Page 1 of Broken

Prologue: Andrea

“I’ve needed you for so long, and now you’re here.” I let my arms slip around his neck. “I’ll be everything you need.”

Partner -check.

Wife -check.

Accomplice -check.

At my vow, his dick hardens against my belly.

“Everything?” he rasps, looking at me like a kid who’s just learned Christmas comes with gifts.

“Yes,” I promise with all the crazy, fucked-up love I’m capable of.

Last night, Father Martin didn’t know me.

Today, he made love to me.

Tonight?

We’ll slay a monster and complete our unholy trinity.

But first…

PART ONE

Genesis 3:5

Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

CHAPTER 1

Andrea

THIRTEEN YEARS EARLIER…

Mr. Writer - Stereophonics

Though my dad is demanding to know why I skipped school and that should have more of my focus, I’m utterly fixated on the news.

“Savio Martin, a Franco-Italian, Catholic priest serving as a missionary in Algeria, has been abducted by the terrorist organization Algerian Christian Revolutionaries.

“Unlike the Trappist monks of the Tibhirine, who were beheaded by the Islamic Salvation Front to oppose the presence of foreign ministries in the country, the group’s intent behind the abduction is unclear.

“In a nation ripped apart by civil unrest?—”

The news reporter fades away to be replaced by monstrous image after monstrous image of the war-torn nation.

Rubble from destroyed buildings is strewn like Lego blocks on crater-laced roads. Women and children huddle in one another’s arms in search of succor and escape, weeping from agony, from despair, from terror. Dazed men, blank-eyed and desperate, scan for attackers, hyper-vigilant in the face of conflict.

Then, the priest himself, Father Savio Martin, comes into the frame. It’s a small photo of him, and for some reason, in black and white, but my major takeaway is that he’s cute. Which, to my teenage brain, makes it a tragedy that he’s a priest.

I blink at the TV screen, speculating if it’s a sin to drool over a holy man… then I kick myself because,duh.

Fourteen years of catechism have taught me that much.

Then, of course, I feel ashamed. Not only for the priest thing but for the fact all those people are suffering and I’m just thinking about a hot guy. But it’s more than his ‘hotness.’

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