Page 52 of Arranged Scars
She sighs, smiling happily. “Tonight’s a pretty good night so far.”
“Just wait. Every day’s going to get better.”
20
CAROLINE
It’s not a straight line for me. I don’t wake up in the morning and think it’s totally fine that I’m trying to kill my brothers.
Rationally, I know they deserve it for what they did to me. They violently and horribly abused both me and Finn, and I have a feeling they’ve done it to others. If we don’t take them out, they’ll keep on hurting people, and I don’t know if I can live with myself knowing I could’ve saved other girls from my fate.
But it’s still not easy. I grew up with these men. They’re all a lot older, but still. They were a part of my life, and I was always taught to be a decent person, or at least to try. That’s the whole point of religion, right? If we act good, we get rewarded.
I’m going to burn in hell for what I’m doing.
And I still don’t want to stop.
“You’ve been quiet,” Finn says a few days after our tour of the construction site. He finds me sitting beside the pool with a book and a glass of wine. “If I didn’t know better, I’d worry you were starting to avoid me.”
“Not at all.” I close the book. “You’re the busy one.”
“That’s a fair point, but I was thinking we could go out tonight.”
My eyebrows raise in surprise. “What do you mean, go out?”
“You know, to dinner. Like a normal couple.”
“We’re a normal couple?”
“We could act like it.”
I hesitate and glance away toward the pool. Is this a good idea? To get more tangled up with him? So far, we’ve fucked like crazy people, but I’m still sleeping in my own bedroom and hiding away from him, even though he wants me to act like his wife. I can’t seem to keep all the pieces of me straight these days.
“Dinner could be okay,” I say very slowly.
“I’ve never heard a more enthusiastic yes in my life.” He turns away, but I can tell he’s grinning, his mask firmly in place. “Would it help if I said I wanted to go over the plan?”
I’m strangely disappointed. “So this is business then?”
“Business, pleasure, it’s all the same with us. Come on, I got you something.”
I reluctantly follow him down to the master bedroom. He gestures at a small ring box left on the nightstand. I pause, not sure what I’m about to find, but I open it with a slight click. Inside is a gold band with a single, strangely green stone. I frown and hold it up to the light.
“What is this? I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
“When I got home after our encounter with Shane, I found a piece of glass stuck to the bottom of my shoe.” He gestures at the ring. “I had that made from it.”
I blink at the ring and stare at him. My shoulders get all tense. “You made a ring… from the bottle we used to murder my brother?”
“Do you like it?”
I slip the ring from the box and slide it onto my finger. It’s such a strange little thing. The glass piece looks like a very small diamond. It’s subtle and I doubt anyone would even notice unless they were looking.
But I know what it is. This little piece of a murder weapon. For some sick reason, my heart rate surges with excitement. I turn and push myself into him, kissing him hard. His tongue slips into my mouth and when I pull away, I’m breathless and giddy.
“I love it,” I say, grinning like a maniac. I must’ve lost my mind at some point. All those saunas cooked my brain. No reasonable, rational person would want a ring like this. It’s a cursed object, a totally nightmarish symbol of a vicious and terrible soul-ruining act.
And I really do love it.
