Page 68 of The Sinner's Bargain

It’s too late to turn back now, I decided miserably.

“My father inherited the house. He and Uncle Byron were very close.” I stopped at my parents’ portrait with Blue still holding my arm. “Dad married my mom and had me.”

“I’m so sorry, Thoran,” she whispered. “I can’t imagine how hard this was for you to talk about.”

I didn’t know what to tell her, except death was inevitable and it was never natural. The Lacroix men were terrible people. They hurt and murdered the women they were supposed to protect.

Just like I had.

Five times.

But I couldn’t tell her about them. I couldn’t stand it if she looked at me with fear in her eyes. Maybe that made me a coward and weak but losing her paralyzed me.

“Show me your favorite part of the house,” Blue said, tugging on my arm and urging me away from the ghosts judging me through eyes that were so similar to mine.

I knew what she was doing.

She thought she was protecting me from the pain, but I had relived their stories a million times. I had stood before their haunting eyes and listened to their stories repeating back at me in my father’s voice.

“It’s your fate, Thoran. You can’t escape it.”

Four generations and five dead brides later, it was hard to argue my ultimate destiny.

But not her.

Not fucking her.

I didn’t give a shit what the fucking house did to me, but I would burn it to the fucking ground if it hurt her.

“Thoran?”

I tore my gaze away from the faces of my parents and grandparents and faced the woman holding my hand.

“Sorry, love. I get lost in my thoughts sometimes.”

She gave my fingers a squeeze that may as well have been my chest. “I want to see the kitchen.”

I blinked at the request. “The kitchen?”

She nodded, expression hopeful. Desperate. “Let’s get some of that tea from yesterday and you can show me your favorite book in the office. Okay? Please?”

Maybe it was the quiet desperation in her eyes begging me to go with her, but I let her guide me away from the shifting shadows and overlapping whispers. Her heels clapped against the marble for several feet while she chatted on about books she’d read and the ones she loved best. I listened, amused by her attempts.

When we rounded the final corner and hit the office doors, she stopped and faced me. Her big eyes studied my face, searching. Concerned.

“I’m fine, love,” I promised her softly. “It’s not the first time I’ve visited their portraits.”

If my assurance was supposed to ease her mind, it didn’t. If anything, she seemed even more anxious.

“How often?”

I shrugged. “I don’t actually keep track, but they’re on the way to the office so...”

Sadness crinkled deep grooves between her eyebrows. “That’s awful. Having to pass all that tragedy every day, all day must be heartbreaking.”

I hadn’t actually thought about it. Their pictures had been there since the beginning. I couldn’t imagine them anywhere else.

“It’s a fact of life, sweetheart. It’s full of tragedy.”

---