Page 112 of My Beautiful Sin

“But he’s part of your team. He’s the second figure on the building. You two did a trial run to see who was faster. You won.”

He nods.

The air between us is deathly still. “In Vegas. The Glock I found in your drawer. That wasn’t just for personal protection. It was a backup weapon. You killed Bell at close range, with a single-shot twenty-two, then tossed that pistol. Unregistered, no prints. But in case you got stuck getting out of there, you had the Glock on you.”

“Do I even need to answer?” he asks. “You’re doing fine on your own.”

“Do not joke about this.”

“No,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

I drag my hands through my hair and pace the room, part of my mind screaming that this conversation can’t really be happening, the other part yelling that I should have known all along. That maybe I was ignoring it because I didn’t want to face the truth that’s now slapped me in the face.

I draw another breath. “And Reggie?”

“She’s been part of the team for years.”

“The team,” I repeat. On the one hand, I’m fascinated. On the other, I’m repulsed.

Mostly, I’m drowning. And Devlin’s proximity doesn’t make it any easier to process all of this. How can it when I’m reeling, and all I want is for the man I love to hold me while I work it out? But he’s the man who knocked me asunder in the first place, and I’ve completely lost my anchor.

“So … what exactly does this team do? Are you guns for hire?”

“Sometimes,” he says. “Not with Myers.”

“Right. Of course.” His short, to-the-point answers are starting to piss me off. I know it’s his way of letting me pull out the truth at my own pace, but what I want is a battle. A fight.

“You already told me that, didn’t you? He was released and you didn’t think it was right. And so the great Devlin Saint decided to render justice.”

“And you know why,” he says. “You met Sue. You know what that child went through. And her mother. You talked with Laura. You know how broken that family is now. Broken, but at least they have the chance to heal. How many other families did he rip that chance away from?”

“That doesn’t make what you did right.”

“Doesn’t it?”

“You aren’t a god,” I say. “You aren’t even a saint. You’re just a man and you can’t play judge, jury, and executioner.”

“Not always, no. But in some cases…”

“No,” I say firmly.

He meets my eyes. “We’re going to have to agree to disagree.”

“Damn you, Devlin,” I say, my voice hard and tight like a whip. I want to strike him. To hurt him. “You’ve destroyed everything. Everything.”

What I don’t say is that he’s destroyed me most of all. Because it’s not the secret of the video that has gutted me, or even this horrible truth about what he does or this team of vigilantes he does it with.

That’s bad, but what’s worse is the deception. Because despite revealing himself at the tide pool—despite telling me he loved me—Devlin Saint never really showed me his secrets at all.

There will always be secrets between us, he’d said, and I shiver with the memory, my heart aching. Things I’m not willing to talk about. Not ever. You should have stayed away, he’d warned me. I’m a dangerous bet.

I let the memory wash over me, my body ice cold, like someone looking down into their own grave, for the first time acknowledging the inevitable darkness to come. Then I meet his eyes. “You were right,” I say, lifting my chin. “You were a dangerous bet. And it looks like I lost.”

He shakes his head. “This isn’t over. You need time to think. I get that. You want more answers. I get that, too. But I know we’re not done.”

“You don’t know anything.”

His tilts his head so that he’s looking me straight in the eye. “I know you once said that the only way I could lose you was if I was the one walking way. But I’m not walking anywhere.”