Page 41 of Deviant Illusions (The Memento Trilogy #2)

KANE

D elilah is fucking with my head. She’s not a gentle or soft person, or emotional in the slightest. She’s detached and finds everyone replaceable.

I’m a fool, wanting to believe her when she’s toxic.

Exactly like a fool, I slip my fingers through hers as soon as we get out of the car.

The loose gravel driveway won’t be comfortable on her bare feet, but I’ve already fucked up by allowing Helene to think Delilah means something to me.

Lennox’s most recent warning repeats in my head as I take in the derelict surroundings.

“If you don’t want her to be used to control you, make her useless.”

Each turn of my head reveals more trees as crystal-clear water laps against the rocky edges below us at the bottom of the cliff.

There’s a split second where my limbs scream at me to run, to wrap my hand tighter around Delilah’s and get her the fuck away from whatever it is that the Kobalts and her parents are involved in on this small island.

But she squeezes my hand, infusing strength into me as she looks up with her eyes brighter than ever to whisper, “Don’t leave me. ”

Helene’s stick digs into the gravel, creating pockets in the surface of the driveway. I turn my head so she can’t see my lips and mouth to my girl, “We’ll stay together, yeah?”

Despite the shit around us, she smiles at me. A genuine one that isn’t forced or cordial like her parents had forced her to do. It’s real. She isn’t hiding anymore.

I used to live for that smile. I’d structure my days around it, I’d go out of my way to get more hits of it like an addict.

It didn’t matter that she was cheating on her boyfriend, or that her boyfriend was my brother.

None of it meant anything because she’d allow me to witness her joy in a way that no one else ever did.

Tucking our joined hands behind my thigh, I drag Delilah with me into the large stone house.

The bricks have aged from the salt in the air, turning the edges white.

Some spots on the flat stone are black, and without the greenery, I wouldn’t be able to see anything other than varying shades of black and white.

The trees packed up the steep hill of the driveway aren’t lush or pruned to form elegant shapes.

They’re rough with brittle bark. Some of them have holes cracking through the wood and others are charred.

Delilah clings to me with her free hand wrapping around my forearm and the gravel crunches with her uneven steps.

The driver doesn’t wear a mask as he stands beside the door like a freaky butler.

There’s a scar starting at the very bottom of his earlobe, curving under his jawline before disappearing into the collar of his shirt.

His eyes are covered by the shadows cast from the overhead stone porch. I don’t even blink as we get closer.

The climate isn’t hot enough for me to be able to work out which area of the globe we’re on, but the sun is at the highest point in the sky.

It makes it difficult to see the drivers’ features fully as we enter the house.

He walks ahead, leading us into a large foyer.

Yet the house is dim and gloomy despite it being midday wherever the fuck we are.

Antique paintings line the walls. Each one is adorned with a gold plaque embedded into the frame and different markings at the top of the frame.

I stop beside one that has a dragon head eating its own body.

The head seamlessly curves into a serpent’s tail.

The driver abruptly turns, forcing me to step back at the sight of his pitch-black eyes, nearly crushing Delilah.

Even the whites of his eyeballs are covered but there’s no film over them.

How the fuck are his eyeballs fully black without blackout lenses?

It’s creepy as fuck, and it doesn’t get better when he attempts to open his mouth.

His lips quiver, fighting something like his jaw is wired shut, as he lets out a garbled mumble that reveals bars.

No teeth.

But there are metal fucking bars embedded into his gums. They can’t be any bigger than an inch in height and with his lips closed, it looks no different than if he had teeth. But his lips are parted, and he attempts to talk from the literal cage of his own body.

Pulling Delilah behind me so she can’t see, I try to decipher his urgent mumbling. None of it sounds remotely like words. I look for Helene before I quietly ask, “Do you know how to take them out?”

He rears back like I’ve offended him, then storms out of the room. His steps get further away, echoing through the house with the floor made of the same cold stone as the outside. Delilah jumps, pushing herself flat against my back as a door slams, and she wraps her arm around my waist.

I don’t move because she’s hugging me. My eyes close in relief. It’s like she’s aware that I can only bear her touch. She awkwardly wraps her other arm around me without untangling her fingers from mine.

“It’s okay,” she whispers into my back. “None of this is real. I made it up.”

Fuck. What I’d give to go back in time and be playing the role of Asher again.

I had her then. So long as she didn’t say his name, we were fine.

As much as I was lying to Delilah, I was doing the same to myself, if not more.

That glimpse of normalcy, of a life I could have had, wasn’t as bittersweet as I thought it would be.

I became accustomed to having her, sleeping beside her, doing normal shit like sitting with her on the sofa and watching horror movies.

I even stopped picking the ones we’d spent our childhood watching in the hope that she wouldn’t relate the masks to them, that she wouldn’t remember me, because then the facade would be over.

Kane would be dead along with his multitude of weaknesses.

The metallic tap of Helene’s stick breaks the silence as Delilah tightens her arms around me, muttering, “I won’t let anyone take you again.”

She hasn’t stopped saying weird shit since seeing her parents.

At least her erratic behavior has stopped, and she only attempted to attack her father when we were leaving Austria.

Bile burns the back of my throat at what the fuck I did.

Entertainment isn’t the same as justice.

One is explainable, the other is humiliation.

I turn rigid as Helene gets closer, but she’s not alone. Other voices softly mingle with hers as she says, “It has been put right now, and as long as there is order, we can continue.”

“As it should be,” an older man croaks.

Lead drops into my stomach. I rip Delilah’s arms off me. Her face falls faster than her limbs and she looks so small, fragile and breakable, as she looks up at me. I mask my features and roughly push her away with my hand flat on her chest as the three pairs of footsteps enter the room.

Her feet slip and she stumbles back.

Directly into her fucking grandfather.

He lifts his swollen, liver-spotted hand to hold her shoulder while I stop myself from tearing his hands off her.

My interactions with Dr. Sinclair Leroux can be counted on one hand.

I’ve had the misfortune of being around the old, pompous prick on two occasions.

Both times, I’d feel even more invisible despite the way his eyes would bore into my soul when he’d shake my hand.

So when he looks at me with eyes that are similar to Delilah’s, I look away to prevent anyone knowing what she means to me.

It takes effort to distract myself with the stupid fucking painting while Delilah trembles.

“Grandpapa?” Her voice cracks and she pales. She tries to escape him, walking backwards into a sideboard. The dish collecting dust clatters against the wall, and she wildly shakes her head as he advances.

His once golden hair has turned white and I can see his pink scalp as he walks towards my wife.

Her grandmother doesn’t offer any sympathy or make an attempt to calm her down.

The old bitch adds more cruelty as Cordelia smooths her wrinkled hand over her blonde chignon, hissing, “Stop being insolent, you rotten child.”

Harkin looks exactly like his mother. Her hair has lost some of the golden hue in favor of silver, but the rest of her face remains unaged.

Delilah’s grandfather hasn’t been so lucky.

His sparkling, perfectly straight teeth stand out against his sun-damaged face and the years of shaving has turned the skin over his jaw and cheeks rough.

I can almost hear the scratching sound of his rough skin as he pats his cheek, demanding, “Say hello to your grandpapa.”

Delilah’s chest heaves as she literally backs herself into a corner. Her grandfather is too close to her, and I move before I can be rational, stepping between them. I’m a foot taller than him, yet he opens his mouth to be a condescending prick.

“That girl ruined everything we worked for.”

I lean into him, my nose nearly touching his, and my voice drops as I say, “ That girl is my wife. If anyone is going to punish her, it is me. Not you, not your wife, and not your son. Am I understood?”

My wife latches onto my shirt, pulling it taut around my chest as she hides behind me with her elbows tightly tucked either side of my spine.

This crazy, formidable, violent woman is hiding behind me.

She’s never been the person to cower. Not even when that was my only goal, but she’s doing it now.

It’s another thing that fucks with my head, because she’s not supposed to be broken by anyone else.

I tried to fucking kill her, and she was fine, but she chooses me as a safe barrier between her family.

Instead of taking her into my arms like I want to, I meet each of the older generations’ eyes. Helene smirks like the self-righteous cunt she is and I ignore the others to ask, “Where are we staying?”