Page 28 of Be My Sinner

She turns towards the Holy Father, who has moved further away from the pulpit, still holding the gun flush to her head. “You are a false prophet, a devil, and the biggest sinner in here. I will not watch as you corrupt more of God’s children. I will not watch you destroy any more of my family.”

She presses the barrel of the gun hard to her head as two guards move closer to her. I spy Sammy moving towards me out of the corner of my eye, but Abraham and Ezekiel have put their bodies between my mother’s and mine before he can reach me. I can barely see her through their thick shoulders. I push against their large and restraining forms, trying to get to her. Trying to stop her from doing this to herself, to me.

“NO! MOTHER, PLEASE!” I beg, even as someone’s arm wraps around my shaking form.

“I love you, Dinah! They killed your father! They killed your brother, and now they have killed me!” Her voice sounds high-pitched and full of hysteria. “Avenge me, daughter! Avenge all of those who cannot save themselves from this Order!”

A gunshot rings out loudly in the air. The sound is deafening and echoes off all of the walls. I am dragged hard down to the ground, my breath leaving my lungs as a crushing body lands on top of me, forcing all the air out of my lungs.

“Stay down, Snow,” Ezekiel grunts above me as his weight crushes me to the stone floor, and his large hand gently cradles the back of my neck. I try to thrash and push against his hold, needing to get to my mother. I need to stop her, to save her. She can’t leave me alone in this miserable world. Everyone I have ever loved is already gone.

“She’s gone, Atasi. She’s gone,” Abraham’s raspy and panicked voice breaks on the words near my ear. An animalistic sound leaves my lips, a cross between a snarl and a wail. The sound being ripped from my very soul.

She’s gone.

Chapter 13

The Protector

Sammy

Dinahhasbeenlostin thought ever since we made our silent escape through the densely wooded area, leaving those two bastards behind a few hours ago. The drive back has her somber and morose, quite the opposite of the jubilant mood I expected after fucking up that cunt, Abraham’s, beloved car.

I keep tearing my gaze away from the desolate back roads to observe her unmoving figure, and I’m unsettled by what I see. Fear creeps like a chilling, slithering worm up my spine, a telltale sign that things are about to take a turn for the worse instead of improving.

I can sense that her thoughts have drifted back to her mother, brother, or perhaps both. There’s a distinct expression that graces her stunning face whenever either of them crosses her mind. Her mesmerizing blue-gray eyes carry a hint of profound sorrow, and her jaw clenches as she grinds her back teeth. Her slender, swan-like neck tenses, muscles straining as they attempt to restrain the rage that dwells within her, constantly seeping to the surface and taking control, like a relentless parasite yearning to invade and consume its host.

I wish I could erase all the pain and suffering the Brotherhood has inflicted on her. I wish she had let me conceal her, and flee with her into the depths of the underground. Together, we could have joined with the rebellion, shielding her from the clutches of the Brotherhood. It would have meant a life on the continuous run, but it would have been better than the alternative. I should never have made that promise to assist her in seeking revenge. I was a fool and weak, and now I only hope that the decision won’t ultimately cost us our lives, and if it does, it’s a quick death.

She was utterly devastated after her mother’s public suicide. She didn’t even have to fake how out of control she was for the benefit of the Brotherhood cronies. Her high-pitched screams and agonizing wails continue to haunt my nightmares to this day, months later.

Their sound haunts me and ignites unending waves of dread. Fear for her well-being, for her sanity, and for my own existence. If something were to befall her, I would follow her into the afterlife without hesitation. There’s nothing left worth living for, nothing worth drawing breath for, without my Nightstar.

It still grates on my nerves that those two bastards reached her first, shielding her from the gun her mother brandished with their own bodies. I yearned to make them suffer immensely for taking that privilege away from me. To slit both their throats from ear to ear, and pull them apart piece by piece, until there was nothing left of either of them for laying their fingers on my Nightstar.

By the time I reached Dinah, it was over. Her mother was gone, brains splattered all over the casket and her brother’s corpse. Abraham Mercier had positioned himself as a human shield to protect Dinah and Ezekiel Rothesay from further harm. Dinah was screaming and struggling against Ezekiel’s form, which enveloped her entirely in a protective embrace, and pressed her against the cold, unyielding stone floor.

I had never felt the depth of jealousy that I possessed within me until that very moment. A scalding rage surged through me in a mere moment and traveled through my body like molten lava. The moment I watched two men touch what had been exclusively mine for six years. The way they shielded her from harm, a duty that had been exclusively mine all these years.

She is mine. She will forever be mine. Those two bastards believe they have a claim on her. I’ll see them in hell before I ever let her go.

Before I could control myself, before my mind even registered with how my actions would look to those in authority surrounding us, I picked up a wooden pew in a fit of hot, molten rage and threw it against the wall, then rushed both of them to reclaim what was mine. I dragged her sobbing form away from them, cradled her in my arms like a child, and walked right out of that fucking chapel door. No one dared to stop me, but I’m certain I raised a few eyebrows that day. I’ve been waiting ever since for the summons to face my superiors and account for my actions.

I heard Noah Rothesay’s crushing words that day—the revelation that the marriage contract between Dinah and Ezekiel remained intact after all these years. That he had not wed anyone else in anticipation of marrying Dinah.

My Dinah. My heart. My soul. My Nightstar.MINE.

Just the thought, the damn possibility, tightens my grip on the steering wheel until my knuckles turn bone-white. I’d always wondered when they’d come to retrieve her, to tear her from my arms.

When her eighteenth birthday came and went with no collection, I breathed a strained sigh of relief. The years that followed with no summons caused me to believe that we had truly done it. We had convinced the Order of her insanity and violent nature, and they had forgotten about her. Absolved her of her Sacred Daughter duties and left her to live out the remainder of her days in forced captivity.

I would have been delighted if that had been the case. I would have Dinah to myself for the rest of our lives. I could have kept her happy, sane, and safe, while the world crumbled around us. Of course, that was never going to be our reality. The Brotherhood would never allow her, a high-ranking Sacred Daughter with a prominent name, some peace. No, they have always planned to use and abuse her. Breed her like an animal and discard her when she is all washed up and insane from their cruelty, just like they did to her mother.

“A penny for your thoughts?” I clear my throat, attempting to draw her away from her own mind. She slowly turns towards me, scrutinizing my face, the intensity sending a tingling sensation through my skin.

What does she see when she looks at me? Does she see the man who would set this world ablaze for her? The one who will follow her into the afterlife. Does she see the soldier, the Order guard who was assigned to keep her a captive in a pretty gilded cage?

“My thoughts are worth more than that. In fact, they are worth every gold cent the Brotherhood has hidden in their coffers.” She reaches forward and turns on the radio; at first nothing plays as she fiddles with the various empty stations. No actual radio stations are left, just those controlled by the Brotherhood. The only music that ever plays is what they deem the masses should listen to. Mainly anything with a religious or servitude undertone, propaganda for their message.

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