Page 3 of Covenant

Jen gives a tinkling laugh. I’m not sure the others can hear the undercurrent of discomfort in it. “Goodness, what a topic of conversation for a party.”

“Indeed,” Matthias says smoothly. “Especially when we should be celebrating your love. After all, this is what you wanted, right, Wy?”

“Wy?” Jen chuckles, her gaze flicking between us uncertainly. “I didn’t know people call you that. Is that a work thing?”

I press a kiss to her temple, willing myself not to bite. Matthias almost took everything from me once. I’m not letting him under my skin. Not now. Not again. “No, darling. Come, let’s greet our guests.”

I don’t spare Matthias another thought. Nor Donald, Greg, or The Firm.

None of them matter.

Right now, I have the world at my feet. I’m next in line to be promoted. The penthouse I call home is a far cry from the trailer park I grew up in.

I have a beautiful woman at my side. In just six short months, she’ll be my wife.

Yes, everything is perfect. Matthias is nothing more than a smudge on a distant page from my past.

And that’s exactly where he’ll stay.

1

WYATT

ONE YEAR LATER

My breath hangs in the frigid air, my footsteps echoing off the uneven paving. It’s the only noise keeping me company, the whole city eerily silent.

It’s as though it knows what I’m doing—the principles I’m compromising. It is a hushed judgment.

I don’t have another choice.

It doesn’t matter. Knowing this doesn’t change the reality. It doesn’t alter the fact that I’m walking along the one path I swore I’d never take—the path through a graveyard, knowing it’s my own end I’ll be meeting. Maybe not the end of my life, but of who I am.

Because who knows what will happen after this?

Icy rain begins to fall, tracking down my weary skin. I don’t flinch. Don’t even blink it away. It can’t break me any more than I already am.

A year ago, my life was perfect. Twelve months ago, I said this was a route taken only by desperate fools.

Now, that’s what I am. A desperate fool who has lost everything. A fool who would stay in bed all day if he could. If not for Jackson, I would’ve given up long ago.

But he’s still here. He’s still fighting.

So I fight too.

I pull my wool coat tighter around myself, one of the few remnants from my past life. It hangs on my too-thin frame where once it’d filled it. I can do this. Ican do this.

For Jackson.

After what feels like an eternity, I reach the church of St. Dismas. Dismas, the one who the whole city is named after—the patron saint of condemned men.

That’s what I’ll be after tonight. Condemned. I know this, but it doesn’t change anything. It can’t.

I’ve tried everything else. I’ve explored every other damned avenue, but nothing has worked. The bills have stacked up, and Jackson slips away a little more with each day that passes.

There’s little I care about these days. Jackson is it.

For my brother, I will condemn myself.

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