“Yes,” I said, confessing, though I wanted to lie to her, knowing that if I didn’t, the peace I’d found with her would be over, gone as if it had never existed, but being unable to do so even with the full awareness of what the truth would mean, with the full awareness that everything between us had changed already.
After I spoke, I moved closer to her, staring at her intently. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking, how she was responding, but she hadn’t run from me, screamed at me to leave and never come back, so tiny wisps of hope started to spring up. Maybe there was a way…
“Thank you for telling the truth,” she finally said. “I knew you would. That’s why I couldn’t go through with it. Well, one of the reasons.”
“You were going to inform on us?” I asked, suddenly remembering what she’d confessed, half of me shocked that I’d even been able to forget, even for those few moments.
“I was,” she said. “There was a time when seeing what you did would have sickened me. And given me delirious glee. Evidence is one thing, but a live witness, one as convincing as I am, tearily recounting how you killed a man and then hacked him to pieces, scattered those pieces God knows where…” She trailed off, met my eyes, and then started again. “It would have been gold, especially when I came forward despite the danger to myself, the grave personal risk that daring to speak out against Clan Constantin put me in.”
She was almost matter-of-fact, and she was also right, and both of those facts hid the rage, and underneath it hurt, that simmered at a full boil.
“Who were you working with?” I yelled before I lowered my voice, fought for control.
I took a step back, then another, not trusting myself to be this close to her.
“No one. No one would risk it. But I thought if I had the evidence, they couldn’t ignore it. So I started in the house, searching. I didn’t find anything,” she added quickly, as if that made it okay. “But seeing you…that was gold.”
“So, me…us?” I asked, not wanting to hear her answer but needing to, disgusted that my emotions were at the forefront of my mind.
She shook her head. “No. No, Anton. I… What I feel for you, what we had…have…is real,” she said, her eyes bright, oh so believable.
Rage so intense I thought my heart would pound out of my chest coursed through me like lightning.
At her, yes, but at myself mostly. I’d known something wasn’t right, known that she had secrets, but I had ignored it, let myself get caught up in the fantasy that we could build a life together.
Foolish. Unforgivably so. And my clan had been close to destruction because of it, almost brought down by a danger that I had allowed to fester.
“Real?” I spat.
She nodded. “It has to be.”
I breathed out hard, my nostrils flaring with the huffed-out breath. I should have stayed mute, should have left, but instead I asked, “Why does it have to be?”
“Because I saw what you did. And I hated it. But I didn’t hate you. I don’t hate you.”
I shook my head as if doing so would ward off the dizzying mix of emotions that roiled through me.
“It’s unbelievable, I know. But when you…did that, I thought you were a monster,” she said.
“I am a monster, Lily.”
“No. No, you’re not. Because after, when I should have been gripped with fear, disgust, anger, all those things I’d felt toward Christoph Senior, toward all of you, for years, I wasn’t,” she said.
“What were you gripped with instead?” I asked, again unable to hold my tongue, something that only Lily seemed to cause and something that I needed to fix.
“Trust,” she said simply, like that single word meant something here, now, after what she’d told me.
“Trust? I murdered someone and cut his body into pieces and you trust me?” I said incredulously.
She let out a noise that was half snort, half laugh, and completely endearing. “Ridiculous, right? But true. I couldn’t get the thought out of my mind that if you did it, there must be a reason.”
“You sound insane, Lily,” I said.
“I know I sound insane. I probably am insane,” she replied. “But I know my mind. And I trust you. And I don’t trust anyone. So even though I had what I’d been looking for in my grasp, I couldn’t do it, Anton. Because I trust you, I lov—”
“I could kill you right now,” I said, cutting her off before she finished, knowing that if I heard the words, I would lose what little reason I had left.
“Yes,” she replied.
“I should,” I said.