Page 6 of As Angels Sin

“He was wearing a mask. It covered everything except his eyes.” I follow the louder of the two voices. It seems to want this more.

“How did he get into your apartment, with my men on guard?” Father’s tone shifts to a whisper, while he fights desperately to avoid showing his mounting anger.

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that? Or better still, shouldn’t you be asking your men?” Snapping at him isn’t going to do any good. Bringing my voice back to neutral, I add. “Sorry. I’m just—”

“Don’t apologize.” Father cuts me off and I’m glad he does. I’m not sure how many more lies I can tell with a straight face. “But from now on, Fia, you’re going to stay here, with me. I can’t trust that you will be safe out there, and I can’t risk losing you.”

“What?” I shoot straight up in the bed. “I can’t stay here. What about work?” Or the life I’ve built outside this building, even though Father was more concerned with keeping me a secret than trying to foster a relationship with me.

“Rich old cows can buy their clothes somewhere else for a few weeks. It’s just until we’ve fixed things up. Your life is more important than a pipe dream, Fiametta.”

A pipe dream.

Fuck. It’s as if he’s doing everything in his power to cut me to the bone, while I’m at my lowest. I know he doesn’t care for my decision to run a shop, to make something of myself, but damn... That hurts a hell of a lot more than his not asking how I’m doing.

At least his careless attitude toward my well-being, beyond the usualI care about you and want you safe, is something I’ve become used to.

But this is happening whether I like it or not, and trying to fight Father on the matter is pointless.

“I understand.”

“I knew you would. Now rest. You’re going to need all your strength for what’s to come.” And then, he’s gone.

He’s no longer my concerned parent, if that’s what you could ever call his display, and has gone back to being the patriarch of hisrealfamily.

Chapter Three

CRUE

Nine Weeks Later

“Beautiful, isn’t it?”

We’re standing on a cliff face, overlooking the vast expanse of the Colorado. Mountains, as far as the eye can see, with only a small dotting of light from the town below.

“Can’t see it,” he says.

“No, neither can I. Not really.” Pitch black nothingness extends beyond us, apart from Leadville. And Leadville upsets me more than I’m willing to admit, if asked. Where my Shadow can roam and play without fear of being seen in such beautiful nothing.

Nothing that is, except for this god-awful mining town and its people. And there are so few of them, too, somewhere inthe neighborhood of two and a half thousand souls. If I were a braver man, I might eradicate the town myself. Bring nature back to its glory and give my shadow its fill of freedom and death.

“Then why say it’s beautiful?” he asks.

His name is Devin Williams. He’s a thirty-something-year-old used car salesman with a thinning hairline and a patchy goatee to match. He’s not fat, but he’s definitely on the bigger side. “I’m larger than life,” he put it when we met, “and it gives the ladies a lot more to hold onto.”

Larger than life, indeed.

“Because that’s what people say, isn’t it? It’s beautiful. Stunning. Awe inspiring. Whatever the fuck.”

I can’t even see the stars tonight. Storm clouds rolled in sometime during the afternoon and made our hike up the mountain much harder. Devin’s preferences for burger meat and bread over healthier alternatives did the same. But we’re here now. Talking like normal people do, about how beautiful the nothingness is.

“It’s not as if there’s more to see during the daytime. Old rocks and trees. It’s all nature is. What’s the difference from looking out of your bedroom window and seeing the same in your garden?” I add, still contemplating my annoyance and my sudden hatred of Leadville.

“Beats me, man.”

I asked about his wife, and he answered that the ring symbolized a marriage that they had both moved on from long ago. I asked about his kids, and he told me that there were two of them, but neither wanted anything to do withdear old dad. That breaks his heart, and leaves him feeling vulnerable and weak.

I told him, childrenarethe weakness. You can’t risk it all when you have a young one latched to your tit. I guess that analogy works better for the mother, but my point stands. He told meagain; his children are his weakness. I found that phrasing strange, nothischildren, but children in general.

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