Page 17 of Forgive Me For I Have Sinned

I bang my fist on the steering wheel repeatedly. "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" I look down at my hands smeared with blood from my split knuckles. I lost control. I always lose control when it comes to her. I don't even feel the sting from the adrenaline rush.

"Do you regret it?” Reid asks through the Bluetooth in my car.

Do I regret it?

"No."

"Relax, you didn't kill him, so stop beating yourself up over it."

I slide my black hooded sweater off my head and wipe my hands on it. "Yeah, but I'm trying to not kill people."

He snorts. "I hate to break it to you, but that is part of what you do, Alaric.”

I let out an audible breath. "Whatever."

"Did Valen get home safe?"

"I'm not an Uber, and he wasn't drunk. He left in his car before––"

"You went back."

"Yeah, and I sent someone to clean it up when I was done."

"Do you need anything from me besides therapy?"

I laugh, and then it fades a little. "I don't need therapy. I need you to handle your boy."

"This is not about him, Alaric. It's about her. It's always been about her for you. Ever since that night, it's like––"

"Like what?" I snap, pinching my nose, not caring if I get blood all over my face. I'm parked in front of my house. I need a shower and a drink.

"Like you feel guilt for once in your life and not the angry kind. Everything that has to do with her is hot and cold. But you don't have to worry for much longer. The next meeting. Her father is going to announce who she's going to marry. Her time has run out. No man or son of one wants to marry her."

Her words play in my head, haunting me. ‘All they want is to fuck me.’

Good, I tell myself.

"Jess is worried about her for whatever reason. She keeps asking me if I know who she'll end up with."

"Why the fuck should she care? Whoever the prick picks to marry her crazy ass is doing everyone a favor."

"She won't tell me, but Jess is…delicate."

He told me what happened, and I facilitated the vote, and the Order didn't get involved. I'm on the Consortium, but I have the most influence out of all the members of the Order. I cleaned up the mess.

"It's not our problem. There is nothing we can do. It could be anyone that isn't betrothed."

"Who do you think it is?" he asks, and that funny dread creeps up, but I push it down, like a weakness I must eliminate.

"I don't know, and I don't care. Every time she is around, lives are ruined. No one can do anything about it anyway. Rules are rules." I think about Alicia, and a surge of anger for being unable to save my flesh and blood sparks fury like a gout of flames within me. "Fuck her. I gotta go."

Placing my hands on the tile in my shower, I let the hot water beat down on my back, releasing the tension. The glass shower door opens behind me. Cold hands slide around my waist.

"You need me?"

I don't respond.

I need release. The hard, unforgiving kind. The brutal kind that calms me. I push off the tile and turn, looking at Sasha, my secretary. Her small breasts don't do it for me, but she is nothing I like, which is what I want. To escape from what I like, to focus on what I need. I press the screen, and Disturbed's “Down with the Sickness” plays through the speakers.

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