Page 73 of Deviant Illusions

I slap against his chest, but my sobs steal my energy. Despite the need to scream building inside of me, my cries come out weak.

“Kane. I killed Kane. You’re Asher.”

Curling his hand around my nape, he kneels in front of me and gently places my forehead against his shoulder. He firmly presses his lips to my crown and gives me another lie.

“I’m Kane, I promise. Fuck, I’m sorry, Delilah.” He scoops me up with his forearm against the back of my thighs and pulls me over his thighs as he sags against me, both of us holding the other up. “I’m so fucking sorry. I thought you did it all.” Another kiss is delicately pressed to my shoulder. “No one can hurt you again. He’s dead, I promise. He can’t hurt you again. I’ll give my life so you can have yours back.”

“I don’t know what’s real,” I mumble.

Everyone has fucked with my head and I can’t trust myself anymore. I can’t trust that my memories are mine or if they’ve been placed there. The one thing I should know, that I should be fucking sure of because I lived it, is cloudy and filled with deception.

But he proves he’s Kane as he hugs me and whispers our secrets. Secrets I’d forgotten.

“The first time I kissed you, we were watching that old black-and-white movie with the plague doctor masks. I admitted thatI’ve never kissed anyone because I was shit scared I’d fuck it up. And you said?—”

“It’s only a kiss, what harm can it do?”

He nods then continues repeating the different memories, real memories because someone else is corroborating that they happened. Kane was there so he knows. I never shared these memories with anyone else because they’re ours.

33

KANE

Delilah was mine before I even knew the depth of the word. I gave her my firsts because it was only ever meant to be her. It wasn’t even a proper fucking kiss, because my palms were clammy and I’ve never felt my heart pound as much as it did at twelve years old with my best friend sitting beside me. That was before she was ever a person of interest to Asher. He didn’t look at her or want her. She was just mine.

“Remember the first time you slept in my bed?” I ask as she clings to me. There’s no response so I keep going. “It was an accident. You’d had an argument with Asher.”

A sob cracks her voice, and she hesitantly wraps her arms around my neck. “That was the first time,” she whispers to herself, but there’s too much sadness in it for it to be about me.

Unless she regrets it. Which wouldn’t be a hard feat considering I’ve fucking broken her.

“It was real,” I say over her cries. “And I loved you more than anything in existence.”

Her tears slip between our cheeks as she shakes her head. She sounds younger, innocent, as she admits, “No. That was thefirst time he hit me. My mom told him not to get my face the next time because it would raise questions.”

I would hear their arguments. They were both as bad as each other and they’d have screaming matches when they thought no one was home. But I never heard him put his fucking hands on her. I would have stopped it. IthinkI would have anyway. All the bullshit lies are slowly unravelling. The conversation I overheard between my parents when they said she was lying to ruin their reputation wasn’t a fucking lie.

“You told my dad, didn’t you?”

She nods and sniffles. “He didn’t believe me. When we went to his office on my birthday, I told him. Or I think it happened.”

“It did,” I confirm. I was there. No one would tell me shit. They just kept staring at each other and my father was more concerned about his merger with Harkin than the fact his fucking son was beating Delilah.

“I’m sorry, my pretty girl.”

I can’t say anything else. There’s no apology to make up for the shit I’ve done to her. It’s deeper than my misguided vengeance. Everything goes back to when we were teenagers, and she was alone. I never understood why she stayed with him, but he was fucking hurting her while she was with him. What would he have done to her if she left, when no one believed her? No one was there to protect her, to act as a barrier between her and the prick.

I don’t have any hope for her parents wanting to protect their daughter. Not when they’re both sick and twisted. So I give Delilah something that she’s never had before—honesty.

“I’m going to leave—” She pushes against my shoulders, and I hold her tighter. “Stop,” I say softly, dragging her closer. “Listen to me. I’m going to leave and make sure there’s no one left to hurt you. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but Lennox mentioned that Rowan,” she violently flinches at the name andher nails score against my neck, “wants me to take over his businesses. I’ll find out what happened to your baby and ruin them all.”

The fucked up torture house in Austria won’t be good for Delilah’s mind. I don’t want her witnessing anything that goes on there. I fall silent. I need to find a way to keep her with me while keeping her away from the shit I’m going to be surrounded by.

“You said that we’ll stay together and that’s how we’ll be okay,” she says tearfully, full of accusation.

“I know, koukla mou. But I’m the one who hurt you, so it’s my job to replace the peace and get rid of your confusion.”

The back of my thighs burn as my weight presses against my calves. But I hold her. I just fucking hold her because there’s nothing else that makes sense. I’m in a maze, and any which way I turn is blocked.

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