Page 9 of Unholy Masks

My heart froze. The garrote in my hands felt like it was on fire. The look in her eyes stirred the remnants of memories buried deep in my soul, and my body trembled.

NO. Yara killed him for me, for Tany. He’s gone.

“You’re right. You were a coward, sister, but she saved me. She put me back together. She fixed me. I have to do this for her.”

“For Yara,” Sister Serena said with a long sigh, shaking her head.

“You know.”

“She killed him. You saw her, and you loved her.”

“And she never saw me, never understood me. When I am done, she will. She’s already thinking about me every waking hour.”

Her smile was resigned. “I should have protected you. I should have.”

“You could have done a thousand things, and I’d still be this, Sister Serena. It wasn’t about Tany. It was about control—about taking back the power that was mine all along. About taking back the love that I lost.”

“Love doesn’t bloom in broken places, Patricia. Death and pain can’t bring back what you’ve lost. They only bring… darkness, and darkness destroys good things.” Her voice was solemn, just as gentle as it had been during the Sunday Mass.

A bitter laugh caught in my throat. “She forgot me, you know.” My fingers tightened around the garrote. “She left me behind.” I gritted my teeth. Yara had found something, something far better than me, bigger than me—a home. A family. I could never find that. I was forever lost in her. “But Tany’s death, Miller’s death, they brought us together once, didn’t they?”

Sister Serena held my gaze. “Do you think she’d love you for this? Do you think she wants to remember you through blood and rage?”

“But she will. We bonded over death,” I murmured, almost to myself. “It was our shared darkness that brought us back from the edge.” My voice cracked. The old, sealed wounds reopened, bleeding in ways I couldn’t stop. “She’ll find me again. We’ll find ourselves.”

Sister Serena’s face softened.

“No, Patricia. That wasn’t love. That was rage. And when it festers, it makes you believe in shadows and lies. It can convince you that the darkness is all there is, but there’s always light.” Her voice was wistful. “There is always light.”

“You don’t understand.”

“I do know that this path won’t bring you peace. There’s no love in violence and blood. It’ll consume you and her. It’ll destroy you both.”

“You think I fear destruction? I live in it every day. It’s the only thing that still makes sense. I know, I know, that once I’m done, once I take away everything that’s left in her life, she’ll be with me again. We’ll share the same darkness, and we’ll survive as we had once,” I whispered, tightening the garrote until it strained against her neck, the glint of metal the only light left in the darkness.

She wasn’t like the women I usually killed, but she was worthy, even more so than all of them combined. This was the woman who blessed Yara’s demons, who let them live, and I loved her for it.

“Goodbye, Sister Serena.”

This death would be between Yara and me. Yara would bury the sister for me; she’d hide my secret as I hid hers, and our game would continue.

“In your own home, Yara. If you had been my Yara, the Yara who was untouched by emotions, the one who is not blinded by love, you could have saved the sister. But you let your emotions lead you astray, and you’ll pay the price for it. Ryden is a mistake just as Kat was. When you have paid enough, I’ll take you back.” I smiled. I had to. “I’ll forgive you, heal you, and you’ll love me.”

I closed the garage door.

“I’ll see you soon, Little Love.”

4

TO HELL AND BACK

YARA

“God!”

Alive. He was still alive. His pulse was weak, but it was there.

“Water.” I opened Enzo’s shirt. Other than a cut along his right shoulder, he looked unharmed. Unconscious, but fine.