Atone (Recovered Innocence #2)(57)

“I wish you’d leave,” I tell him, not really meaning it. “Just go away.”

“I can’t.”

I raise my head. “Why not?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is it to get back at me? Do you hate me that much now?”

“I don’t hate you at all. The exact opposite.”

“Then why are you punishing me?”

My choice of words surprises him. “Does it feel like that to you?”

I nod.

“Because being without you hurts more when I’m not with you.”

“It’s easier for me when you’re not right here where I can see you, but can’t touch you.”

“What am I supposed to do?” The change in him is swift, catching me off guard. “How could you?” There’s more than six years’ worth of agony and pent-up rage in his voice. His hands form tight fists that shake. “How could you let that man go to prison when you could’ve prevented it?”

“I told you why.”

“I know what you told me, but I still can’t reconcile what you did with who you are and what you’ve been through. You of all people should know what it’s like to be held against your will, to not know if you’ll ever get out, to wonder if you’ll ever get out. And knowing me, hearing what I went through. How can you live with what you did?”

“You want to know why I don’t care about what happened to Sam? Because Sam liked the little girls. The eleven-and twelve-year-olds. I was too old for him at fourteen. So no, I don’t give three shits about what happened to Sam. I hope he’s getting butt-f*cked every day. I hope he gets forced to his knees to suck cock like he forced Kitty and Bunny to suck his. I was glad when Javier pinned that murder on Sam. And I was pissed at Cherry for trying to screw it up with her crisis of conscience. If it wasn’t for her stupidity, she wouldn’t be dead, I wouldn’t have been beaten and stolen the thumb drive, I wouldn’t have gone on the run, and I wouldn’t be here with you now.”

He shakes his head. “You’re not making any sense. Some of those things are good things.”

“That turned out bad. Stealing the thumb drive signed my death warrant. Going on the run is the reason Javier has Marie. I’m here with you, but not with you. You tell me how any of that’s good.”

He opens his mouth, then closes it. Slowly blinks. Tries again. “But you’d still be with Javier if none of that happened.”

He doesn’t understand, and I’m done trying to explain it. I lay my head back down. “Just go away.”

“Vera.” He says my name softly, with care, as though it’s a fragile thing.

“Please.”

The quiet, dull snick of the door closing echoes through my whole body. I’ve said a lot of goodbyes in my life, but I never felt them. All I can see, touch, taste, smell, and hear is this one. I am nothing but goodbye.





Chapter 29


Beau


I stand outside the conference room door like a f*cking guard because I can’t be away from Vera and I can’t be with her. I’m thoroughly and completely f*cked in every way.

Her world has incomprehensible rules that change constantly. Just when I think I understand how it works, she throws in a twist that turns everything around, inside out, and backward. She’s a f*cking survivalist, navigating shifting terrain. Kill or be killed. I understand something of that mentality from prison. The f*cked-up shit that went down in there…Another place with f*cked-up rules and f*cked-up people who don’t give a f*ck.

I understand why she did what she did. I really do. I just can’t get past it. Maybe there’s something fundamentally wrong with me. Some defect that only lets me see things in black and white, right and wrong. Yes, that f*cker should be locked up. He’s a f*cking sick bastard. But he should be locked up for the sick-ass crimes he committed, not the one he didn’t, because that means that the real killer, Javier, still walks free. It also means the councilman skates on having sex with underage girls and helping to cover up his wife’s murder. A shit-ton of wrongs don’t make a shit-ton of rights.

I wish I could see it the way Vera does. She used what little power she had to affect a small change for girls who were younger than her, but she never really changed their situation. Javier going to prison for murder…that would’ve affected a f*cking truckload of change. I’m na?ve. I know. Even after everything I’ve been through, I f*cking hold on to justice prevailing, even though justice bent me over and f*cked me in the ass.

And I’m hurting her with it. She called it a punishment. Fucking hell. What is wrong with me? Why can’t I get past it? Why can’t I shrug it off and take the win where I can get it, like Vera? We’re alike in so many ways except this fundamental one. It’s not fair. It’s not f*cking fair.

Cora finds me at my lowest, most pathetic, standing outside Vera’s door. Her face creases with worry.

“Am I wrong here?” I ask her. “Sam French is a kid-f*cking bastard, yet I can’t justify him going to prison for a murder he didn’t commit.”

She starts at this new information. “He’s a what?”

“Vera says he liked the little girls. She was glad to put him away. But me? I don’t f*cking know. How can I not f*cking know?”