Page 39 of Sacrifice

Every time he looked at me, with those gorgeous eyes that seemed to peer right into my soul and understand every part of me, I felt a surge of warmth mixed with profound longing. I loved him more than I’d ever imagined loving anyone.

Choosing to be with him meant losing everything I’d once known, and I knew the pain from that would stay with me for a long time. But I had his love and support. That would get me through it all in the end.

“What are we going to do once we get off the mountain?” I asked, tilting my gaze toward him again.

He glanced at his watch. “It’s four in the morning, so I think the first thing we should do is go home and get some sleep.”

“Good idea.” I nodded slowly. “And your father? Do you have any idea what you’re going to do about him yet?”

His jaw tightened. “I’ll turn him in. But I want to speak to him first. Confront him and record the whole thing.”

“So you have evidence to give to the police?”

“Exactly,” he replied in a low voice. “He’s got a hell of a lot of wealth and power on his side, and he’s already been shielded from the consequences of what he did for two decades, thanks to my family. That means it’s going to take a hell of a lot more than my word to put him away for the murder.”

“Do you know how you’ll approach the conversation?”

Sebastian shook his head. “I’ll have to think about it. Figure out the right wording,” he said. “But thankfully, we have the upper hand right now.”

“Because he doesn’t know that you know anything yet?”

“Yup. Right now, he thinks I have no idea at all. Thinks he got away with everything and always will. So he won’t see it coming.”

“You must be utterly furious with him,” I said, upper lip curling with a mix of revulsion and anger. “He lied to you all these years. Made you and the rest of the world believe theCovenant was responsible for everything that happened, when it was him all along. He’s a monster.”

“Fury doesn’t even begin to describe what I feel toward him right now,” he replied. There was a hard steel beneath his words. “I can still hardly believe it.”

“Me neither,” I murmured, casting my eyes to the ground. “There’s a lot I’m finding hard to believe right now.”

“I can imagine.” Sebastian withdrew his hand from mine and slung his arm around me instead, pulling me even closer. “But like I said before… it’ll all be okay in the end. We’ll get through this. Together.”

“Together,” I repeated, giving him another faint smile.

We finally reached the bottom of the mountain and made our way over to Sebastian’s car, which he’d left parked at an empty rest stop across the road. It was nearly five o’clock in the morning now, but the world around us was still dark, the air frigid and biting.

When we reached the car, Sebastian’s phone began to chime in his pocket.

“What’s that? Is someone calling you this early?” I asked, brows rising.

He shook his head and clicked a button to unlock the doors. “It’s all my notifications coming through now that I finally have cell service again,” he said as he reached down to open the passenger door for me. “Probably just emails.”

“Ah.” I had no idea what an email was, but that seemed like a question for another time.

I got into the car and leaned back in the seat, savoring the immediate warmth that washed over my skin. Sebastian went around to the driver’s side and climbed in. When he switched on the car, his phone automatically connected to the car screen, displaying several notifications.

“Shit,” he murmured. “Jesse tried calling me thirteen times while I was up there.”

“You should probably call him back. There could be some sort of emergency.”

Sebastian nodded as he pulled the car out onto the road. “Call Jesse,” he commanded the car. Like magic, it did as he said, and a ringing sound echoed through the space surrounding us.

Jesse answered on the seventh ring. “Hello?” he said, voice sounding groggy with exhaustion.

“It’s Seb. You called me a bunch of times. Everything okay?”

“Not really.” Jesse let out a long, drawn-out yawn. “Fuck… what time is it?”

“Around five. My phone only just got service again. Anyway, what’s happening?”

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