There Are No Saints (Sinners Duet #1)(37)

The truth is that Alastor didn’t linger because he knew he couldn’t conceal himself from me.

But I’m telling Mara what she knows to be true . . . the man who attacked her sees her as less than garbage. Less than dirt. An insect, struggling and dying on the windowsill, not even worthy of his notice.

“You would hurt him, Mara. You want to hurt him. He deserves it. If no one stops him, he’ll keep hurting people. It would be more than justice . . . it would be good.”

Mara faces me, eyes blazing, face flushed.

A righteous angel in the face of a demon.

“Evil men always want to justify what they do,” she says. “And it’s not by telling you all their reasons. No . . . they want to push you, and bend you, and break you until you snap. Until you do something you thought you’d never do. Until you can’t even recognize yourself. Until you’re as bad as they are. That’s how they justify themselves . . . by trying to make you the same as them.”

There’s no space between us now. My face is inches from hers, our bodies so close that her heat and mine radiates in one continuous loop, feeding the inferno between us.

“You wouldn’t kill him? If he was here, now, as helpless as you were that night?”

She meets my gaze, unflinching. “No.”

“What if he wasn’t helpless? What if it was him, or you?”

She stares into my eyes. “Then I would tell him . . . you’re not going to sneak up on me this time. We’re face-to-face now.”

She still thinks it might have been me.

She thinks I did that to her.

And yet she’s here, now, alone in this room with me, inches apart, her lips as swollen and flushed as mine . . .

She’s more twisted than I ever dared dream.





16





Mara





The night of New Voices I’m so nervous that I vomit in the gutter on the way to the show.

Cole said he’d send a car for me at 9:00.

At 8:20 I left on foot.

I’ve come to know Cole Blackwell more intimately than I would ever have imagined these last few weeks. I honestly think I might know him better than any person in this city, because it’s only around me that he lets the mask fall. And it’s not one mask—it’s dozens.

I watch him lift each to his face, one after another, each tailor-made for the person with whom he converses.

The mask for my boss Arthur is that of a fellow businessman with an emotional attachment to his young protégé—in Cole’s case, tinged with an all-too apparent romanticism.

The mask he wears around most of his employees is of a distant, autocratic artist. He has them jumping at his wild demands, all the while making just enough outlandish requests to disguise what he actually wants . . .

The mask he wears for Sonia is the most fucked up of all because it appears the most intimate. Around her, he shows his ruthlessness and wicked humor. He’ll even admit unflattering things to her. But then he turns to me, and I see the animation fall from his face, revealing the absolute blankness beneath. A sight Sonia has never glimpsed, not even for a fraction of a second. He’s too careful. He never slips.

Everything he does is deliberate and flawless.

I’m not so fucking stupid that I don’t realize he could also be using a mask on me. The most deceptive of all, because it most approximates reality.

He knows how good I am at spotting irregularities. I’m jumpy, sensitive—tiny details are glaring sirens to me. He knows this one has to be good. A real work of art. Otherwise, it won’t fool me.

All of this is to say, I have been watching Cole just as closely as he watches me. I watch while he mentors and instructs me, ripping my painting to shreds and demanding that I work and re-work it, laboring constantly, continuously, perfecting it for the show. And he’s right, that’s what fucking kills me, he’s right! The things he points out, the things he tells me to change, I see them too. I know what I have to do.

We both see the painting as it WILL be. As it HAS to be.

We see the perfect vision.

The closer it gets to perfect, the tighter Cole slips his noose around me. He thinks he has me tied up, completely under his control: in his studio, in his show, publicly known as his protégé.

He’s getting bossier by the day. Trying to take more and more of my time. Showing up outside my work, knowing when my shift is over, walking me to his studio. Taking me home again at night. Making sure I never go anywhere outside his sight, without him knowing.

I see what he’s doing.

He’s planning to pick me up in that limo tonight, already dressed for the evening, him in whatever he’s picked out for himself and me in the dress a courier brought over this morning: a stunning silk gown, slit to the navel. Elegant and dangerous. Something that would have turned every head in the gallery.

Well fuck him, I pick out my own clothes.

And nobody is gonna look at me tonight because of a low-cut dress. They’re going to stare at the painting. Because the painting is fucking gorgeous.

I stomp over to the gallery, wearing a 70s mini dress and my favorite boots.

I get there a half hour early instead of fashionably late. I could have strolled in on Cole Blackwell’s arm. Instead, I’m going to see peoples' reactions to my work. Their REAL reaction, when they don’t know I’m here.