Stasia Black

I’m a monster, but as so often happens with monsters, I’ve got everyone snowed into thinking I’m a good man from the outside.

The priest’s collar around my neck helps.

It’s… nice. Different.

Clean.

I clearly do not belong here.

The last time I stepped foot inside a church was… God… back when I was a kid, and the nuns from school would drag us in for weekly chapel on Wednesdays. The boys would always snap my
bra straps when the nuns weren’t looking. But when I punched them for it? I was the one who got in trouble. Sister Agatha would just sigh, shake her head, and mutter under her breath about me turning out just like my mother.

Something’s got to change.

I have to change.

It’s time. It’s beyond time. I just don’t know how.

So, for the first time in years, I wandered through the doors of a church.

“How can you say that?” I look up in surprise. “You don’t even know me.”

He swallows, and I watch his Adam’s apple move in his throat. “Because redemption doesn’t come from doing things perfectly. It comes from the fight. From choosing to believe you’re worth saving, even when it feels impossible.”

No offense, but God let my brother be tortured by his childhood sweetheart’s father while they were both just kids, so I doubt He’ll be intervening to help the likes of me anytime soon… Especially since I’m the one who brought that evil man back into their lives after they’d escaped him.

I don’t deserve my brother’s forgiveness. Much less God’s.

“Miss me?” I tease, trailing a finger down his arm as I pass.

“Always,” he grins at me. Men are simple creatures.

My eyes widen. “Mads?”

Oh, yay, I love it when Mads pops out. I like Mads. Mads is fun.

control was only an illusion.

preferring night to day.

Just as I’m daydreaming all the ways I could try to get my brother’s attention, movement at the edge of the yard catches my eye.

What the fuck?

I know why I’m back here, but who the fuck else is trespassing in my brother’s backyard at this hour?