Atonement (Master's Protege 2)

He knows. What else does he know? My voice is quiet, but I’m slightly on edge when I respond. “You have done research, then.”

“Every damn night, Violet. I haven’t said anything to you because I didn’t want to give you false hope.”

My heart soars, then sinks, that quickly. Elated that he’s done this, that he’s given himself over to doing exactly what he promised—then deflated again when he admits he may not have much to go on. False hope?

I square my shoulders. “What have you found?”

Nestling me square in the center of his lap, he pulls me slightly to the left so he can get a better view of the computer screen. “First, public records.”

He double taps an innocuous icon on the bottom right corner of the screen, and several police reports come up. They’re poorly written in scratchy handwriting and the details are hard to read with the darkened page, but they are neatly organized. My throat feels tight when I see my parents’ names alongside mine… or the name I used to go by, anyway.

Russell and Anya Bates, murdered on Tuesday. Found dead. Buried in a funeral mass celebrated by Pastor Descamps at the First Church of Christ, Salem

“Why did you change your name, Violet?”

I don’t know why it surprises me that he knows I changed my name. Security and investigation are his bread and butter.

“How did you know that?”

He doesn’t answer at first, then scrolls further down. “When I began investigating, I found no local deaths for anyone by the name of Price. And there aren’t that many Violets in the world, you know.”

He hasn’t really answered the question.

“I know.” It’s why I changed my last name. I couldn’t bring myself to change the name that my mother gave me. I have this strange feeling that it’s the only part of me that’s unique, the only part of me that no one else can ever replicate.

“Once I found out my parents were killed, I felt it best to hide who I was.”

It feels awkward that he knows my history, this small part of me that no one has ever really truly seen, but in order for us to find the real truth, he has to.

He nods. “Now it’s time to tell me everything. I can’t help you piece together what you need to find if you don’t.”

I knew this was coming. I’m prepared.

I nod.

“Violet, you told me when you came here, your father was an assassin. How did you find that out?

“I was only four when I first went into foster care, so I don’t remember much about the first few couples that had me. I was thrown around like so much baggage, really, but it wasn’t until I was much older that I realized someone fabricated a story around me. By the time I was ten, it was well accepted that my parents were killed in a car accident during a rainstorm. I didn’t argue with what people thought they knew. By then, I knew there was a reason for the lies and discrepancies.”

“Understood. I’m not surprised you were clever even as a child.”

I shrug. “I tried. Sometimes I succeeded and other times I didn’t. I was terrible in school…”

“Let me guess. Not because you weren’t academically gifted, but you had a hard time doing as you were told.”

I smile at the sardonic lilt in his voice. “How’d you know?”

He pinches my bare ass. “Doesn’t take a genius to figure that one out, baby.”

I smile. “So anyway… I was finally taken in by a minister and his wife.” I can’t keep the bitterness out of my tone. “They made no pretense about liking me but had no qualms about taking me into their home. Their kids were sheltered and judgmental, and the years I spent with them were the most miserable of my life.”

Cain’s quiet while I tell him this. I stare at his screen, at the old police reports, and imagine I can see the police station, the officer who’s likely retired by now, filling out all the details and leaving so many blanks. “Tell me what they did to you.”

I can’t stop the shudder that runs through me, that runs through him, at the memories he pulls from me with those few little words. The memories I’ve tried so hard to keep hidden.

“No.”

Again, his arm tightens around me. No one says “no” to Cain, so when I do, it always seems to throw him for a loop.

“Violet.” Another warning tone, but the gentle caress of his thumbs across my thighs softens the rebuke. “I want to know.”

And just like that, I’m ten years old again, locked in the dark closet where they punished me. I didn’t have to do anything wrong to make them put me there. It was who I was they were trying to cleanse from me. It was the wife who beat me, when her husband wasn’t home. I wasn’t the only one—she beat all her children, quoting scripture as she did. None dared to cross her, and even the littlest one would flinch when her mother turned her way. But I bore the worst of it.