Page 65 of Ends of Being

Given this new enlightenment of who I was previously, I’m starting to understand what they were talking about when they gave me the option of a clean break. It certainly would’ve been easier if I had taken them up on it, but since I’ve also gotten back some good, fond memories, I’m glad I chose not to.

It’s as if fleeting clouds envelop me and attempt to carry me away in an array of recollections that seem impossibly real, and in this waking dreamscape, the evolution of my relationship with Dare also begins to lighten and take on a shape. They bring to life those little nuances that come from two people doing the dance between what they should do and what they want to do. While we definitely had a tumultuous relationship, it turns out we also had the occasional toe over the line, the fleeting harmless dalliance that we then turned away from, never to speak of again.

It’s these memories that are like warm butterflies in my mind, sparking an intense feeling of warmth only extinguished by the sharp edge of reality. Regardless of how fleeting, I embrace it just as I embrace the belief that everything will be okay.

We’ve been watching that green dot for days, waiting for it to make a move. We’ve been surveying the area, tracking the people going in and out in the hopes of being able to confirm who is in charge, but so far, we’ve managed to find out nothing of consequence.

I find the waiting game to be incredibly annoying because I was under the impression we would just go in there, guns blazing, and take Dare back. All three of them vetoed this idea quickly, all in agreement that taking him back now would only make it worse.

“I still think we should just go get him,” I mutter rather petulantly. Again.

Okay, fine; I’m a broken record. I shake my head furiously, my hands clenching in frustration as I grit out, “We don’t even know for sure that he’s alive. For all we know, he’s been bleeding out in that place for days.”

The look on Lilith’s face isn’t very reassuring as she says, “We do have a couple of sources who confirm that he’s alive andmostlyuninjured.”

My eyes widen, and my brows shoot up as I place my hands on my hips, raising my chin at her defiantly. “Mostlyuninjured? What the fuck does that even mean?”

She shrugs. “It doesn’t matter. Mostly uninjured means breathing, and that’s really the important part.”

Tony cuts us off, “Nettie, sit down. Let Lilith explain since she’s the only one who understands the inner workings of this so-called mastermind.”

I walk over and sit on the couch, and Lilith sits beside me as she says, “Sometimes, I can’t decide if this entire thing is my fault or not. All these fucking men run all this shit, and they’ve spent generations using women as pawns. I just couldn’t handle it anymore.”

Matt pipes in, sighing as he says, “What did you do, Lilith?”

Lilith looks away, obviously feeling uncomfortable, as she continues, “Growing up, there were always expectations of how us girls would help the organization. We’re all trained with certain skills to defend ourselves, defend our family, but at the end of the day, we’re still just pawns. For the most part, Antoinette was kept out of it since she was lucky enough to come up with a surrogate family. Our father always knew that you never keep all your ducks in the same basket, so we grew up more as distant cousins than sisters, and very few people knew the real connection there.”

She pauses for a moment, closing her eyes and taking a slow breath in and out, obviously needing a moment before carrying on, “It was maybe four or five years ago that I overheard those fuckers talking about bringing her in. There were a bunch of fucking yahoos from some European organization there for a meeting, and they asked what the options were in terms of joining forces. One thing I’ve always excelled at is going unseen. Probably not a difficult skill to learn in the household I grew up in, but I feel that it served me well for my entire life. So, I had to sit there, silently fuming, when he brought up your name.

“Don’t get me wrong, there have been many arranged marriages that turned out just fine, but I’d done my research on these fuckers, and they would’ve happily destroyed you. Even if you could learn to toe the line and keep your mouth shut, you would have been brutalized—physically, emotionally, and mentally. I couldn’t let that happen.”

I frown, completely stunned by what I’m hearing. “So, our father would have yanked me from the only life I had known and handed me over to some man who would treat me poorly?”

Lilith snorts. “‘Poorly’ is a serious understatement. Part of my job within the organization is to know everything about everyone. One of the reasons I was staying so close to these meetings was because I was concerned about any kind of deals they might be trying to make. If I had been the one offered up on the block, maybe I wouldn’t have done anything, but I know that I’m a whole different breed of woman at this point. There’s nothing left to destroy. But you—“

She breaks off, her eyes meeting mine intently as she reaches her hand out and rests it on my arm. “Seeing you destroyed would’ve rendered my entire life pointless. Every shady deal I’ve ever made, every quid pro quo that never worked out, it would have all been for nothing. And that fucking pissed me off—“

Matt interrupts, “I take it you did something to put this idea to bed for good?”

She nods, then explains, “Well, I thought it was put to bed for good, but apparently, I didn’t go deep enough.”

Tony chimes in, and I can’t help but notice his excited tone as he prods, “Come on, tell us what happened.”

I roll my eyes and tsk at him. “Fuck’s sake, Tony. You can at least pretend not to be excited about the impending story of bloodshed.”

He laughs as he says, “No point in pretending I’m someone I’m not. Please, Lilith, carry on.”

I spot her smirking as she shakes her head at him, but then she continues, “I did try to talk our father out of it, in a subtle way, of course. I even outright offered to take her place, but that only made him laugh because he, at least, knew me better than that. He told me that these men would want someone unsullied and easy to control, neither of which could ever be used to describe me. And he knows this because that’s how he raised me. And our brothers didn’t give a shit and wouldn’t be of any help, so I did the only thing a single person who had an army to eliminate could do.”

She pauses, glancing around the room until Tony raises both hands, waving them impatiently at her to continue. She gives him a stern look, then turns her gaze back on me as she says, “I waited for them to fall asleep, and then I snuck in and slit all of their throats in their beds.”

Tony barks out a laugh and claps, “Brilliant! I do enjoy your clandestine tactics.”

Lilith gives him a bland look. “I don’t know about clandestine, but all’s fair, as you already know. This was also a tactic I took from somebody else in the hopes that it would get blamed on them. Which it did, for the most part; however, our father and brothers knew better. That’s when shit really got ugly. I wondered if they would kill me outright, but then I remembered that killing someone is actually a merciful end. And as it turns out, the men I killed didn’t eliminate the real problem because in this business, just as soon as you take care of one problem, ten more show up.”

I sigh loudly, my head swimming with this new influx of information. “How many brothers do we have?”

She glances over at me as she replies, “Well, four. I thought we had none left, but apparently, one survived.”

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