Page 58 of Depraved

“You didn’t only kill in the ring. You lied to me. Again.”

“I didn’t lie,” I insist.

She throws up her hands, furious and frustrated. “Fine. You misled me.”

“I didn’t want you to learn what I really am,” I plead.

“Were they all criminals? Was that part true?”

I grimace. “Yes. But I told you before that I’m not a vigilante. I’m a monster, Karolina. You just never saw it in me.” I swallow hard. “The prospect of you seeing it now is shredding me. I can’t lose you.”

She purses her lips. “You wouldn’t lose me over this. Not if you explain. The only way you’ll lose me is if you keep deceiving me.” Her voice roughens with pain. “I can’t bear it. I want you so badly, but you’re hurting me when you hide things from me.”

Her admission that she wants me makes my legs go weak, and I drop to my knees before her. She doesn’t pull away when I take her chilled hands in mine.

“I never want to hurt you.”

“Then stop doing it,” she whispers. “Tell me why you think you’re a monster. It’s more than the fact that you were an assassin. You said you’ve always been this way. What did you do?”

A shudder wracks my body.

“It’s not something I did. It’s what I am. What I was born to be. Killing those men meant nothing to me. Murder is in my blood.”

Her cheeks pale. “You killed someone when you were young?” she guesses. “Is that why you ended up in foster care?”

“No,” I confess. “My parents died. I never lied to you about that.”

“Then why do you think you’re a monster?” Her jaw firms. “What did they do to you to make you think that?”

She’s righteously angry. On my behalf.

I cling to it like a lifeline, and my hands tighten around hers. She doesn’t recoil.

The truth spills out of me. “My father was a murderer. A serial killer.”

The last of the color drains from her face.

“That same tainted blood runs in my veins. My mom…”

“What happened to her?” Karolina prompts when my throat closes.

I have to continue. I can’t seem to stop now. I can’t deny her anything, not even this. Not even if it makes her walk away from me.

Because deep down, I know I deserve to lose her.

“She found out what my father was. About the women he killed. We were under police protection for a year, and every time she looked at me, she saw my dad. She saw him in me, and she hated me for it. She was afraid of me.”

Karolina’s eyes shine, and she caresses my cheek. “You were a child.”

I turn my face into her palm, breathing her in like I need her more than oxygen.

“How did she die?”

Nausea curls in my stomach. The blood. The wicked gleam of the blade. The methodical way he made her scream…

“He found us,” I say, and it’s as though someone else is speaking. I’m lost in the dark memory, no longer present with her.

“Look at me, Brandon.”