Page 47 of Insurgent

“Because I thought that’s what you wanted.” I lower my voice. “I didn’t want to disappoint you.”

“So, you lie to me? Trick me?” My husband is the softer side of the O’Brien boys, but right now, the way he’s looking at me, it’s far from easygoing.

“It was wrong, Samuel. I get that. I’m sorry.”

He nods. “Yeah, well, at least you get it,” he says sarcastically. “Makes me wonder what else you’ve been keeping from me. I’ll meet you outside.”

My heart sinks at his flat tone, his disgusted expression. I’ve never seen him look at me like that and it hurts, but I deserve it.

I watch him walk away, then I look down at the floor. I haven’t been taking birth control this whole time. I did stop, but then something made me start taking it again. I narrow my eyes toward the floor.

Wait, he knew I was taking birth control?

Then why make that comment earlier that we can go home and make a kid? Why keep up the pretenses? Why wait until now to call me out?

“Trouble in paradise?” I hear behind me. I turn to look at Danny leaning against the pew, confusion obviously on my face. “Left these,” he says, showing me his gloves. I see the skeleton tattoo covering the tops of his fingers and hand. He must have slipped past us. I didn’t even notice.

“We’re fine,” I reply.

“Yeah,” he says disbelievingly. He slides his hands into his pockets. We stare at each other for a moment. I feel like we do this every time we see each other, and it’s been a while. Soaking up the things about one another that have changed. New wrinkles around the eyes, tattoos, longer hair.

My hair’s in a tight ponytail, my lips covered in a shade of nude. He seems to study all of this about me, looking over my cream dress and black heels, while I look at the tie around his neck, the black shirt he wears, his dark hair, and even the watch he has on his wrist.

My eyes go back to his. There’s so much there that we don’t say. An entire life’s worth of unspoken words.

I lift a brow, and without another sound, I turn and walk out of the church to my husband who without a doubt knows I’m in love with his brother.

Still.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Bones

One month three days missing

“Ma said that?” I ask her.

“Yep, right when we neared the priest.”

I laugh. Damn, I miss her. I hope she’s getting along okay right now. God, I swear if Trig hurts her.

“I was so embarrassed.”

“Yeah, well…the man knows how kids are made.”

“Still,” she says.

“Why were you lying to him?” I ask, trying to mock indifference.

She shrugs. “We tried to have them at first, and then something in me changed. I just thought maybe it wasn’t the right time. I wish I could take it back. I wish we would have had children. At least now I’d have a piece of Samuel. Now I have nothing but his memory.”

Guilt is not a feeling I’m familiar with. I’ve taken lives, I’ve had lives taken with just one word, and I’ve never felt bad. I’ve never felt guilty. When you’re in the type of business I am, you have to understand what comes with it.

None of the people I’ve killed would have died if they made better choices and that’s all there is. But my brother was a good man. He wasn’t like me; he deserved to live to an old age with his grandkids surrounding him and a woman who loved him equally by his side.

I have guilt for that.

I didn’t kill my baby brother, but I am the reason he’s gone.

---