: Chapter 59

Briony

I’d always known.

Somewhere deep within myself, the voice of intuition spoke loud and clear.

I’d been given the clues, the answers, the truth by my own discovery without the deception of being told.

The Devil’s Doll.

Aero taught me, but not by telling. He opened my mind to the realities of the world around me by placing me in his chaotic maze. He took my world hostage, and only by my own abilities and choices did he grant me the freedom of my own free will.

He’d always wanted more from me. He saw that fire within my soul that ached for a world in which I would thrive. The knowledge of who I was as a powerful woman to my core.

He had me on the floor in Alastor’s home, on my hands and knees, opening the safe and directly handing him the truth of my past. While training at Aero’s, I’d found the paperwork and held those pieces to the puzzle in my head. Alastor Abbot, Margaret Moore, the birth certificate that had been altered. She was my mother. Struck down by the same fate as Aero’s for being nothing more than a stain needing to be scrubbed out by the men who’d been haunted by their careless mistakes.

Saint helped paint the final stroke to complete the illusion before me. When he was talking with Callum on my patio, it’d all clicked.

Alastor Abbott was my father by blood. My parents couldn’t have any more children and were the perfect family to receive such a generous donation from a dead woman. A son who wanted out of the faith, a baby girl they could mold with deceptive lies in order to control. Just like they did Aero’s mother, they killed mine in cold blood, brushing yet another life under the rug, and gave me to prestigious members of the church.

The same parents who Baret has discovered conveniently took that mission trip in order to disappear, sanctioning the order of the church to take care of the dark stain themselves. The stain that pushed too far, seeking more for herself in a world that demanded its sheep shut up and abide.

I was always a threat to them, just as he was. Out of their control. An outsider. A stray who’d developed the intelligence to see from beyond the confines of an organized religion built on deceptive rules. Aero was right. They never wanted me. They wanted obedience to keep the train of deceitful power in motion.

Aero gave me my voice by allowing me to find it for myself. He empowered what they’d labeled sin.

And in that room, he got his vengeance.

I watched as his father panicked while being tied to that pole by Nox. I bore witness to Aero releasing his pain through the knife in his hand, giving himself pure satisfaction with every cry of agony that dripped from Callum’s lips. I embraced the way life slipped from his eyes as Aero tightened that belt to the pole, both of us watching as the breath he took became his last. A man who took everything from everyone around him, ruthlessly scheming his way through life under the veil of faith. Saint’s horrified screams filled the room in harmonic beauty as he watched his father’s murder. He fell apart, feeling every bit of pain he deserved by honoring him with the gift of a life of endless affliction.

I witnessed the boy who’d been stripped of a life of happiness that could’ve been his, get revenge on the evil that stole his innocence. I gritted my teeth alongside him as he carved layers of flesh from Bishop Caldwell’s arms and thighs, noting the disturbing sound of the strips of skin slapping and sticking against the cool concrete as they fell. Saint passed out on top of the table as the spurts of warm blood splattered across our faces like a badge of revengeful honor. The thrill of knowing no child would be violated so violently filled my heart as I watched Aero cut it off, the screams of torture echoing throughout my body before being muffled out by his own shriveled, bloodied dick.

It was cruel. Most would consider it downright evil. But all I saw was the divine, heavenly justice of a man who deserved far worse than any pain we could inflict on this earth.

I stood behind Aero, gripping his bloodied hand in mine as one life vanished and a new life was reborn.

Evil comes in many forms, often masked by those that proclaim holiness. Some evil lurks through life as a bystander, watching and silently subjecting to the torment of others by turning a blind eye to their pain. Some evil isn’t evil at all. It’s dark energy coming full circle, granting vengeance on those who ache for power over the weak.

I understand his freedom now. Aero’s liberty from a past where our minds were warped to convince us we were born into sin, needing to spend our lives atoning for simply surviving. But we refuse to be held down by the weight of sin created by men of a different time and circumstance. Our lives are our own to live, and societal restrictions to human nature that feel natural, pure, and simply organic can no longer contain us.

We should be able to love without judgment. Without restraint. Without men trying to rule us with their perceptions of truth.

And because of that desire to live our lives to the fullest, we’ve been given our chance.

Sirens blaze in the background as we zip through town one final time, the smoke of the burning church rising tall and dark in our rearview mirror.

We’d ended it. Tarnished the institution they thought they’d built on brick and stone, only to send it crumbling to an ashy pile of the darkest deceptions with the proof of their lies in the forefront.

Saint’s fate lies in living out the rest of his days with the daily reminder of the faith he once held in his hands. The hands that now hold his scars. The weight of his guilt on his shoulders every time he sees the reflection of truth within that mirror.

We destroyed the dynasty just as planned. The video went viral, and the Westwood name was broken forever. All hope of Saint becoming a bishop was savagely destroyed. Brady and his family made a statement after the announcement of Bishop Caldwell’s disappearance. One brave child brought out the courage in others, and before they knew it, the town was lit up like a Christmas tree with statements from different victims coming out of the woodwork.

We weren’t naïve. We knew somewhere, evil of the same sort would rise again, and the vicious cycle of control and abuse would continue on again one day.

One dynasty at a time, I told Aero, as we lit the flames together.

And now, Aero grips my exposed thigh possessively as he drives, bringing me out of my memories, the other hand gripping the wheel of the blacked-out Audi. He’s come to crave any form of touch now, needing to be connected to me, always holding me in his strong embrace, keeping one protective hand on me at all times. He can’t get enough, and refuses to waste any more of his life without it.

Pulling the car over onto the side of the wooded road, he puts it in park and turns to face me.

“What are you doing?” I ask with amusement. “Baby, we’re going to miss our flight!” I whine, but his gaze remains focused on me. “Baret said the plane is about to leave the tarmac!”

We were headed out of town with the help of our little secret weapon. Baret had been receiving his own encrypted messages from Aero, enlightening him to the threats surrounding me, without ever really knowing him. Together, they had protected me, one from the inside, the other from the outside. I’d forever hold him in my heart as my brother, even if not by blood.

Wandering to unexplored parts of the world was our new goal. Parts that were often labeled ‘The Bush.’ I’d told Aero that revenge there looks beautiful there this time of year, and that the wild game was plentiful in the developing country. His wicked smile told me he understood just how stunning that view could be and just how sweet vengeance tastes in the uncultivated country, where more lies spread to innocent lives in the form of missionaries.

We’ll continue our fight for those too weak to fight for themselves while still promoting the freedom of beliefs and varying religions. As it stands, we both still have our faith. A faith in something more powerful than anything man could conjure.

His ring-covered hand releases my seatbelt, and he pushes the driver’s seat as far back as it allows. Gripping my wrist, he pulls me onto his lap as I squeal at his force, my legs opening beneath my floral skirt to surround his thighs. He cups my neck between his palms, slowly sliding those hands over the curve of my jaw, fingers grazing the skin directly around my lips, his expression growing serious.

“You know, when they were torturing me in that room, tied down at their mercy…” I flinch in remembrance as he continues. “…the only thing that held me together was you.”

I swallow, my eyes brimming with tears. Learning that he willingly surrendered himself to his most loathed enemies with the eternal trust that I would save him was as painful as it was empowering. His thumb strokes across my cheek before trailing down to my bottom lip.

“But it wasn’t pain that held me together. It was my ability to recall the feel of your gentle, comforting touch.”

“Aero…” I stifle a sob, my heart squeezing like a fist in my chest.

“I was strengthening you all while you were unknowingly strengthening me.” I feel him harden beneath me as his breathing changes, but the power in his direct gaze has me locked to those hazel eyes.

I trail my hands over his scars, running my fingers over the fleshy healed wound above his eye. The badge of honor he proudly wears from the night my mother was killed is a chilling reminder of a promise kept by the masked man who was always watching. Forever protecting.

My palm cups his cheek, my thumb trailing the scar near his lip, then the one lining his jaw. He embraces my touch, sighing in comforted relief, finally opening himself to the intensity of my loving displays of affection, before he continues.

“I love you with every echoed beat of my dark and hollowed heart, the hole in which contains my shattered ghost of a soul. I love you with all the fractured tears inside my tortured mind. With every agonizing breath I breathe.”

With his hand sliding to the back of my neck, he pulls me forward until our foreheads rest together, the tips of our noses grazing each other’s, as his direct stare pierces through the depths of me.

“You helped me to find a fragment of peace in a world constructed of pain,” he whispers against my lips, his bottom lip quivering. “I just,”—he swallows—“needed you to know.”

I smile graciously against his mouth, feeling entirely blessed and fortunate beyond words.

“Love is beneath us,” I utter breathlessly, trailing my lips along the softness of his.

His lips mirror mine, and his hauntingly beautiful smile at my declaration warms the deepest part of my soul. His tongue tastes my lips before I meet it with mine, sealing our connection.

My heart is owned by the man that saved me by giving me the voice to save myself.

A connection like ours isn’t meant for love stories. It’s tragic and tarnished in its root. Full of dark and disturbing desires that tradition and societal normalities cannot contain. A devotion to another, grown through the dirt of tragedies of the past.

It’s the poison of a new flower, opening in its toxic bloom to a world that isn’t ready to accept the dark beauty of its daggered thorns. Transmitting a rare, yet bitter illness that seeps its way into your bloodstream, holding you ransom to your desires, captivating and controlling only by devouring the fallacies of who we thought we were from the inside out.

It’s sick love.

And it’s entirely ours to own.