“You all had your fun.” He turns, exhaling a plume of pale smoke. “It’s time for you to fuck off.” He comes closer while I’m still trying to process his words, and grabs my chin. That touch hurts more than it should—they bruised me all over last night.
“When the first bus to Mercy leaves this morning, you’ll be on it.”
I start to shake my head. “Why—?”
Zachary shoves his body against mine, driving me back.
A pained gasp rattles out of me when I thump into the bookshelf, but my lungs seize up a second later when something cold, sharp, and all too familiar pricks the side of my jaw. “Shake your head again, and this’ll go straight through your fucking cheek,” he says.
My body goes rigid. I swallow hard, my mind reeling as I try to think of something to say.
I thought I’d seen Zachary angry before, but the rage burning in his eyes has nothing on that.
The knife slides down the front of my throat, over the front of my dress. I squeeze my eyes shut when his hand goes up under my dress.
“Look at me, Malone.”
My eyes flutter as I reluctantly force them open. The tip of the knife scrapes the inside of my thigh as he brings his hand up…and up…and up. Then it’s touching the most sensitive part of me, a breath away from slicing me apart.
In sheer panic, I glance at the curtain separating this room from the next. If I screamed, would they—?
“I know what you’re thinking,” Zachary says. “But I’m in charge, not them. If I say you leave, they’ll agree.”
My skin tries to crawl off my body as I slowly pull my gaze back to Zachary. Cold, dead eyes watch me for a second.
“Why?” I murmur, not able to stop the tears welling in my eyes. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because you and that fucking priest take us for fools,” Zachary hisses. The knife pricks my skin, but doesn’t break the surface.
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.”