Page 79 of Degrading Her

Maisie must have known everything, then.

The front door opened. Wilder entered, his gaze glossing over me and resting on Maisie. She nodded at him, and that’s when it truly hit me. She knew what Sawyer was capable of, and she hadn’t told me. She hadn’t even told me about her own husband. I backed away from her, my chest tightening.

“You knew they were like this,” I said. She didn’t say anything, and that broke my heart. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

She tilted her head, studying me. “Two things. First, would you have believed me?”

Every single time Sawyer had told me the truth, I hadn’t believed him. I had been convinced that he was joking. Stuff like that didn’t happen. None of it was real.

Would I have done the same with my sister?

I shook my head. “I know you wouldn’t joke about something like that.”

“All right. The second: would you have tried to convince me to leave my husband?” My mouth gaped open. I turned to Wilder, but his eyes were focused on Maisie. Would he ever force herself to put a gun to her own head?

“Answer me, sis. Would you have tried to save me?”

I opened my mouth to speak, but I couldn’t find the words. I had no idea what I would have done. Maisie had always been the rebel. I loved that about her and made it a point to accept her for who she was. But if I thought her lifewas in jeopardy, would I have tossed that aside, making her run away from a monster like Wilder?

Sawyer was a monster too.

“Listen,” Maisie said quietly. “It’s not that bad.”

I forced a laugh, my cheeks reddening with anger. “Notthatbad?”

“It’s a job. Like any job. You do work, and you get paid for it. That’s the way you have to think about it.”

Dizziness filled my head. I leaned on the back of the couch, steadying myself. “I just watched Sawyer decapitate a man. Don’t tell me they’re not that bad.”

A thought crossed my mind that broke me even more: Maisie didn’t trust me.

And the worst part? I understood why. With the way I was reacting, if I was her, I would have kept it a secret too.

I was failing my own sister.

“I wish you would have told me,” I whispered, tears quaking through my voice again. Just like I wish I would have known this about Sawyer sooner.

But the biggest betrayal wasn’t the fact Sawyer was an assassin. It was how he looked at me in the barn, like I was another kill. Someone he could dismiss. A victim he could toss aside.

“And I wish you would have told me you had fallen in love with Sawyer,” Maisie said.

Fallen in love? I bowed my head. How could I be in love with someone like him?

But she was right about part of it. I had been keeping secrets from her too. I couldn’t control Maisie or Sawyer, but I could control myself. How many times had she kept secrets from me? Had I forced her into this situation?

Had I forced Sawyer to keep secrets from me too?

It wasn’t the actual violence that bothered me. It was thesecrets. The games Sawyer played with me, knowing exactly what he was doing. How I was falling for him. That it would destroy me when I learned the truth.

But I wasn’t going to break for him like that.

I straightened my shoulders. This wasn’t an issue with her. I held out a hand.

“No more secrets,” I said. “Deal?”

“Deal.” She shook my hand. “By the way, I was a sex worker for a while.” My jaw dropped. “Did you know? Or did you not know? Because I definitely hinted at it.”

I smiled, forcing myself to laugh. My sister was, or had been, a sex worker? I couldn’t process that right then.

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