Reparation of Sin: A Sovereign Sons Novel

by Zavarelli, A.

  There’s just one thing missing. A mirror.

  He watches me, maybe waiting for my reaction. For me to ask why. I don’t need to ask. I know.

  I step into the shower, and he follows. I turn to him, and he brings his hand to my face. He cups my jaw, and I look up at him as he smears the stencil. I grab his wrist.

  “Don’t.”

  He stops, eyes narrowing in confusion.

  “I want to see it.”

  “No, you do not.” He smears again.

  “I do, Santiago.”

  He doesn’t reply right away as if gauging the reason behind my request. But then he nods once and leans closer, forearm against the wall, hand over the top of my head, eyes on my eyes, then my lips and I think he’ll kiss me again, another blood-smeared kiss. But he doesn’t. And I’m strangely disappointed.

  “Suit yourself.”

  He picks up the soap and begins to lather it, then to wash me. Moments like this, he is so gentle that he’s almost tender. It’s so opposite to how he usually is with me that it’s confusing.

  “What did you mean? That it’s a matter of life or death for me that I get pregnant?”

  He grits his jaw, his gaze focused on the task of cleaning me.

  “It means The Tribunal is sparing your life because they believe you are pregnant with my child.”

  “What?”

  He finishes washing me before washing himself. I smell like him now. Like he did on the night of our wedding in the confessional. Like he has every night he’s come to me. It’s the scent that clings to his pillow and sheets. Subtle, dark, and deeply masculine.

  Once he’s finished washing himself, he opens the shower door and reaches for a towel, also black. He wraps it around my shoulders, and I take it from him, drying myself off before securing it. He takes another for himself and ties it low around his hips.

  I watch the muscles of his back work beneath the ink of yet another skull as he walks ahead of me not hiding himself from me anymore.

  “Why skulls?” I ask. It’s as if he’s tattooed death on every inch of himself.

  He raises his eyebrows as he opens a dresser drawer to retrieve a pair of briefs and trousers and gets dressed.

  “On your body. Your face,” I say.

  “Our family crest.”

  “That’s not it.”

  “And you know this how?” He pulls on a sweater, cashmere stretching tight over muscular shoulders and arms.

  “I see you, Santiago. I think I’ve always seen you.”

  He grins, walks toward me to take the towel and tug it tighter around me, jerking me toward him. “Have you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then tell me what you see.”

  I bite my lip, glance away, my gaze catching on the tattoo gun he threw to the floor. That gives me courage. A little at least. I shift my gaze up to his.

  “You can’t stand to look at yourself. I don’t think it’s because you think you’re ugly. I don’t think you care about ugly or beautiful. That’s too simple for you. I think you see it as a weakness. I think you’re afraid when people see the scars, see what you’ve done to hide them, they’ll know you’re human. Breakable. Like the rest of us.”

  His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows and a muscle ticks in his jaw. “I didn’t realize you were studying the human psyche at school.” He secures the towel at my chest and turns away to pick up the slacks he’d been wearing. He feels through his pockets and takes out his phone.

  “That’s not all.”

  “No?” he asks, using his thumb to unlock it.

  “No.” I take a step toward him feeling braver. I put my hand on his arm and push the phone away so he looks at me.

  “I’m all ears,” he says with an expression that says he’s humoring me, but I know he’s not. I’m right and he knows it and he doesn’t like it.

  “I think you don’t have a mirror in your bathroom or anywhere that I’ve seen in the house outside of maybe the bedrooms you don’t use because when you see yourself, you see that weakness and you can’t stand it.”

  He smiles tightly. “You’re clever but not as clever as you think,” he says, tucking wet hair behind my ear, turning my head a little to study the stencil side.

  I wonder if it’s washed away at least a little. I am curious to see it for some strange reason I can’t quite explain.

  He meets my eyes. “I did this so I would remember.”

  I remain silent waiting for more.

  “I did it so I would never forget all the lives that were lost, half of my own family wiped out in a matter of moments. I did it so I would always remember that when I walked away, I became indebted to them. I did it so I never forget that I owe them. That vengeance is due them.” His fingers tighten. “And mine will be the hand that deals that vengeance.”

  I swallow, feel my shoulders cave a little at that because what I felt just moments ago, what we had when he made love to me—and it was love making—it’s gone. And I’m the one who reminded him of his hate.

  “Go to your room, Ivy.”

  The phone in his hand buzzes. He shifts his gaze to it but doesn’t pick up.

  “You lied for me,” I say, realizing that the only way The Tribunal would think I was pregnant would be if he told them I was. “Why?”

  His cheeks hollow out as he draws in a deep breath. “What you did is a crime punishable by death in the eyes of The Society.”

  My knees waver, goose bumps rising along my flesh.

  “There is the law and there is our law.”

  “The Society’s law.”

  He nods. “I was offered three choices for your sentence.”

  My heartbeat accelerates.

  “Death by poison. Fitting.”

  “Santia—”

  “Death by hanging.”

  He catches my arms when my knees give out and walks me backward to sit me in the chair he’d sat in the night I’d slept in his bed.

  “And a loyalty test which I’m not sure you would survive.”

  “What is that?”

  “The Tribunal has fairly archaic methods when it comes to punishing those who betray us. You probably know this.”

  I shake my head but remember that scaffold in the small courtyard hidden by the towering walls of The Tribunal’s building.

  “Torture. Something medieval. While I bear witness.”

  “But...You can’t let them—” the words are barely audible, my palms sweaty, fingernails digging into the leather of the chair I cling to in order to control the trembling.

  “The benefit of this final method is threefold when you think about it. It will ensure you provide the name of the person or persons who supplied you with the poison as well as confirm your loyalty—”

  “By torturing me.”

  “And it will test me as well. My loyalty to The Society as I stand by and watch my wife punished.”

  “But…”

  “Not that they’d forego the methods necessary to draw a name from your lips if I were to choose either of the other options.”

  My face must go very pale. I feel the blood drain and watch him watch me.

  “But, as you know, I have standing within The Society.” He gives a dark smile and brushes his knuckles over the stenciled side of my face. “Since your crime was against me, as your husband, I offered an alternative.”

  “The tattoo.”

  He nods. His phone buzzes again and he silences it. “Considering the fact that you are carrying my heir—”

  “But I’m not…”

  “I know that.”

  “You lied to save my life.”

  His eyes narrow again. He takes a moment to answer. “For selfish reasons, Ivy. Do not be fooled.”

  “What if I can’t get pregnant?”

  “Can’t?” He cocks his head to the side. “Is there something I should know?”

  I shake my head quickly. Too quickly. And as I rise to my feet, for the first time in my life, I am grateful for the vert
igo, for the dizziness, because when I stumble into his arms, he catches me and I hear the curse he mutters as he easily lifts me off my feet.

  For a moment, just one moment, I close my eyes and lean against him and just let him hold me, cradle me, give in to this illusion of safety. I can give myself that, can’t I? I can have just this little stitch in time.

  He lays me down on his bed, on the bed in which we just made love. It still smells like us.

  “Let me clarify then, if there’s nothing you have to tell me. If there is no baby, their sentence will stand. They will not accept mine.”

  “What happens to you if they find out you lied?”

  He’s quiet for a moment. “There will be a reckoning, I’m certain, but I will live.”

  “And I won’t.” I can't think about that part. “And you’ll be punished because of me. If I can’t get pregnant, I mean.”

  He doesn’t reply but I don’t need him to.

  “And the tattoo…my face, it still happens. You’re still going to do it.” It’s not a question. The pregnancy, this non-existent, impossible pregnancy, it doesn’t get me or him out of this. Me to take the punishment. Him to deal it.

  “Why did you do it?” he asks, looking wretched, sounding even more so.

  I can’t control the emotion, the tears that come. I don’t even try. Because I’m doomed. We both are.

  17

  Ivy

  Back in my room I study my face by the dim light in the bathroom mirror. The stencil is smeared but not completely gone. It matches his but is somehow more feminine.

  In a grotesque way, it’s beautiful. Like his.

  Like him.

  I turn away, fingers tightening around the counter. I can't think that. I am his enemy even if he was never mine. He hates me.

  But he also lied to The Tribunal to save me no matter his simple excuse of selfishness. It’s not for the reason of having me birth his babies or torturing me himself. I just don’t believe that’s true. Because just as ugly and beautiful are both too simple concepts for him, so is this. We are bound to one another. There is something here. And he’s human no matter how much he tries to prove himself a demon.

  I turn my gaze back up to the mirror, brush the hair back from the stenciled side of my face and touch the single dot of black ink high on my cheekbone. I won’t be able to wash that off. And I’m glad.

  But there are other, more pressing matters to consider now. I don’t have the luxury of time to ruminate. To romanticize. Maybe that’s a gift. A smack to the back of my head to remind me where I am. Who I am dealing with. And I don’t only mean my husband.

  I scrub my face and return to my bedroom, to the window. The boards have been removed. Doctor’s orders. I need sunlight. I push the curtain back and look out into the distance, to the still dark night. I don’t have much time.

  My bedroom door isn’t locked but I’ve been waiting until I’m sure Antonia and the others have gone to bed.

  Mercedes is gone. I overheard Antonia telling Santiago that Mercedes would be spending the night with a friend. Santiago seemed less than pleased when he found out which friend even though Antonia made a point of the fact that it’s a female friend. I guess the same rules apply to Mercedes even considering her rank. She needs to remain a virgin until marriage.

  Santiago has been gone since walking me back to my room hours ago. Whatever called him away seemed somewhat urgent or at least important enough to distract him. I wonder if it has to do with the calls he kept dismissing when we were talking in his bedroom.

  But now that I’m sure I’m alone, I walk out into the hallway and down the stairs. I need to find a phone. I need to call Abel. Because when that doctor examines me tomorrow—today—if he were to take a blood test or look for any abnormality in my hormone levels, he will figure out why I’m not getting pregnant.

  I can’t think about what Santiago will do then.

  Could I tell him the truth? He wouldn’t be angry with me then. He couldn’t be. Well, he could. I knew even if it was after the fact. But what would he do to Abel?

  I’m barefoot and dressed in a bikini with a plush robe on top. My closet has been unlocked. If anyone happens to come upon me, I will let them know I am going to use the pool. Again, doctor’s orders.

  The first place I go to search is the kitchen hoping one of the housekeepers left their cell phone there. I’ve seen them use their phones around the house, both the ones who live on-site and the others.

  The lamp over the stove is on and between that and the filtered light coming in through the large window from the garden I go through each of the drawers, check every possible place but find nothing. I go into the living room. Check there. I never searched for one before, so it’s possible there’s a landline I just haven’t come across. I look in the armoire, the drawers of the antique side tables, pause to take in the ornate gilded piano that I’ve never heard anyone play.

  I leave that room behind, my gaze moving toward the corridor that leads to the library, to his study. I hadn’t seen a phone there and if he catches me in there again, he’ll kill me. I search the other downstairs rooms and the dining room, the smaller sitting room and the large one I had been in with the doctor but find nothing.

  I walk back into the center of the large hall and turn a circle to see if there is any place I’ve missed. The bedrooms upstairs are locked and if any are open, they’re not in use. I went through every unlocked room when I first had permission to roam.

  I walk into the dining room and remember the night we ate in here. I stand at the window in exactly the place he’d stood, where he’d looked so solemn, so lost in thought staring out into the garden. I wonder now if it was his own reflection he had been studying in the glass and not the garden at all.

  Walking to the liquor cabinet, I open the doors and move bottles around, not even sure what I’m hoping to find anymore. When I see his brand of scotch, I open it, sniff the contents. This scent lingers in his office, too.

  I put it back then bend to open the drawer.

  “What are you doing?”

  I jump hitting my head on the shelf above before straightening and spinning to face Santiago. How did I not hear him?

  “I…nothing.” I close the drawer then the doors of the cabinet before hiding my hands behind my back as if to hide my guilt. I struggle to hold his gaze.

  Tell him the truth. Tell him now.

  His gaze moves to the cabinet. I notice the drops of rain on his hair, his shoulders. He must have just gotten home.

  “Come with me, Ivy,” he says and, without waiting for me, he turns to walk toward the corridor that I know will lead to his study. He doesn’t look back to make sure I’m following. He knows I’ll come.

  Using a key, he unlocks the door and opens it for me to enter. He follows me in, closes the door.

  “Sit,” he commands, touching the back of the chair I’d sat on the last time I was here as he proceeds behind his desk to push some buttons on that keyboard.

  Is he going to make me watch that footage again? The woman who looks like me but isn’t? I open my mouth to tell him I don’t want to see it when a stack of letters beneath a paperweight near the edge of the desk catches my eye. I lean closer because I recognize that handwriting.

  “Don’t touch,” he says without even looking up from his work and I pull my arm back.

  “Are they for me?” I ask, seeing Evangeline’s name in the top left corner. “They’re from my sister.”

  We look up at each other at the same time.

  “You opened them? How many are there? How long—”

  “Did you have anything to do with poisoning your father?”

  The rest of my sentence gets caught in my throat. “Did I...what?”

  He studies me for a very long minute then shakes his head and returns his attention to the keyboard and a moment later, those same screens on which I watched Santiago kiss a woman who looked a lot like me come to life.

  It’s not until then t
hat I consciously realize that I was set up. Used as a weapon in an attempt on my husband’s life. The woman was dressed exactly like me. I knew it on some level before, but it’s like the reality hits home now, and I shudder. Because who else knew what I’d be wearing?

  We watch the screens together and it’s not that night at all. What I see are various rooms of the house. The kitchen. Living room. Dining room. My bedroom.

  And me in those rooms. Well, all except my bedroom. That one’s empty and it’s just as incriminating as the others where I’m looking through every drawer, every cabinet, every nook right up until I smash my head into the cupboard when Santiago surprised me in the dining room.

  He switches the monitors off and faces me.

  “Do you want to tell me what you’re looking for exactly?”

  I stare up at him. God. What must he think of me? A thief in the night? A poisoner. Am I surprised he’s kept my sister’s letters from me? He thinks I tried to kill him. He truly believes it and can I blame him?

  The weight of that hits me.

  I shake my head and I study his face as intently as he did mine just a little while ago. And what I see isn’t pure hate like before. There’s a resignation there. An even deeper sadness.

  He believes I tried to kill him yet he lied to save my life.

  Can he save my life? What happens when they find out I’m not pregnant at all? Do they hang me?

  God. I’m going to be sick.

  Then there’s what happens to him because of me. What if he’s wrong about his standing? What about that reckoning he knows is coming?

  “I have to tell you something, Santiago.”

  He remains silent, arms folded, a hulking shadow in this room, this house. He’s ready for the worst. I wonder if he always expects the worst. After what happened to his family, to him, maybe it’s the only way he can be.

  “I won’t be pregnant next month. Or possibly the month after, but I don’t know.”

  His jaw tightens. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “The day Abel took me to that doctor, they gave me a shot. He said it was vitamins,” I start as he sets his arms by his sides, hands fisting, knuckles going white. “But even if I knew, I don’t think I could have stopped it.”