The Rebirth of Sin (Wicked Trinity Book 2) (6 page)

“I will. Good—”

“Oh!” she interjected on the brink of hanging up the phone. “Don’t forget about the fundraising event, Keaton. Your father and I would like you and Noah to be there. No excuses. This is important. We have several fundraising activities planned and we need your presence there—the both of you.”

A marked tinge of disappointment infiltrated her tone. Deciphering that something bothered her beyond Noah’s lack of desire to network at events, I put my need to sleep aside. “Is there something wrong?”

“The damn sitting Senator,” she blurted out, the words obviously paining her to say. She was never one to easily admit when something was amiss, and she’d always taught me to do the same. “I need clean donations and can’t use my funds to do so. I’m having trouble attracting investors.”

“I thought I heard something about Braedan Michaels helping you?”

“He is, and he has been such a blessing.”

My interest was successfully piqued over the man who was toted as a saint by my friends and my mother. It was hard to admit, but kindness from strangers would probably always be met with my skepticism. “How did you meet him?”

“At one of the events you missed since you’ve returned to D.C. Veronica introduced us. He’s a well-mannered and very, very nice-looking man.” Her wistful sigh rattled my eardrums. “If only you were single—”

“Mother.” I cut her off, stuck between embarrassment and disbelief. 

“Braedan has been very valuable to me and he’s certainly well known in my circles. I’ve been told he’s an up and comer in D.C. who came from a long history of wealth and important holdings. You know I believe in making one’s own way. I’m not comfortable with using him. He’s far too kind and too giving. I’ve told him my thoughts, and he’s belayed my fears by stating to me that helping me makes him feel incredible, but still… Such a selfless, charming man.”

She bordered on sounding like an advertisement for him. Noah’s reclusiveness and sudden aloofness had obviously worn her thin. As usual, she was constantly on the hunt for the perfect man for me. Noah showcasing what she probably deemed were detrimental flaws caused her to immediately begin seeking out what she may have thought were better prospects for a companion. 

“As soon as I feel better, I’ll see what I can do about making appearances with Noah.” Avoiding her bait, I made a promise I wasn’t sure if I could keep.

“You’re a doll baby. Thank you.”

Closing my eyes, I shoved my hands underneath the pillow. My cell phone buzzed on my table mere minutes after I ended the call with my mother. I peeked at it, noting that the doorman doubling as a security guard that Noah had hired was calling. He was stationed at the ground floor seemingly at all times. I couldn’t have been sure, but I was almost certain he slept down there somewhere. “Yes?”

“There is a Brandy Moreaux to see you.” He paused. “She told me to tell you that she brought you homemade chicken noodle soup.” He paused and the soft sound of paper rustling filled the dead space. “She isn’t on Mr. Oliver’s list, and I can’t get ahold of him to find out if she’s okay to visit.”

List? Noah had a list of approved visitors? 

I told Lem, the guard, to send her up. 

The instant she came off the elevator, she hugged me, hard. My attempt to stifle the cry of anguish was futile.

She grabbed my shoulder while steadying the Tupperware bowl in her other hand. “Nathan said you were having cramps.”

Stiff in my movements, I took the bowl from her hands and carried it into the kitchen area. “You spoke to Nathan?”

“He told me I was being a bitch to you, then I told him why.”

After setting the bowl down on the counter, I turned to her, waiting for an explanation. 

Her eyes brimmed with tears, quickly spilling out onto her cheeks.

“Brandy?” I stepped forward and tucked her dark hair over her shoulders. “Talk to me.”

“I loved and hated the book you gave me.” She forced the words out as though there was barely any air left in her lungs. She lifted her chin and sniffled. “It was like you were reminding me of what I’m so mad at you about. We were supposed to be friends. Our mothers are best friends. We’ve known each other forever. So why…did you keep so much from me? Why did you run away and act like you couldn’t trust the people who loved you to protect you?”

I had no answer for her, and it was difficult to hold her gaze while having no idea how to immediately fix what I had done wrong.

“Veronica would’ve locked you down in her home like you were the priciest antique piece at Sotheby’s. She would’ve hired a hitman to kill Gregory and kept you safe until the job was done. We all would’ve done everything we could’ve. You ran. You didn’t trust us. And because you didn’t trust us, some crazy lunatics took advantage of you. I was
so
pissed. I don’t care if that makes me a bitch. I was mad and hurt. I wanted you to be safe, but I blamed you for putting yourself in that situation. The street is for people who don’t have—you have everything, Keaton. You just threw it and us all away like it meant nothing. Why didn’t you trust us?”

I fought against breaking the mask, hiding the shattered Keaton and revealing the falsely happy Keaton she and many people from my past had known me to be. The mask was weak, cracked, and shattering piece by piece. “I was scared that Gregory would take more people away from me. I wasn’t thinking straight.” I quickly grasped her balled hands and held them to either side of my face. “I can’t really take back my mistakes, Brandy. I can only make up for them.”

“I know,” she admitted, releasing the severe downtrodden look imposing upon her face. “I’m not trying to be the heartless bitch who doesn’t feel bad. I cried for you almost every night after what that psychotic asshole did to Reese and his sister. I cried every fucking night when you were out on the street, and I cried again when you were found and everyone found out what happened to you.” Slipping her hands from mine, she put her arms around me and attempted to pull me into an embrace.

I softly sucked my teeth, fighting back from the rifling edge of agony and wrapped my arms around her.

“You’re so different now. It’s hard to adjust to the new…you.”

“I haven’t really changed that much, have I?” I stepped back, still holding her in my arms

“Uh…yeah.” She dropped her arms from me and wiggled out of my hold. Walking with hard and noisy steps, she popped the Tupperware bowl inside the microwave and set the timer to warm up the soup. Resting her lower half against the counter, she gripped it and contemplated the floor. “No one can blame you for being different. You’ve been through a shit ton. I can’t imagine what I’d be like if I had to see all that you’ve seen. Between Gregory and those crazy people who kidnapped you. And Noah…”

I looked up at her. “What do you mean…
and
Noah?”

“Never mind.” She quickly turned her back on me and stared at the microwave. “Forget I said anything.”

“No, Brandy. What do you mean
and Noah
? None of you have met him to have any judgments on him, so what do you mean?”

“We only have theories.” She turned back around and crossed her arms over her chest. “He was the madman’s brother. Crazy is genetic. We all think that maybe he helped brainwash you and that’s why you’re still with him.”

“That’s not true at all,” I rebuffed, my voice slightly shrill. “He saved me.”

“That’s the problem, Keaton.” She exhaled hard enough to move a lock of long brown naturally wavy hair from draping her face. “We think that if he had saved you, you would’ve made it home a long time ago. And why did he wait so long to go find you once you were out? He should’ve been at your side the second you escaped. It all sounds so…”

“So?”

“So untrue.”

“I’m not lying about what happened.”

With her face wrought with pity, she stepped forward and took both of my hands in hers. “I know one thing about you probably hasn’t changed. You’re still trying to hide things because you’re afraid of people being judgy. I’m your friend—we’re all still your friends, Keaton. We weren’t friends with each other before, but we bonded over you.” She backed away, holding strongly to the sternness shrouding her face. “You didn’t even let us see you or pick up our calls when you came back. You started traveling the next day. It was like we were never your friends and that you never cared about us or trusted us. It…hurt, Keaton.”

I averted my eyes. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking straight. Sometimes, I think I’m still not thinking straight.”

“We’re here for you in every way. And…don’t get upset with me”—she began to gnaw on her short nails—“but I think Veronica is on a mission to find a man for you.”

My gaze darted to hers and bled with disbelief and mortification. “I have Noah.”

“
None
of us trust him.”

“If you all got to know him—”

“Do we really need to? I haven’t seen Braedan, but on top of everyone around us bowing to his altar, Veronica can’t stop talking about him. You know how picky that crazy woman is. Maybe you should…meet him?”

“I can’t believe we’re talking about this while we’re standing inside Noah’s apartment.”

“You mean your boyfriend’s apartment?”

“I said that, didn’t I?”

“No. Does he even have a title?”

Since I had introduced him to my parents, I’ve avoided giving him any titles. I couldn’t quite put a finger on why. I told him I’d never know if I could love him, and it might’ve been what was missing. I cared for him deeply, and in some capacity, I felt comfortable with him. I’d been rearranged to a person whom no one with normal thoughts and a normal life would’ve understood. I didn’t want the embarrassment and failed trials of finding someone I could love only to lose them to my past and my rocky present. Noah was difficult to love, but easy to be with—or at least, he used to be. 

Noah had warned me to shield myself against developing feelings for him, and it concerned me that if I ever did, he would quell that love by destroying me. My guilt had begun to weigh heavily on me, because if he’d decided he’d had enough of me and wanted something more from someone else, I wouldn’t experience the agony of earth-shattering heartbreak. There were rare times I tried to see a way through my ironclad wall and feel a deeper emotion toward him. It was the one thing I couldn’t fake enough to make it become a reality. There was a mental block I couldn’t access, and it kept me from loving him. 

“No.” The truth was a sharp pebble and almost impossible to swallow. “He doesn’t have a title. He doesn’t need one. We are…kind of living together.”

She looked around. “I don’t see you living anywhere here. There is no
you
anywhere here. It’s four brick walls, cold, stark…all Noah. There is no place in this cold warehouse that screams Keaton.”

I didn’t have the energy to argue with her, even if I felt I should have. Nothing she had said could’ve been successfully debated. “I’m really tired, Brandy. I’m sorry to kick you out, but do you mind? I called in sick to work and…”

She grabbed my arm and suddenly studied my face. She touched my back again, making me suck my teeth. She spun me around and lifted up my shirt before I could protest. As I turned around, I tried to sort through the mess inside my head and find a way to explain. I came up with nothing.

She stared at me, unmoving and silent. As if coming out of a daze, she blinked and began to shake her head. “I’m not even going to go there with you,” she said quietly. “Because you know better. Don’t blame me if I start actually liking Veronica and helping her do everything she can to get Noah-crazy-fucking-Oliver’s hooks out of your mind.”

“The martyr has to die, so he can never tell the truth of what really happened.”

-THE SECT

In spite of the nature of the situation surrounding me, I could count on the sanctuary to give peace—even if it was temporary. It became a ritual I never missed a day of: run every morning and come to the altar to pray. 

At Rebirth, it was different. I had to make my own sanctuary inside my home there. I kept the door locked, making sure no one would ever find out about it. If anyone at Rebirth entered, it would taint it. Besides Keaton, every single fucking one of the people were evil or some aspect of evil that had to be purged from the world. I wouldn’t count the ones who stayed in the houses as pure, either. We all had a choice. Their choice to kill for revenge made them no better than the criminals in the theater. Only one could be called an exception. She wasn’t a member; she was something bigger than the idea of Rebirth. 

In the world outside, it was worse. No one could claim clean hands. Public churches were different. They were built on prayers and blessings. The ground was consecrated. No matter how morally shitty the inhabitants or visitors were, they were sacred places.

As I prayed, I fingered the cross necklace around my neck—the one I only wore when I was inside a church. I never prayed for God to purge me of evil. I wasn’t. He gave me a vengeful spirit for a reason, and I would never argue with my blessings. The Bible wasn’t a conduit to me like it served to be for most people. It was a tainted piece of literature, altered and malformed by humanity. Nothing mortal symbolized a catalyst. Nothing stood between my direct communication between me and the Creator.