Page 88 of Tell Me Why
Finally, he releases a long sigh and switches on a small lamp on a side table, which splashes a warm glow across his face. He ditched his mask and robe at some point, and now he’s sitting on the couch, arm slung casually over the backrest.
“You want the truth? Okay,” he says. “I needed you. At first, it was just curiosity. That finger-fuck in the Psych building left me wanting more. I couldn’t let it go. So I did some digging and discovered you were attending ExU under a fake name…”
I knew that encounter in the hallway would come back to haunt me someday. It’s crazy how one brief moment of insanity can change the whole trajectory of someone’s life.
“When my Private Investigator uncovered your real name and your connection to Shadow and Ash,” he continues, “I knew I had to keep tabs on you, so I enlisted Skye to watch you.”
“Spyon me,” I correct.
He doesn’t skip a beat. “A few weeks later, your brother showed up on our front lawn, and…” His throat bobs, head dropping for a moment. When he looks back up, his eyes are heavy with a mix of pain and something darker. “I knew I could use you to get to Sin. So I leveraged your relationship with Skye to plant the seed and set everything in motion.”
I’m confused by that last statement. “Setwhatin motion?”
There’s yet another long stretch of deafening silence as he watches me, not answering—almost like he’s afraid to say it. Which is wild, because Christian isn’t afraid of anything.
Then it slowly begins to dawn on me. I’m such an idiot. It was Skye’s idea that I show up at Rush House and offer myself to the Sacred Sons in exchange for my brother’s safety.
I knew I could use you to get to him.
My throat tightens, and tears sting the backs of my eyes. I blink rapidly to keep them from spilling over. No way am I letting him see my cry. I’m not giving him that.
“So, that’s all this was? Some fucked up plan to get your revenge?” I say, my voice shaking.
I reach up and press my hand against my breastbone because it feels like my chest is literally cracking open. I know it’s ridiculous—I’ve known Christian for, what, a few weeks? Knowing he used me shouldn’t hurt this much. But his confession feels like a fist reaching into my chest and crushing my heart like a glittery cornstarch brick…
Christian rakes a hand over his face and tilts his head back. “At first, yeah. It was. I’d planned to turn you against him somehow. Convince you that Shadow and Ash are corrupt, then send you back to him, and watch you tear it all down from the inside…”
My lungs feel empty, and I try to pull in a tiny bit of air, but I can’t seem to catch my breath. “Why would I do that, Christian? Because Shadow and Ash were born from the charred remains of a human trafficking ring?” I shake my head. “That was decades ago. My brother wouldneverallow something like that to happen now. Hehelpspeople.”
He rises from the couch. “Your brother has been keeping something from you, Eve…”
Shaking my head, I lean back on my heels.
He walks over to the desk, opens the middle drawer, and pulls out a thick manila envelope. He tosses it onto the surface of the desk. “My Private Investigator delivered this a couple of days ago. I planned to put it somewhere I knew you’d find it, but…” He stares down at the envelope, then back at me. “I couldn’t do it, because I knew it would wreck you.”
There’s a note scribbled on the outside,Happy reading. C.V.
“What is this?”
He pushes it closer to me. “Open it.”
I swallow, staring down at the envelope like it’s about to jump up and latch onto my face. “If you know this will wreck me, why are you showing it to me now?”
“Because I’m done lying to you, Eve. And you deserve to know.” There’s pain etched on his face that I don’t know what to do with. “It kills me, but I realize now, I can’t shield you from the truth.”
With a trembling hand, I reach out and take the envelope, tucking it behind the leather book. The envelope feels heavy, like a bomb with a lit fuse, ready to tear up my life.
But who knows if the information in this envelope is even real? I can’t trust anything Christian says, and that’s a sickening feeling. What if this is just another one of his manipulations?
“I’m going to leave,” I say slowly, holding back the tears. Just barely, though. “And you’re not going to follow me.”
“Eve…” He steps forward. “I can’t let you take the book.” Then he reaches out and just plucks it from my arms, despite me holding onto it with everything I have. He tosses it on the chair behind him.
And just like that, everything I schemed and plotted for, myonlyhope for creating peace between the two societies, just…poof. Gone. Because Christian deems it so.
Rage pumps through me so hot it’s almost blinding. After everything he just confessed, he has the audacity to say literallyanythingto me?
“That book could level the playing field between the Burning Crown and Shadow and Ash,” I hiss, the words grating against my vocal cords.
