Page 90 of Sinful

“I called in Dr. Kramer from the city to operate on you as soon as I heard what had happened. She’s the best of the best,” he said, tone smoothly switching from angry to clinical. “You’ll need to rest for a while longer, but you’ll be fine in the end. No major damage.”

My brows furrowed. “Really?”

“Yes. As I said, you’re very lucky. A vein was nicked, so you lost a hell of a lot of blood, but once that was repaired, you wereout of the woods,” he explained. “The stick went right through you. Didn’t hit anything important. You’ll end up with a very nasty scar, though.”

“Oh well. It’s just a scar.”

“Hmph.” His lips tightened again. “You can’t say I didn’t warn you. Itoldyou it was dangerous up there.”

“And I told you it was an accident. The Covenant didn’t hurt me.”

He snorted derisively and reached over to the bedside table. “One of them left this for you,” he said, lifting up a charm made from twigs and bones tied together with twine. “He told the admitting nurse that it’s a special good luck charm. Supposedly it’ll keep you safe as long as you have it.”

“Right. Just leave it.”

He sat back again. “So… have you found any answers up there yet?”

“Not yet. But I’m still working on it.” I rubbed my eyes and yawned again. The wound didn’t hurt too much now, but the fatigue was killing me. “By the way, why didn’t you tell me you went to college with Augustus Trudeau?”

My father sat up, looking thunderstruck. “What?”

“You knew him, years ago. Why didn’t you tell me?”

Twin flames ignited in his eyes, and he leapt to his feet. “That slimy bastard stole your mother from me! Do you think Ieverwant to speak about him?” he spat, hands balling at his sides.

“Dad—”

He cut me off. “And it wasn’t just me. He stole her fromyou. You had to grow up without a mother because of that piece of shit. Because ofallthose fucking cultists!”

“Jesus, Dad. Calm down.”

His face suddenly softened, and he sank back into the chair. “Sorry,” he muttered. “I’m just… this subject always gets me emotional. I don’t like to talk about it.”

“I know. But I think I deserve an answer. It’s weird that you never told me you knew him.”

He bristled, face splintering into a thousand warring emotions. “I didn’t tell you about it because it was my fault,” he finally muttered, looking down at his feet.

I frowned. “What?”

“What happened to your mother. The whole thing was my fault.” He scrubbed a hand over his face, inhaled sharply, and looked back up. “You’re right—I knew Augustus in college, decades ago. He was… strange. As expected, really, given his background. But somehow, we got along. We were friends.”

I raised a brow. “He said he knew you and your brothers. I didn’t realize you werefriends.”

“Well, perhaps friends isn’t exactly the right word, seeing as it was never going to be permanent. But we got along, and we were also from the same neck of the woods, so I suppose we bonded over that,” he said. “After he graduated, he went back to Alderwood, and we never spoke again.”

“So how is what happened to Mom your fault, then?”

“Fifteen years after I last saw Augustus, your mother started displaying an interest in the Covenant. I told her to leave it alone. I knew they weren’t interested in letting outsiders in. But she wrote him a lot of letters anyway, begging to set up a meeting. He always said no.” Dad paused, staring into space. “She used her maiden name back then. In a professional capacity, I mean. Her academic achievements were all under that name, so it made sense to keep things that way, even after we were married.”

“Right,” I said, brows furrowing with confusion.

“Anyway, I suggested something to her one day. I told her to mention me in a letter. Tell Augustus I was her husband. It worked. As soon as she mentioned the Thorne name, he agreedto a meeting, and after that meeting, he agreed to let her stay and conduct her research in the village.”

I nodded slowly. “Your name got her through the door.”

“Exactly. If it wasn’t for me and my friendship with Augustus—which was ancient history by that stage—she never would’ve made it past the gate. Then things wouldn’t have gone wrong for her up there, and they wouldn’t have killed her.”

“Dad, come on. It’s not your fault.”

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