Moonstone: Gems of Wolfe Island One

“Now we’re getting somewhere. You didn’t actually believe him.”

“I… I wanted to believe him.”

“Because he offered you an out.”

Silence for a moment.

I narrow my eyes, glare at him.

Finally, “Yeah. He did. I was seventeen. Too young to die.”

“They wouldn’t have killed you, dumbass. Not until you paid up.”

“I know that. Now. But they would have hurt me. Hurt me bad.”

“So better Katelyn than you, huh?” Anger wells within me. In my mind’s eye, I’m pummeling this dude. Reducing him to mush.

It doesn’t escape my thoughts that I’ve done bad things too. To men. To women.

I’ll always carry that with me. The shame. The guilt. But I have a second chance now.

Walk away.

Just fucking walk away.

I should take my own advice. Walk out of here. Let the past go.

But the past…this fucking past… It affects Katelyn, and she’s become so important to me.

I never wanted another relationship. I was scared shitless that I’d fall back into my old ways, even if I stayed off the booze.

Walk away, Luke.

My legs don’t move, though. My ass stays glued to the uncomfortable plastic chair.

“Yeah,” DeCarlo finally admits. “Better her than me. I’m not proud of it.”

“And that makes it okay.”

God, I’m hating myself right about now. There’s so much of my past I’m not proud of. So fucking much. I’ve atoned. I’ve put my own life at risk to try to right my wrongs.

But I hurt people—a lot of people, some of whom I thought I cared about—and I can never change that.

“No.” He shakes his head. “It doesn’t make it okay. I was a kid, man.”

“Right. Seventeen. Way too young to understand right and wrong.”

I never gave myself a break. Why should I give this idiot one?

“A good churchgoing kid like yourself. You never learned God’s lessons. How to treat people. What was inherently good and inherently bad.”

“Well, you know the priest I had.”

I suppose he’s got me there. “The priest who convinced you it was kosher to drug women.” I nod. “I’ll give you that one. Except you still should have known better.”

“Fuck off. I was a kid. I believed my priest. Why do you think some of those pedophile priests get away with shit? Because the kids are conditioned to think the priest can do no wrong. That he knows God’s will.”

Okay, so he has a point. But, “Those are younger kids. You were only months away from becoming a full-fledged adult.”

He bites his lip. Shakes his head. Finally, “I didn’t want broken legs, man. I was… I was scared. Fucking scared.”

“Yeah. I get it.” I get it more than he realizes.

Doesn’t change anything, though.

“What the hell made you think of Katelyn?”

“She was young and gorgeous, and no one would miss her for a few months. She was supposed to go to Columbia, so her parents weren’t expecting her home any time soon.”

“Isn’t she your cousin?”

“Second cousin.”

“And that makes it better?”

“Hey, it’s legal for second cousins to marry. That’s not family.”

Acid rises in my throat. Did he really just utter those words?

“So if she had been what you consider family, you wouldn’t have sold her out. Is that what I’m hearing?”

“This ain’t none of your business, whoever the fuck you are.”

“Luke. Luke Johnson. Do you want me to repeat it again?”

“How do you know the Raven?”

Again, the invisible talons scrape at my neck.

I don’t reply.

He squints at me. “Now that I look a little harder at you, you do look familiar. You’re too clean cut, though. No way you’re involved in that game. So who the hell are you, Luke Johnson?”

“I’m no one,” I say. “Just a person who knows a few people, and a person who cares about Katelyn.”

“I already made my peace with Katelyn.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. She came to see me yesterday.”

“And she forgave you?”

“Well…no.”

“Don’t expect that to ever happen.”

The truth of my own words spears into my gut. Forgiveness. I’ll never have it from those I hurt. I can wish for it. I can even think I deserve it.

But I’ll never get it.

And I don’t blame those I wronged.

They’re perfectly right not to forgive me.

“Listen,” I say. “I want the truth, DeCarlo. Did you, at any time, think Katelyn’s life would be in danger?”

He shakes his head. “No. I mean, other than having to drug her.”

“You thought she’d end up working for some rich family as a nanny to their privileged kids.”

“Yes.”

“And it never occurred to you that she’d be held against her will.”

“No.”

“Then why would you have to drug her in the first place? Why not just ask her? Hey, you want to be a nanny for some rich kids?”

“I… This was the way it worked.”

“Drugging her meant she’d be held against her will.”

“But she wouldn’t be harmed.”

“Holding someone against her will isn’t harming her?”

God, the truth of the words.

I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.

I put the phone back in the holder and stand. DeCarlo lifts his eyebrows. I turn and walk away.