Page 24 of Wicked Devotions: Part 2

Dad’s lips lift in a slow smirk. I just know he’s going to ignore any question we ask. It’s his favorite play, to act innocent and unknowing. “Can I get a hug first?” He looks at me, his wrists bound by handcuffs and his hands resting on the table.

“No,” Cillian answers.

“Do you know who is stalking me?” I ask as I sit down. I just want to get this over with, and I know he’ll try toying with us for as long as he can.

Cillian sits down beside me, casually tossing his arm over the back of my chair. I appreciate the way it makes me feelprotected. The way my father’s eyes narrow for just a brief moment at the ease of our relationship is gleefully satisfying.

Anytime he tossed his arm around my shoulders, I’d flinch. Then he’d berate me as soon as we were in private. But I feel completely safe with Cillian, and it shows.

“I’d rather talk about how my filthy daughter decided to let three men run a train on her while bent over an altar.”

“That was AI.” Cillian taps his fingers on the table like he doesn’t have a care in the world.

“Bullshit. I could see the scars on her sides.” The pleasant preacher mask he always dons drops and out comes the monster I know. “It was real. You lost the right to any answers when you spread your legs.”

The familiar wash of shame threatens to swallow me whole. I dig deep to the small garden of confidence being planted and tended by the men in my life and let it strengthen me as I hold his cold, angry stare. I want answers. I deserve answers.

Cillian goes still beside me. I can feel the anger pulsing out from him in waves, but when I look at him out of the corner of my eye, he doesn’t look any different. It’s probably what makes him such an excellent attorney.

“Who. Is. Stalking. Me?” I repeat again. “I know you know. His focus on purity can only be from you.”

“I’d tell you if you hadn’t turned out to be a whore. If I’d known you’d be just like your mother, I would have loaned you out for favors like her long ago.”

The blood drains from my face as Cillian rockets from his chair, his fist connecting with my father’s face. I watch in a trance as my father’s face snaps to the side, blood pouring from his nose. The guard is standing outside the door, completely unbothered by the violence happening inside this room.

Cillian grabs my father by the hair and holds his face, so he’s forced to look at me. “Take a good, long look at her. It’s the lasttime you’ll ever see her. She’s my daughter now, Annabelle is my wife. Anything they want, they get.”

Dad scowls and tries to tear free from his grip, but Cillian just tightens his hold.

“I’m going to take such good care of them that they’ll forget you ever existed. You sad, pathetic excuse for a husband and father.” He slams my father’s head down onto the metal table he’s cuffed to. “If Harper wants to fall in love with a hundred men, I’ll support her because fuck knows she deserves it after eighteen years of your abuse.”

He leans down and whispers something that I can’t hear into my father’s ear that makes him violently agitated, struggling against the hold that Cillian has on him. Cillian straightens wearing an identical smirk to Declan’s and buttons his suit jacket.

“Let’s go, sweetheart,” he helps me up and wraps his arm around my shoulder, tucking me protectively against his side.

We move back through the hall and out into the parking lot. I stay mostly in a trance as I put one foot in front of the other, guided by the warmth of my stepfather. He turns me, so he can look in my eyes before he unlocks the car.

“Are you okay?”

I see nothing but concern in his eyes before tears begin to blur everything. I try to blink them away, but as they fall, more just keep coming. Is this what paternal love is supposed to feel like? He wraps me in a tight embrace as tears continue to silently roll down my cheeks. I don’t know how to navigate this feeling of absolute safety. Like I could tell him anything and he’d figure out a way to help me through it.

Gratitude rushes through me as I realize this is what my mom has now. I can see it in how healthy she looks and the way color has come back into her face. She’s coming back to life with the safety this man provides.

“Thank you.” I sniffle as I wrap my arms around him and return his embrace.

“You okay?”

“Not really, but I think I will be.”

He lets go of me and crouches down so we’re eye to eye. “You will be.”

Chapter

Nine

CYRUS

Declan comes stalking out of the airport arrivals door like a bull on coke, his eyes dark and nostrils flaring. The crowd parts around him as if silently recognizing his fury and wanting no part. My eyes meet Emerson’s over Declan’s shoulder, and he gives me a slow shake of his head.

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