Atonement (Master's Protege 2)

“Look at my back and tell me what you want to know,” I say. “That bitch told me she’d scourge the devil out of me and God, did she try.” I flinch at the memory.

I feel Cain’s fingers along my back. I don’t see them, but I never forget they’re there.

“Their names.”

“Cain, no.”

I know him. I know what he’ll do. He’ll make it his mission in life to punish them for the harm they did me, over a decade before he ever met me. His justice is swift and merciless. I’ve stared into his eyes after he’s killed, and I know when he feels it’s justified, there’s no remorse. My grim reaper in the flesh.

“I’ll find them, Violet. You know I will. I just wanted your buy-in before I do.”

I blow out a breath. Now that he knows, I can’t stop him.

He strokes my back until I relax, until I’m slumped against him.

“Now, baby. Tell me the rest, and we’ll get started.”

Chapter Six

Violet

It’s late into the night when we’ve compiled everything we know between the two of us.

It’s admittedly not much to go on.

I’ve known since childhood that my father was an assassin because I overheard the minister’s wife talking to her husband. They knew, somehow, and used the knowledge as justification for the way they treated me.

We scoured everything we could together; he’d made some progress before we even talked.

We have the names of the people who fostered me, all of them, including the ones who had me for the longest time.

As an orphan in the system, someone could’ve adopted me, and it was a question I struggled with for most of my childhood.

Why not? Why not me? Why were other kids in foster care adopted into homes, but never me?

I didn’t want to be part of the families that took care of me, not until I was a much older teen and found myself in the care of a family that treated me like a human being. But by then I was independent and headstrong and wanted nothing to do with ties to anyone.

I’m still on Cain’s lap, snuggled in like I belong here. He lazily strokes his hand across my shoulder. Behind me lies the tray with the dinner we ate a while ago, the remains of chicken and potatoes that filled our bellies.

“It’s time to come up with a summary. You’ve filled in more blanks than I have. Took me four fucking weeks just to compile the list of foster parents.”

“Why?” I shake my head. “That doesn’t make any sense. And for God’s sake, if you’d only asked me…”

“You’d remember the name of the family that took you in when you were six?”

“Well, no, but I could remember some things.”

“You did, baby, but not the details from when you were a child. Hell, Violet, I think you blocked half of them from your fucking memory.”

Maybe I did.

He pulls up a screen and begins to read the notes we’ve compiled.

“Your dad was killed when you were four. Your name at the time was Violet, should’ve been Violet Bates, but nowhere in any record do you exist.”

According to public record, my parents had no children. “That’s odd, isn’t it? How was someone who didn’t exist put into the foster care system?”

He nods. “But you needed something to graduate high school, to get a job. What did you have for paperwork?”

I shrug. “My social worker gave me everything. But if there’s no record of my birth, where did she get it from?”

He makes another note to find her, then taps something onto his phone to Joe before he continues summarizing everything we’ve found.

“You believe your father was an assassin, because your foster parents at one point mentioned to each other they had you in their care because they were trying to right a wrong, and we can assume that wrong was your father’s history.”

“Well, yes. They said my parents.”

He pauses. “Is there a chance your mother was an assassin, too?”

I sit with this for a moment. “I… remember her being gentle. I remember she liked to sew. She didn’t eat meat, but she’d make me chicken tenders.” I shake my head. “How could a seamstress vegetarian be an assassin?”

Cain spins me around to look at him. “Never, ever assume.” He bends down and kisses me, a gentle brush of his lips to mine, before he looks away. “I can be gentle, too, Violet.”

I shiver. I know Cain’s called The Executioner, and he’s told me a bit about his past, but I never really put the words assassin and executioner side-by-side.

“Do you consider yourself an assassin, Cain?”

He doesn’t blink or look away. “I do.”

I’m falling in love with a murderer. Someone who takes the lives of others without regret, and I don’t know how to stop.

He holds my chin so I can’t look away. “You knew when you came here who I was, Violet. You knew when you offered to work for me what I do.”