He beat him, burned him, and mutilated him. All under the guise that Huck was evil, and it was the only way to cure him. His body is a testament to the abuse he suffered in his childhood. But it’s the scars in his mind that damaged him the most. When he was eight years old, Ed sewed his mouth shut and told him he was never allowed to speak again. And for seventeen years, he didn’t.”
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t even move. The horrific image of Huck as a small traumatized child left me shaking. The acknowledgment of his pain hit me point blank in the heart. I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. I wanted to burn the whole fucking world down.
“How could nobody realize this was happening?” I demanded, though I knew from my own experience that abuse wasn’t that difficult to hide.
“Ed had Huck homeschooled by a member of his congregation for many years,” Lucian explained. “He told her the boy was disturbed and blamed the wounds on self-mutilation. You have to understand… this was a radical group with beliefs far outside the realm of normality. Even if he didn’t attempt to hide it, I’m not entirely certain these actions would have warranted a cry for help from any of his flock. He was a well-respected man in his community. People looked to him for guidance, and they believed what he preached.”
“That’s insane,” I growled. I didn’t want to believe it, but I knew firsthand exactly how many people turned a blind eye to disgusting behavior. People in a position of authority were often the scariest. They had power, and they were virtually untouchable.
“The problem only compounded,” Lucian continued. “As Huck grew up, he started to act out. Vandalizing the church. Getting into fights. It all went into his record, creating the image of a problem child. When Ed enrolled him in public high school, there were numerous accounts of behavioral issues. He’d broken desks, destroyed books, and intentionally flunked subjects he knew well. I suppose you could say it was the only way for him to communicate his frustrations, but to everyone else, it just confirmed their beliefs about him.”
Lucian was in an almost trance-like state as he continued to spell out the details of Huck’s childhood. Details I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to know about anymore. It was all leading up to the big event. The truth I wasn’t certain I could handle. Lucian painted a picture of unimaginable horrors, and the worst part was that I could relate. Huck was damaged, incredibly so, and it was becoming painfully obvious how that happened. But I still wasn’t sure what to think about the crimes he’d been convicted of.
It would be hypocritical for me to say regardless of what happened in his past, there was no excuse for the crime committed against that girl. Because if I said that, then I’d have to apply the same logic to the worst thing
I’d ever done.
“So how did it happen?” I choked out.
Lucian took a moment to contemplate, and I worried he wasn’t going to tell me after all. But I realized before he spoke that this was just as difficult for him to recount. “Mary-Kate was a foster child who’d been shuffled around the system. She’d been abused herself, and she spent a lot of time on the street when she wasn’t couch surfing at any safe haven she could find. During that time, she encountered Ace while he was scavenging the trash for food. They developed what I guess you could call a friendship.”
I couldn’t even imagine what he’d just described. Ace digging around in the trash for his food? It was too awful to consider.
“Did he talk to this girl?” I asked.
“No.” Lucian shook his head. “He still didn’t speak, but she confided in him, and they passed notes if he really had something to say. She told him her foster dad tried to touch her, and that’s how she ended up on the streets. Huck, being Huck, he didn’t have a clue what to do with that type of information. His solution was to sneak her into his bedroom and let her crash there during the night after Ed had gone to sleep. The agreement was, Huck would go to school, and she would leave and keep herself busy until dark. But Huck didn’t realize she was sneaking back into the house during the day. She’d probably done it a handful of times before she finally got caught.”
“By Ed?” I asked.
Lucian nodded. “It was too late. By the time Huck came home that day and walked into his bedroom, she was already dead. Ed had assaulted her and flown into a rage when she tried to fight back.”
I doubled over, repressing the urge to puke. Why those words triggered or surprised me, I would never know. But I felt my body rocking in an attempt to self-soothe as I imagined the sad girl with the dark chocolate eyes.
“This doesn’t make any sense,” I croaked. “If Ed did it, why did Ace get locked up?”
“Ed was the local preacher,” Lucian stated with disgust. “And Ace was the troubled mute kid everyone in town already knew was a problem. He was the perfect scapegoat.”