Page 34 of Deviant Illusions

I nod, inching forward with my heart in my throat. “I know, my pretty girl, but I need to.” There’s no softness in her features as I cup her cheek and hold her hip. “We can get through this, but you have to tell them the truth. Tell them that it wasn’t me.”

She stiffens and tilts her head back. “Go home, Kane.”

Moving into her line of sight, I beg, “Please, I’ll lie for you. I’ll say it was an accident, but I can’t fucking go to prison. Please, Delilah.”

There’s no acknowledgment, and I do the only thing I can think of as I sink down to my knees. Holding her hands in both of mine, I press my lips to her knuckles and continue begging her to save me.

“Please. I love you. I still love you, that hasn’t changed. Just help me.”

She doesn’t say anything.

“I can’t go to prison,” I whisper against her palm. “Not for years or my entire life. I’ll have nothing left. That’s what they’re saying I’ll get. Life. Please, pretty girl.”

She slowly thaws, painstakingly fucking slow as she cups my cheek. Her eyes are fast to soften as she finally looks at me—really looks at me without the fake bitch persona taking center stage. “You weren’t there, remember? They won’t be able to charge you.”

Fuck, she hasn’t been told. That’s why she hasn’t helped me. So, I grip her hands even tighter, begging her with every atom of my being as I tell her, “We turned the cameras off when I fucked you in the outdoor shower, so they didn’t show me leaving. I’m going to be charged and I need you. I fucking need you to tell them it wasn’t me. Please, pretty girl. I’ll tell them whatever you want me to so you get away with it. Just…Just don’t make me take the fall for it. Please.”

“Kane, I—” She snaps her head to the side, staring through the large, patterned glass beside the double front doors. “Leave,” she says coldly, turning back to the coldhearted bitch she uses to protect herself.

Following her line of sight, I watch her parents get out of their car as Delilah turns her back on me and walks up the extravagant staircase with her spine straight and her head high.

“Delilah?” I call out as I slowly get on my feet and the front door opens.

She doesn’t turn around.

Not when I call her name again.

Or when her parents shout for me to leave.

She only stops when she reaches the stop of the staircase and her phone—the one that I’ve been fucking calling without her answering—buzzes and she answers it. She answers whoever is calling her while ignoring me as her mother’s heels click against the marble floor.

Lizbeth looks me up and down like I’m filth, something vile or rotting that needs to be removed and cleansed from her home. Then that wicked snarl full of contempt splits into a laugh. “You never meant anything to her. So the life you took was in vain.”

“I didn’t do anything. She’s the one who killed him.” I look at her, then Harkin, who freezes in front of the open door. “Delilahdid it, not me. I got back to the lake house after the fire had started, and she was running out of it.” My arms hang at my sides as I look back at the top of the stairs, waiting for her to come running out to prove that she gives a fuck about me. “I didn’t do anything.”

16

DELILAH

The rage opposite me gets wilder as Kane paces, clenching and unclenching his fists. His behavior is weird as fuck. I don’t know what’s happened to him or why he seems to blame me for it, but I can’t help the fact I want it to change. Which is stupid considering he wants to kill me.

I defend myself against whatever misconception he has of the past. “I tried to help you.”

He stops pacing and storms towards me. I brace for a strike, but he grabs my throat and pulls me up to stand on my toes. His nose touches the front of my mask as he leans into me and stares through the material covering my eyes. This close, he’ll be able to see each hole in the mesh.

“No,” he grits. “You didn’t. I begged you to, and do you remember what you did?”

That time of my life is blurry. I know what I did leading up to Asher’s death, but once Kane was charged, my parents began theirtreatments,and the doctors’ concoctions placed a film over my senses. But I know that I tried. I wrote him letters, I wrote a letter to the judge, I went to the police and gave them every bit of information I had without incriminating myself.

Kane hardens, his fingers flexing around my neck and his voice darkening. “You. Laughed.” He squeezes my neck hard enough that it makes it difficult to breathe. “You fucking laughed and went to fuck someone else because you only care about one thing.” He pushes me back and releases me.

Physically pushing me away doesn’t hurt, but the disgust on his face sticks to my skin. He’s convinced himself of something that never happened, and I gently argue, “I didn’t. You’re not remembering things clearly.”

His eyes turn near black as he roars, “Yes, you fucking did!” I move back as he advances, but the bed traps me. The back of my knees hit the footboard, giving him the advantage as he wraps his hand around my jaw. He stops me from falling but his fingers dig into my cheeks. The mask rubs against my skin as he grips the edge at my nape to roughly pull it off. The portion under his hand doesn’t allow it to fall as he stares into my eyes as he recounts his falsified memories.

“I watched you. I had to watch that fucking video every month when my lawyer would visit. And do you know what I saw? I saw you giggle, the same fucking way you did with me, while someone else was fucking you!”

His face contorts and he looks me up and down as he spits out, “I shouldn’t have expected any different from a lying, cheating whore. But that wasn’t the only video, was it? No,” he snaps. “Daddy’s little princess was helping him win contracts the only way she knew how. On your back with your legs and mouth open.”

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