Page 11 of To Have and to Hold

Connor’s jaw twitched with tension and he jerked his head for me to follow him further from the party, gulping the last of his beer down before stalking off towards the nearby beach. Steps led from the porch and down to a boardwalk, then across to a narrow stretch of sand. The lake beyond glittered under the stars, seeming so inviting, so freeing. But it wasn’t, it was as much of a trap as our life was. It looked pretty, but it was surrounded by the looming presence of a dirty humanity.

Connor handed me the cigar he had ready in his pocket, in case anyone came looking for us and wondered why we were slinking about in the dark. I just couldn’t watch Rafe with his hands on my sister anymore and not do anything about it.Thiswas doing something about it.

It had always been the plan, eventually, to end all of this. Violet had to suffer to spare others. Connor had given me no choice, laid it out like it was the only way. I’d been willing… with great reluctance, to let it happen, to let her fall for a while, so no one else did. But fuck, no. Not now, never. How I ever thought this was okay made me sick with myself. Neither of us wanted in this church, wanted this life of rituals and blood. Connor had been fighting it for years, quietly and underhanded, waiting for his moment to strike. Even he kept his end goal from me, and I'd been too stupid to question it. Angry at my parents, wanting to hurt them, willing to do anything to get back at them. Taking them down, taking down the organization they were so desperate to be a part of, that was a good start.

“What do you have to say for yourself?” I asked my uncle when we both had our cigars lit and the toes of our shoes in the sand. He was no coward, but he was trying to fucking run from this now, not looking at me, staring at the water and taking deep, steadying breaths. He always was more heartless.

“Nothing’s changed,” he replied, lifting his chin up.

I fucking punched him on it. Not hard, not so he fell over, but enough that he kneweverythinghad changed. “It all has,” I spat as he straightened himself out. “All of it. She— Look at her, Connor. Did you really look at her? This issick.” I was sick.

Connor walloped me back, his fist connecting with my shoulder, so I staggered a few steps away. Recovering fast, I came for him, but he slammed both his palms into my chest, the cigar crushing between us, ash landing on my white shirt. The pain from the heat ignored. “You don’t think it fucking wrecks me, too? Knowing what that bastard is going to do to her?” he asked, his voice a harsh whisper as he struggled to keep it down. The moon shadowed his features, creating a stark contrast that only showed me how much older he was than us. He was ten years younger than father, but had fifteen on me. And he appeared every inch like he’d lived those extra years. Over the last few months, sprinkles of gray had emerged on his hairline, in his beard, bags of purple under his eyes grew darker every time I saw him. He looked fucking tired. I suspected he knew a lot more than he was letting on.

As he gripped my shirt, the cigar smoldering a hole near my collar, his eyes implored me to listen. “We’re so fucking close, though, Theo. We just have to hold on. Hold our nerve. So does she.”

“But she doesn’t know she has a nerve to hold!” I argued back, not bothering to wrestle free of him. I sucked in smoke and blew it in his face instead. He winced and stepped away, brushinghimself off. “She doesn’t know it won’t last forever! We could at least tell her.”

Connor shook his head. “You know we can’t do that.”

“Please,” I said, fighting the urge to fall to my knees, to beg for her.

He looked broken at my display, staring at me with none of his trademark heartlessness. It only leaked away for us, for his nieces and nephews. But he was still willing to exploit us for his gain.

I suppose having to keep such a big secret will do that to a man. Ruin him.

“We’re getting too close,” he said. We can’t destroy it now. Violet… Violet will be fine for a little while.”

“He’s going to kill her. Rape her.” I winced at the thought, my mind flittering back to the way she’d moaned around me. Fuck, I’d given her that. What she wanted. “Torture her.”

Connor had the decency to look distraught at this. His shoulders slumping, but he steeled it away, his jaw tightening, his eyes hardening, the heartless bastard returning. “We’ve worked for too much. Violet will be instrumental when the time comes. She will heal.”

“No.” I stepped away from him, my fists clenched, ready to tackle him again, my cigar falling to the sand.

“No?” he repeated, and the tension between us rippled once more. Connor and I had always been close, him more a friend, a good influence, than my father ever was. Whenever he came over when we were kids, he’d play with us, teach us games and take us on long walks through the countryside to distract his young family members from the coldness of home. It was the most warm interaction we ever had with an adult, or what seemed like an adult at the time. I’d idolized him, felt kindred to him as the second son to an emotionless man. Until two years ago when he admitted to working against us to take down thefamily, the business. Until he confided in me that he needed my help. That he had a circle of friends, victims of this life, who all wanted it to end.

I didn’t know how bad things were until he told me. I knew we killed, that we trafficked drugs and money, but the stuff he showed me… the things my father did, that Charlie knew… my eyes had opened and never closed. Rafael and this fucking place was the central pit of all of it, and Father had brought us Lewis's right to the front door.

And I had been sickened ever since. They had to pay, and I was going to make that happen.

I just didn’t know whether I could wait another moment. Violet couldn’t suffer. I’d squashed down the thought of it, but now? Something had shifted.

“No,” I said again. “We get Violet out or the whole thing is off.”

Connor sighed. “What do you want me to do here? I can’t get her out. You can’t get her out. She has to go with him. Has to be treated like his little breedable whore until he kills her or impregnates her, so we have a nice tidy pot of evidence and awitness. Or until we’re done. Nothing else, Theo. You were fine with it until now. What the fuck changed?”

The door to the house opened and closed, sending a brief wave of noise over the wind to us, so I couldn’t tell him I’d never been fine with it, I’d accepted it as something that needed to happen. Greater fucking good and sacrifices to be made. But I hadn’t seen Violet since then. And now. Fuck no.

Connor’s question hung in the air between us like custard, heavy, thick, sickly.

Another person was out here now, our conversation stilted. I picked my cigar up from the sand and brushed it off, letting some embers smolder against my skin, before wincing at the sharp taste, grit on my lips. Connor’s eyes were piercing as we smoked, waiting to see if anyone wondered over to us.

What had changed?Fucking everything had changed. She was my sister, my innocent, wonderful little sister who’d broken down, admitted her darkest secret. To me. Just to me. I’d made her come. She’d shared something special with me, and I wanted to keep that thing safe. I couldn’t imagine anyone else sliding inside her body, willing or not, without a bubble of rage in my gut. I’d messed up by taking her like I had, but I didn’t care. She was mine to protect. Ihadto.

But I shook my head. “Nothing,” I lied, voice low. Connor still tensed at my tone, though. “Nothing, only that she’s innocent in this. She needs to be saved.”

Connor looked over my shoulder, and I turned to see Charlie and Dad making their way over to us. “She will be,” Connor muttered. “In time.”

Chapter 7

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