The Sinners of Saint Amos - Logan Fox Page 0,156

can trust me, Trinity.”

His one hand connects with my shoulder. Then the other. He squeezes my muscles, ducking down so our eyes are level.

“You can tell me anything.”

“What other sins have you committed?” I ask quietly. “Besides fucking my Dad, obviously.”

Gabriel’s face hardens. “That’s between God and me, child.”

“You said I can trust you, but I won’t. Not until you tell me everything.”

He releases me, steps back. His eyes narrow as he studies me. Then he takes in the room again, turning as he crosses his arms over his chest. “I don’t know why I thought things would be different,” he says, so quietly I step forward on instinct to hear him better.

“What things? Are you talking about you and my dad?”

“I thought I could…explain.”

“He cheated with you on my mom and you expect me to trust you?”

Gabriel runs his hand over the dusty metal desk, and my gaze follows the trails he leaves behind right to the marks my butt made when Apollo set me down on the edge.

Gabriel outlines that heart-shaped smudge in the dust as if he can see into the past.

An invisible hand grips my throat, and not nearly as kindly as Zach or Reuben ever did.

“Dear child…” he murmurs. “There’s so much you still don’t know. So much I have to tell you.”

And then he opens one of the drawers.

The screech it makes drags ragged nails down my back.

Tell me? What the hell does that mean? Is this…is it about the Brotherhood?

No. He’d never tell me if he was guilty. No one in their right minds would.

“So tell me,” I say.

I step closer.

Gabriel reaches inside the drawer and comes out holding an envelope. He glances at me from the corner of his eye, his back still turned, and frowns. “Is this what you came here to show me?”

He holds up the envelope.

TRIN

There’s a heart over the I.

Tears blur my vision.

Suddenly I don’t want Gabriel to see anything. I want him to keep talking. But when I lean forward to take the envelope, he moves it out of reach.

His brown eyes dart over my face, hunting.

“What is it?” he asks.

I have no way of knowing, but the second he asks that question, it’s as if I can see right through the fucking envelope.

“A photo.” I lick my lips. “It’s a photo of you.”

He tilts his head a little. There’s even a hint of a smile on his mouth. “Of me?” That smile stretches. “I hope they got my good side.”

I laugh, but it sounds like I’m seconds away from losing my mind.

Or maybe I have already.

Gabriel lifts the envelope a little. “May I?”

My head nods, but it’s as if someone else is doing it for me. My eyes move, but not because I ordered them to.

I watch, frozen in place, as Gabriel opens the envelope.

Takes out the photo.

The coy smile he’d been wearing melts away. For a second, his face could have belonged to a corpse.

Then his gaze flashes up to mine. “So young,” he murmurs.

He tips up his chin, staring down at the photo a second longer. When his eyes lock with mine again, my body goes ice-cold.

“Who left this here?” he asks.

I can’t move, let alone speak.

Gabriel comes closer, glancing between me and the photo, eyes slowly narrowing. I stifle a gasp when he grabs my jaw, tilting my head back so he can stare at me at just the right angle.

His eyes widen a little.

“So much of your mother in you, isn’t there?”

My stomach drops.

“And to think,” Gabriel says, his mouth breaking into a fond smile, “She swore to Keith and me that she’d never have children.”

He turns the photo to me, drawing my eyes.

Middle row, two from the left. A young Gabriel Blake, hands behind his back, stern expression on his face.

“But then she fell pregnant. A boy, did you know that?”

Middle row, four from the left. A young Keith Malone. Solemn, bleak. But so were all the kids in that photo.

My eyes fly back to Gabriel.

“She didn’t keep that baby though. Or the next. But she kept you, Trinity.” Gabriel’s eyes move back to the photo, and my gaze follows. “She kept you, because you were special.”

Middle row.

Three from the left.

Inches shorter than the boy to her left and the boy on her right.

A young, pretty Monica Stevens.

My mother.

So petite looking there between Gabriel and Keith.

“Do you know why you were special, Trinity?”

A tear breaks free when my eyes shift so I can look at Gabriel. Again, premonition fills me with