Beauty in Deception

“Acquired her?” It’s a strange way to put it.

“He bought her.”

I still at that, ice invading my veins. “What did you say?”

“Her mother sold her.” He looks me dead in the eye. “And you’re just as much to blame for her fate as Mr. Warren.”

Balling my hand into a fist, I grit out, “What did you say to me?”

“Mr. Warren went searching for a lookalike. He wanted someone who resembled Miss Warren. Evie. Christina was one year older. She was fifteen, but she was the same height.”

Dread invades me, spreading like frost through my body.

“They took her to a place in the countryside and taught her to act like Miss Evie, to walk and eat like her. They dyed her hair and did plastic surgery on her face.”

I had a strict education.

Everything inside me ices over.

“When she returned a year later, her real training started,” he continues. “Mr. Warren trained her to be Miss Evie’s double.”

“A decoy,” I say as the building cold fury explodes inside me.

“Christina was always sent ahead. If everything was safe, Miss Evie would follow.”

You’d rather watch them from a distance.

That comment about watching the flowers from behind a window, of being a spectator instead of a contributor to life, suddenly makes sense.

More pieces of the puzzle come together. “She complied because Warren threatened her sister’s life.”

“Mr. Warren taught her these rules. She had to memorize them. Don’t get caught. If caught, play the role. Win time. He said he’d protect her sister and save her. All she had to do was pretend to be Miss Evie.”

That sick son of a bitch. I’m shaking. The truth twists in my stomach. I can’t see anything but the facts I’ve been too blind to recognize.

“She’s not a traitor,” he says. “She didn’t have a choice. She didn’t know.”

I’m vaguely aware of a burning sensation in my palm where I’ve scrunched up the cigarette, putting it out on my skin.

“She’s not a whore,” he says, throwing the statement at me with spittle. “Mr. Warren shot a man once for touching her hand.”

The words I utter sound hollow in my skull. “She wasn’t a virgin.”

“No. Mr. Warren took care of that. He knew what would happen when you took her.” He snarls. “He took her into the basement. We all knew what he’d done behind that door because when he exited, he hadn’t even zipped up his fly yet. He said he’d broken her in for the job, taught her what to expect. For a long time after that, he made jokes about how much she bled.”

I see red. “Yet you did nothing.”

“Like everyone, I have a family. Like her, I have people to protect.”

I’ll kill the lot of them, everyone who stood by. I’ll do worse to Warren. I swear it.

“I had to pick her off the floor,” he says. “Mr. Warren really did a number on her.”

I can’t listen to more, but I have to hear it. I owe it to her. “The man he tortured to death while making her watch…”

“It was a lesson of what happens to traitors. Miss Evie gave her a dress. A damn dress.”

The gun shakes in my hand. “He’ll pay. When I’m done with him, he’ll beg me to pull the trigger.”

“Mr. Warren expects you to kill her. That’s what he’s bargaining on.”

Because he knew I’d be so angry I couldn’t see past the fury.

“I’m telling you this because you have a chance to give her freedom,” he says. “She’s been Mr. Warren’s prisoner for ten years. You owe her this because you’re just as guilty as Mr. Warren. You’re just as responsible for what happened to her. You sealed her fate the day you sent Mr. Warren a contract with your demands. That’s the day he went looking for her.”

It hits me between the eyes—what I’ve done, what Warren and I have done. Tom is right. I’m as guilty. I’m guiltier. I slept with her and planted my seed in her belly. I accused her, called her names. Horrible names. I almost fucking killed her.

I look at the man standing in front of me. I want to kill him. If it can’t be Warren, it needs to be someone else. Anyone. I just need to fire a shot into his brain and break open his skull, but not all the blood in the world can sate the violence coursing through me.

I look. I look and look. I look at his dull eyes and grassy hair. He looks tired. I want to off him. Someone. My finger itches on the trigger. I promised her. I promised Christina. Of all the promises that has ever been made to her and broken, of all the lies we told her, this will be inconsequential, just another lie, but I can’t be the man who does that to her.