Deep Redemption

Movement caught my eye. Lilah was edging toward her two sisters, tears streaming down her scarred face. She had her arm over her stomach, and her movements were labored. And even from where I stood, I could see her hands were shaking. Disbelief was all over her face. Harmony carefully drew back from Maddie’s arms and got to her feet. Maddie stood too, never leaving Harmony’s side, staring up at her elder sister like she was Christ risen from the dead.

“Lilah . . . ” Harmony murmured. Tears filled her eyes. “Lilah . . . what happened to you?” Guilt seared across my heart. I felt two eyes boring through me. When I looked up, Ky’s jaw was locked and he was glaring daggers at me. I got his message loud and clear: I was responsible for his wife’s disfigurement and pain. For whatever she was clearly going through now.

I completely agreed.

“Bella,” Lilah cried, drawing my attention back to them. She didn’t answer Harmony’s question, but carefully and cautiously folded herself into Harmony’s arms.

“Shh,” Harmony soothed as she held her tight. I saw her eyes squeeze together in pain—pain for what her sister must have gone through in her absence—and tears tracked down her face.

“I have missed you, Bella. I missed you so much I could barely breathe,” Lilah cried into Harmony’s shoulder. “But how . . . I do not understand . . . you died . . . I cannot . . . ?”

A loud, tortured cry came from across the lot. Mae. Harmony pressed a kiss to Lilah’s cheek and stepped out of her embrace. Harmony looked toward Mae. I let my eyes drift from Harmony, to Mae, and back again. They could almost pass as twins. Yet, curiously, I didn’t see them as the same. They shared the same height, build, dark hair and ice-blue eyes . . . yet there was a spark in Harmony that, to my heart, Mae didn’t possess. A spark that told me she was mine, in a way that Mae never was.

Was never meant to be.

Mae cried harder as Harmony slowly approached her. Mae had once told me of her sister Bella and the special bond they shared. She loved all her sisters, but I had always known there had been an extra bond between Bella and Mae. I could see that even now, in the way they looked at one another.

Mae was curled against Styx, the prez keeping his pregnant fiancée from falling down. He kissed her on her head, watching the scene with a fucking shell-shocked look on his face.

Harmony stopped dead.

“Mae,” Harmony said.

“You died,” Mae whispered. She stepped forward toward her sister. “You died . . . I sat with you as you died.” Mae’s face contorted with pain. “I held your hand in mine as it went still and cold. I felt your fingers stop shaking until they never moved again . . . ”

“I know,” Harmony whispered back.

“You told me to run. You told me to run and never look back.” Mae’s blue eyes became tortured. “So I did . . . I left . . . but . . . but . . . but I left you there alive and alone?” She shook her head and choked on her tears. “Bella, I would never have left you . . . if I knew . . . if I had known . . . ”

Mae’s knees gave way and she slumped to the floor. Styx moved forward to catch her, but Harmony was there before him, joining her sister on the floor. “Mae, do not blame yourself.” Harmony cradled Mae’s head in her arms. Mae cried and cried—loud, racking tears.

When she had calmed, she lifted her head and searched Harmony’s face. “You look exactly the same.” Mae smiled and ran her hand down Harmony’s cheek. “Still so beautiful. The most beautiful of all.”

“Mae, I am so sorry,” Harmony cried. “I thought . . . I was told you had all died. I thought I had lost you all too.”

Mae held out her hands to Lilah and Maddie. The two sisters walked over and joined them on the floor. They wrapped their arms around one another, creating an impenetrable circle. Their heads were bowed, as if they were in deep prayer. My stomach sank as I saw in that moment how they all would have lived in the old commune. Only having each other for support. Only knowing the love of the other sisters, nobody else accepting them.

Harmony lifted her head. “I was told you had all died.” She shook her head. “I have believed for so long that I had no one left in the world. That I was alone.” Then she looked at me and fucking smiled. “Until I met Rider.”

Her loving smile pierced the protective ice that had formed around my heart when we had arrived. I had forced myself to try and detach. It was protection against my heart shattering. Because I knew it was coming.

Then it did.

“You have to be fuckin’ kiddin’ me!”

Harmony flinched. I looked up to see Ky shaking his head, combing back his long hair in frustration. He pointed at his wife. “You wanna know why Li’s face is scarred? Ask the sadistic cunt that brought you here.” Harmony’s face paled. “You wanna know why me and my wife—your sister—might not be able to have kids? Why Li can hardly walk because of surgery to try and fix that shit? Ask that fuckin’ rapist bastard that fuckin’ brought you here.” Harmony’s gaze fell to Lilah, whose head was bowed in embarrassment. “Ask your fucked-up cunt of a man about how he kidnapped Mae and tried to force her to marry him. Ask him about how he captured Li and allowed her to be burned and gang raped by his prick of a twin and his pencil-dicked friends. Ask him about his fuckin’ insane obsession with Mae, only to fuckin’ turn up with you, her fuckin’ mirror image! And how—”

“Ky! Enough!” Lilah shouted and struggled to get up off the floor. She winced and hissed through her teeth as she straightened. But she swallowed her pain when she saw that all eyes were on her. She turned to her husband. “Stop. We have just got our sister back. A miracle.” She shook her head. “So just . . . stop.” She seemed exhausted.

I felt like the piece of shit Ky thought I was.

Harmony stepped slowly toward me. Her bottom lip was trembling and her watery eyes were searching mine. “Rider?” she whispered. I ducked my head. I was ashamed. So fucking ashamed.

Taking a long inhale, I looked back into her beautiful ice-blue eyes and said, “It’s all true. Everything they said . . . I did. I did it all.”

Harmony’s face contorted in agony and she shook her head. Tears spilled from her eyes. “No, I do not believe it. You would never do all those evil things. The man I have grown to know, he would never do it. He has a kind and pure heart . . . he brought me back to my sisters. He saved me from an unwanted marriage. Turned on his own flesh and blood for the greater good . . . for the sake of my happiness, a woman he has not known long at all.”