Page 58 of A Taste like Sin

“She died,” I stammer, fisting my hands in the front of his coat. “And I don’t—what if he killed her?

What if he’s planning to finally kill me? My last present never came.” Tears stream down my cheeks,

heedless of the fingers I deploy to combat them.

“Easy. Easy, sweet, girl.” Damien shifts, fully engulfing me in his arms. “Talk to me.”

“It never came,” I insist, between gasping sobs. “He always sends it on the third day, always.”

“What?” he demands, but his voice is tenser. Brittle. “Talk to me, sweet girl. What didn’t come?”

“A picture,” I confess. I can see it: the same sick image used to torment me every single year since I

was eight years old. Squeezing my eyes shut doesn’t erase it. “My class picture from second grade.”

Scrawled across it would be the same mocking phrase, year after year:Was she worth it?

Was my life worth Leslie’s?

The answer resonates in my soul, just as true now as it was then:No.

“What if he kills me too? What if…what if he hurt my father?” I can’t even imagine the prospect, and

my fingers tighten over the luxurious fabric in their grasp. “People connected to your brother’s case

have wound up dead lately. What if—”

“No one will harm you,” Damien says as though it’s as solid a fact as the sky being blue. We breathe

air. He’ll protect me. “Though I can’t say the same for myself…” His pained tone draws my attention

down to my hands. I’m clutching his arms, nails drawn.

“S-Sorry!” I loosen my grip, but he captures my hand before I can pull away completely.

“You don’t ever need to apologize to me.”

“Not even for suspecting you of the unthinkable?” I counter. “I can’t lie and say I haven’t considered

it, that you could be the reason my father is in the hospital. What if you wanted to hurt him that

badly?”

He’s gone as far as sending me poisonous shrubs and bugging my apartment for over four years.

Would it be much of a stretch to assume that he’s capable of far worse?

“I despise Heyworth Thorne,” he admits. At the same time, he slips one of his hands around to my

lower back as if to ensure I can’t run from such a confession. “I loathe what he stands for—but the

justice I seek can’t be found if he’s dead. Trust that I have no interest in hurting him physically.”

“You just want to destroy his reputation,” I surmise. “But why? I know about your brother, but there

has to be more to it than that—”

“I will tell you,” he swears. “But not like this, when you are panicked and hysterical.” He brushes his