Page 17 of Lust
Joe was a sexual man, just as much as any of them. She’d been so wrong about him.
That alone boggled her mind because, if Liza hadn’t sensed lust in Joe since they were children, it could only mean one thing. Their mating bond had triggered during the innocence of their youth.
Half-triggered.
She glanced at her stained palms. Her power had manifested. Now, when it was too late. Now, when Joe hated her guts.
“You got jaded. You got mean.”
He was right. She was jaded, and she had been mean to him because if she wasn’t, then he’d eventually end up just another man trying to get in her pants, another man who she’d eventually end up vomiting on at the most intimate moment, and then he’d see the real Liza. The coward so desperate to get close to someone, she allowed herself to get sick over it.
Because of this, love was never in the cards for her. It had been easier to put walls up and protect her heart.
“Mija.”
Liza’s eyes snapped open. Mary, her adoptive mother, stood before her with a frown. The petite, Mexican-heritage woman was in her fifties but was as fit and deadly as one of her children. Probably more. The woman did nothing but hone her ex Hildegard Sisterhood assassin skills. Trained as aSinner, Mary had been tasked with executing the Lazarus children to avoid them being tools of mass destruction. Only, Mary had chosen to defect and rescue the children. All but Daisy had been saved.
Mary must have been the person Liza had seen praying by the candles, which was weird. Despite Mary working for a religious organization once, she didn’t believe in God. Liza didn’t blame her. If Liza had been plucked from everything she knew, trained as a seductress and an assassin, and then told she was going to hell for it, she’d do everything in her power tonotbelieve in hell. Or heaven.
The concern on Mary’s face made Liza’s heart stutter. Air plundered her lungs. Her vision blurred and darkened. She couldn’t face the scrutiny. The judgment.
Liza made to stand, but Mary pushed her back down. She sat next to her daughter and faced the front. Liza continued to make shuddering, sobbing motions without the sound.
Mary said calmly, “Remember your training.”
Instantly, the visuals hit Liza’s mind’s eye. Hours and days of fighting and meditation, calming her chi, washing it clean. She closed her eyes, pushed the soles of her feet into the ground, and placed a palm on her belly. With every inhale, her abdomen pushed her hand out. With every exhale, her hand moved in. She imagined her busy thoughts moving from her brain to her abdomen, then to her feet.
When the last breath left Liza’s body and took with it her panic, she opened her eyes and calmly met her mother’s perceptive stare. Mary gave a small nod of approval.
Liza wiped the remnant dampness from her eyes. “What are you doing here, Mama?”
“Do you have a monopoly on churches?”
“No, I just—” The panic rose in Liza. She forced another steady breath.Exhale. “Sorry. I just wanted to know.”
“I was lighting a candle for Daisy.”
She glanced at the tiny gold crucifix around Mary’s neck. “So it’s true. You’ve taken up the religion that took away your life.”
“The Sisterhood led me to all of you,” she replied, and then her eyes went to the front and stared long and hard. “I don’t know what I believe anymore,” she admitted. “They’ve left us alone all these years. Who knows if they’re evil?”
“They made you kill for them.”
Mary shifted uncomfortably.
Moments of silence passed, then Liza asked, “Do you believe in Heaven and Hell?”
Mary shrugged. “I never used to. But there’s… something. There has to be. Without it, life feels…”
“Hopeless?”
Mary winced.
On the fateful day of their escape from the Syndicate lab, it was Mary’s choice to leave Daisy when she’d run back into the burning building to comfort their biological mother and creator, Gloria. It was Mary’s choice to hit the elevator button that sent them down to the basement. And it was Mary’s choice to get into the escape van and drive away.
That choice had saved seven of the Lazarus children.
It had doomed one.
