The Angel (The Original Sinners 2)

“My mother was eighteen years old when she came to the United States. A music scholarship to a conservatory in New Hampshire. The scholarship only covered tuition. So she took a position as a nanny in my father’s house. His wife had just given birth to a daughter.”

“Your sister Elizabeth, right?”

“Yes. My father’s wife had a difficult pregnancy, a difficult birth. After Elizabeth, she could have no more children. During her recovery, my mother became a mother to Elizabeth.”

“And caught your father’s eye?” Suzanne asked, smiling. She could see where this was going.

“Unfortunately, yes.” Father Stearns did not smile.

Suzanne’s smile died as the subtle inflection on the word unfortunately told her all.

“Oh, my God,” she whispered.

“My father was a monster. I don’t use the word lightly. His anger over his wife’s inability to give him more children…he took it out on my mother. He raped her repeatedly until she conceived. She lived as a hostage as he threatened to hurt Elizabeth if she told anyone or ran away.”

Suzanne covered her mouth with her hand.

“I was born ten months after she came to live with my father. The doctor who delivered me told me years later he’d never seen anything like it…a young woman in agony giving birth in utter silence. She didn’t want to scream. My father would have enjoyed that too much.”

“He was a sadist?”

Slowly Father Stearns nodded.

“I was born shortly after midnight on December 21st. She named me Søren after her grandfather. The doctor wrote that on the original birth certificate that he hid from my father. The official birth certificate reads Marcus Lennox Stearns. Marcus was my father’s name. That is why I far prefer to be called anything but that.”

Suzanne said nothing at first.

“December 21st,” she repeated. “The longest night of the year.”

“It was the longest night of my mother’s life, she once confessed to me. Although I was a child of rape, she loved me. She remained in the home of her ra**st to care for me. My father wanted to raise me as his child, his and his wife’s. He might never have another son to inherit the family name and wealth. When he deemed me old enough, he sent me to school in England. She returned to Denmark and spent years trying to find me. My father had amassed incredible wealth and power by then. She told no one of what happened to her.”

Suzanne stood up and walked over to the cold fireplace. Told no one…

“My brother Adam,” she began and took a deep breath. “He loved the Church. Altar boy at age ten…he’d already decided he wanted to be a priest.”

She turned back and met Father Stearns’s eyes. He said nothing, only nodded for her to go on.

“We found out after he shot himself in the head at age twenty-eight…the note said he’d been raped by our priest. Repeatedly, for years. The Catholic Church had amassed such wealth and power…” she quoted Father Stearns. “He told no one, either.”

Father Stearns came to her. He laid his hand gently on her face and she saw her tear trickle over his fingers.

“Because he committed suicide, the church denied him Catholic burial. Fucking Catholic Church,” she said, swallowing what felt like a rock.

“Suzanne, I’m so sorry.” Father Stearns gently stroked her cheek with his thumb.

“You just called me Suzanne, not Ms. Kanter.”

He smiled.

“I did.”

“What do I call you then?”

“The children at church have called me Father S for years. Less intimidating than Father Stearns, I suppose. Those closest to me, those who truly know me, call me Søren.”

“I’d like to know you…Søren.”

“You’re starting to,” he said, moving away and sitting in the chair again.

“Can I ask what Nora Sutherlin calls you?” She sat back down and pulled her legs in. She stared at him from over her knee.

“Eleanor calls me every name in the book,” he said and they both laughed. “But mostly Søren. She says my name is appropriately pretentious.”

“I can’t believe she said that to you. Seriously, I’ve met four-star generals and they’ve got nothing on you for intimidation.”

“Eleanor is a fearless woman, always has been.”

“You speak of her very fondly. Don’t tell me you’re not close.”

“We are close. She had a nasty run-in with the law at age fifteen. The judge had me supervise her community service. Her parents had little to do with her after that. I suppose you could say I had to become her father.”

“Are you proud of the way she’s turned out?” Suzanne asked, certain of the answer. Erotica writer, dominatrix…all-around bad girl.

“I couldn’t begin to be more proud of her. Her joie de vivre, her intelligence, her strength…we should all turn out as well as she.”

“Strong, is she?” Suzanne had seen pictures of Nora Sutherlin—little slip of a thing.

“Strong enough even I can be weak around her.”

Suzanne grinned.

“You weak? I think I’d like to see that.”

Søren turned his eyes to her and gave her the coldest, hardest, steeliest stare she’d ever seen. Her blood went cold, her hands went numb, her heart fluttered.

“I assure you,” he said with quiet menace, “you would not.”