Page 110 of Madness Behind the Mask
“You didn’t know what?” Idemand, needing him to spell it out, to not leave any doubt, any assumptions in my mind. I want him to look me in the eye and confess the sins of a father.
“I didn’t know you’d be able to feel when he died. A connection like that – the magic, it’s incredibly rare.”
I stumble back, shaking my head, the last of my hope dying.Thatis what he has to say? That is his excuse for killing our son without telling me?
“He’sourson!” I wrap my arms around myself, hoping Leon can feel my embrace, my love in his final moments.
“Sau…” Caden reaches for me.
I smack his arm away. “Don’t touch me!” Pain claws atmy chest. A howl wants to rip its way up my throat. “At dinner – you weren’t asking about Ethan, were you?”
Shame fills his eyes as he holds my heart in his throat, in the words that will soon pour forth. “No.”
“You let him decide to kill himself!” I gasp, desperate to breathe. “He didn’t even know. He didn’t even…”
“He knew, Sau. It was there in his eyes. He knew all too well what I was asking. It was why he never went to the warehouse.”
“You let him run?” Hope blossoms. “He’s…”
He shakes his head at the same time I remember who left the room soon after.
Myers.
The reaper.
The killer of traitors.
“He’s his uncle…” I say, my heart crumbling beneath that weight. “How could you ask him that?”
He glances away, so much guilt and shame in his eyes. Barely a whisper, he admits, “Because I couldn’t.”
I stare at him, my chest heaving. The reaper doesn’t kill unjustly. He doesn’t get involved in the politics. He’s entirely neutral in his protection of this Family.
But Leon is his nephew.
My son.
Our firstborn.
I can’t… “Why?” I ask, the broken word wrung from my lips with what feels like the last of my strength. “What did he do?”
But I know what he did.
And Caden knows I know.
Ethan was accused of knowing about the coup. David wouldn’t have been able to take the throne with any of my children alive, so if Leon knew...if he knew and said nothing…
“He didn’t just know, did he?” I ask, torn between mylove for him and my hatred for those who raped me.
He hesitates for a moment. Then his shoulders sag, all pretenses crumbling beneath a collapsing cliff edge. “He was involved with David all the way.”
Bile churns up my stomach. “Involved like...they weretogether?”
“No…”
My eyes bunch. I shake my head. I know what he means. Knew it as soon as he said it, but I needed to hope. Needed to pretend… That incest was better than my own son selling me.
“Did he…?” I can’t bring myself to say those other words.
