Reparation of Sin Read online

  Reparation of Sin

  A Sovereign Sons Novel

  A. Zavarelli

  Natasha Knight

  Copyright © 2021 by A. Zavarelli & Natasha Knight

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  About This Book

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Thank you

  Also by A. Zavarelli

  Also by Natasha Knight

  About A. Zavarelli

  About Natasha Knight

  About This Book

  My husband hates me. But he’s also the only man who can save me.

  * * *

  Taken by a stranger, Santiago is my only hope. Except that I don’t know if he’s dead or alive. And for as cruel as he can be, the thought he might be gone is unbearable.

  * * *

  But he has nine lives, my monster.

  * * *

  He’s not finished with me yet. And soon I’m back at The Manor. Locked in my room. At his mercy.

  * * *

  I know I am despised.

  I know I have become the face of his vengeance.

  * * *

  But there’s something else too. Something between us. It’s a dark and gnarled thing. And it has its claws around my heart.

  Reparation of Sin is the second book of The Society Trilogy. If you haven’t read book one, Requiem of the Soul, you’ll need to do that first.

  * * *

  You can find Requiem of the Soul by clicking here.

  1

  Ivy

  I am blind.

  I reach up, my wrists bound, to touch the blindfold. Instinct.

  A hand captures one arm. Strong. Cold. I smell leather and realize it’s a glove.

  “Keep it on,” he orders.

  I nod, but I’m not sure if he can make that out because I’m shaking so badly. The dampness of this place has gotten into my bones, the stone cold beneath my bare feet, dirt wet between my toes. I smell a forest. Is that possible? Where am I?

  “What’s happening?” I ask for the hundredth time since he brought me to this cellar-like space.

  “You take it off while I’m here, and I’ll bind your arms behind your back again. You don’t want that.”

  “No,” I agree although I’m not sure he was waiting for my reply. I’m sure he doesn’t care.

  I’m still dressed at least. Though the gown is ruined.

  Has it been hours or days since he took me? Hours or days since Santiago lay dying—dead—on the floor of the formal dining room set for an elaborate, elegant dinner. That was ruined too. Tables and chairs turned over. The finest crystal shattered in the chaos when the lights went out.

  Dead.

  “Where is Santiago?” I ask, knowing he won’t tell me. He has hardly spoken to me since he brought me here. “Where am I?”

  I hear him move around and turn my head to follow the sound even though I can’t see him. He’s careful not to touch me, and when I feel him close, feel his clothes brush against me, I shudder and pull away.

  But when I hear him open the heavy metal door, I rush toward it, arms outstretched even though I know there isn’t anything to fall over. I’d managed to get the blindfold off before he’d come back.

  “Wait!”

  Powerful hands close around my shoulders, catching me. Fingers dig into bare flesh, my body forced to a jarring stop.

  “Please!” I cry out, tears wet on the blindfold. “What’s happening? Please just tell me what’s happening!”

  He makes a sound from deep in his throat. A groan. Like I’m a nuisance. Like he doesn’t have time for me.

  Then he shouldn’t have kidnapped me.

  “Santiago,” I start, clearing my throat when I choke on his name. “My husband.” Another pause. “He’s…is he…?” I can’t say it.

  “Eat. If you don’t eat the food, the rats will come to have it.”

  “Rats?” I panic.

  “You don’t want that, either.”

  He walks me backward, skeletons of small dead animals crunching under his shoes, cutting the skin on the bottom of my feet. The backs of my knees hit the metal bed frame with the smelly, ancient mattress on top. He pushes me down abruptly, then releases me.

  I remain seated because I know not to fight this man. I hear him walk away. To the door, I guess. To leave me alone in this darkness again. Maybe I should be grateful, though. He hasn’t touched me. Not like that.

  The door creaks as he pulls it closed. He’s almost gone.

  “Please just tell me if he’s okay,” I plead in a whisper. “If he’s…alive.”

  He stops, and I can just about make out the silhouette of his giant body through the blindfold. He’s big. Like Santiago. And just as strong. I wouldn’t get past him if I tried.

  “Would you have me believe you care?” he asks.

  “I…Is he…?”

  His approaching steps are rapid then, and I scramble backward, my back hitting the damp stone wall just as his gloved hand closes around my throat.

  “Dead,” he says, and I’m not sure if it’s a question or a statement of fact.

  My hands are on his forearm, but if he wanted to strangle me, if he wanted to break my neck, I’m sure it would take little effort. Like the snapping of the bones of dead mice beneath his shoes.

  “Is he?” I choke out.

  “You should hope for your sake not.”

  2

  Ivy

  I push the blindfold up to my forehead as soon as I hear the lock turn. My heart is racing, but at least he’s bound my wrists in front of me. They were at my back at first. I draw my knees up onto the disgusting mattress and hug them, the thick rope tight on my already raw wrists. I shudder when a cold breeze comes through the tiny square of a window high up on the forest floor. I’m at least partially below ground. An outdoor cellar from what I can make out with stairs that lead up to a door. But at least I have that window.

  “If you don’t eat the food, the rats will come to have it.”

  I glance up at the barred window. Is that where they’ll come from? I look around the square space, the corners too dark for me to see if there are any holes. I’m sure there are, though. On the floor are the corpses of small animals. Most are rotted to the bone.

  The dress Mercedes chose for me is a ruin of dirt and tears.

  Looking at the tray set on the small table, I see a blanket folded beneath it, so I get to my feet and rush to it. I set the tray on the cot a
nd unfold the blanket to wrap it around myself. It’s rough, not a blanket at all. Something a mover would use to protect the furniture or maybe something a painter would lay down to protect the floors, but it will do.

  A small bowl of soup with a spoon sticking out of it, a piece of bread, and a glass of water are on the tray.

  I take a sip of water first, then set the glass down, figuring I should ration the water at least. I pick up the soup but realize why I didn’t smell anything. It’s cold. I don’t bother with the spoon but bring the bowl to my lips and tilt it. I think it would be good if it were hot, but this isn’t even lukewarm. I drink it anyway. I don’t want to lure any rats or other animals, and I need to eat to keep up my strength.

  The bowl is small, and it’s only half-full, so I finish it quickly, set it down, and break off a piece of stale bread. I eat that too but leave the rest for later and get up, go up the stairs. There are half a dozen. The cellar is built into the earth. I try the door even though I know it’s locked. There’s no way I have the strength to break down this steel monstrosity that must be at least a century old.

  I return to the small window and look up at it. The sun is fading, so it’ll be pitch-black soon. This will be my first night here when I’m conscious. I wonder how long I was out.

  It’s too high to reach, not that I’m going out that way. I take the bucket he’d left for me—I guess to use as a toilet—and turn it over to stand on it. I climb up and still have to stand on tiptoes to just barely see out. Moss grows thick on the bars and against the walls of my cell.

  My cell.

  I breathe in, then close my eyes to ward off the panic and the inevitable dizziness. I hold tight to the bars, icy and damp. Once it passes, I climb back down and sit on the mattress, pulling my feet up again to curl into the blanket.

  Is Santiago dead? No. My kidnapper didn’t say he was dead. He said I should hope for my sake he’s not. Which means he’s alive.

  Then what happened, and where is he?

  I think back to the party. To talking with Colette. To the elegantly dressed men and women. The food. The champagne. To how Santiago looked darkly handsome even though I hated myself for thinking it.

  I think back to my room at The Manor. To the tiny window made bigger. To Antonia. Her warmth. And I drop my head into my knees because as bad as all that was, I know now it can always be worse. Because this is worse.

  There, I am hated. But there’s something else too. Something between us, Santiago and me. A dark thing. A gnarled thing. I feel it inside me, inside my stomach, my chest.

  After wiping my cheeks on my knees, I draw the blanket up to cover my face and lie down to close my eyes. I don’t think about the rats or the skeletons surrounding me, this burial ground, this mausoleum.

  I think about him.

  3

  Ivy

  I’m startled awake when I register the sound of metal against metal. It’s different than the sounds of the night with the insects and other animals out there. After a moment, the fog clears, and I sit up and squint in the shadowy dawn light as the lock turns and the door opens.

  I gasp at what I see, but it’s not that I’ve forgotten where I am.

  My captor stands in the doorway in his dark cloak, the hood pulled up. I remember how Santiago had come into my bedroom the night before the wedding. How I’d been half asleep and thought it was the Grim Reaper.

  Those cloaks scare me still. And this man in his reaper’s coat is no exception.

  Behind his huge frame filters the light of the rising sun seeping through a dense cropping of trees.

  “What did I say?” the man asks, and I scramble to pull the blindfold down over my eyes, my hands shaking at the deep timbre of his voice. The threat and barely controlled hate obvious with every innocuous word.

  It’s damp, that strip of cloth. And doesn’t cover the whole of one eye since I rolled it down, but I keep my eyes closed and hope he won’t notice.

  I don’t know how long I’ve slept. I’m about to ask what time it is. What day. To ask where Santiago is. What’s happening. But before I can, his hand closes over my arm, and I cry out and instinctively try to pull free. He’s quiet for his size. He crossed the room without me hearing even blind.

  “Quiet,” he commands, and my arms are lifted. His hands are cool from the leather gloves as he forces them higher, forces me on tiptoes, and hooks my ropes into something overhead, then releases me.

  I hadn’t noticed anything overhead. I hadn’t really searched for anything up there. But here I hang now, toes grazing the ground as the ropes dig into my raw wrists with my weight hanging from them.

  “What’s happening?” I ask, listening as he moves behind me and places his hands on the blindfold. It’s gone, at least for a moment, but then he puts it back on so it’s flat over my eyes. He knots it tightly, catching strands of hair in it, but he doesn’t care when I protest.

  He then walks to stand in front of me. I feel him. He’s close but not touching, and I wonder what he’s doing. It feels like he’s just staring at me, and it’s unnerving.

  “How did you do it?” he asks.

  “What?” I’m confused.

  “How?”

  “I don’t understand. How did I do what?”

  He snorts. “If it were up to me, I’d get that confession out of you at the end of my whip.” He pauses, and I feel him step back away from me. “But fortunately for you, I’ve given my word.”

  “What?” My voice breaks mid-word. Is that why I’m here? Why he’s strung me up? Is he going to whip me? “What’s happening? Where’s Santiago?” I can hear the panic rising in my own voice as he puts one finger on the middle of my chest and gives me a push. It’s just enough to make me scramble for my feet to gain purchase and alleviate the strain on my wrists.

  He moves around, and I hear different sounds. He’s inside, then outside again. The door is still open, and I think I hear a woman whispering out there. I listen hard, and I hear it again. I swear I do. And then his clear voice, not whispering.

  “I told you to stay in your room. Go back to the house. Now.”

  The woman’s soft whisper again. I have to strain to hear because she’s talking so quietly.

  “There’s nothing for you to see here,” the man says. “Go.” He doesn’t raise his voice. It almost seems like he’s placating her. He’s using a different tone than the one he’s used with me the few times he’s spoken.

  He’s back inside, and I hear the clang of the bucket. I had to use it last night even though I didn’t want to. It was either that or pee in a corner, though.

  “What’s happening?” I ask again. “Please tell me what’s happening.”

  Nothing. Then he’s close again. One arm wraps around my middle as he lifts me just a little, just enough to give the rope some slack so he can unhook my wrists. When he sets me down, he turns me to face him.

  “Hold out your arms.”

  I do. He’ll just make me if I don’t.

  A few moments later, the rope is untied, and my wrists are freed. I scramble away as soon as he releases me, but I trip over the bucket, send it toppling and rolling noisily. I turn back to face him even though I’m still blind. I rub my raw wrists.

  “Is it over?” I ask, and for one moment, I believe he’s going to set me free. Yet even as I think it, I realize it’s stupid.

  He laughs. It’s a dark sort of unhappy chuckle.

  “There’s a change of clothes. Soap and water. Make yourself presentable.”

  “For what?”

  “The Tribunal.”

  “The what? What is that?” I ask slowly as something heavy settles in my belly at his ominous tone and words.

  He snorts, and I can almost see him shaking his head. I hear him walk to the stairs.

  “Wait!”

  He stops.

  And although I remember what happened the last time I asked, I can’t help but ask again.

  “Is Santiago…is he…going to be okay?”


  There’s a long moment of silence, then his feet on the stairs before the loud clanging of the door. It makes me jump, and my already racing heart feel like it will beat right out of my chest. And then I hear his steps and the crunching of branches and leaves. I hurry to push the blindfold up only to see his boot pass by the window, the edge of the black cloak just grazing the ground before I’m alone again. Left in complete silence in this underground chamber not meant for human habitation.

  4

  Ivy

  I washed with the cold water as best as I could, rubbing the bar of soap on the bristles of the bath brush and then scrubbing myself, not even caring about the goose bumps left in its wake. I wanted to be clean or just a little cleaner. To wash away the dirt in my hair, I dumped the cold water over my head, but that was a mistake. It’s now a half-damp mass of tangles, and it’s left me shivering. He only provided a small square washcloth for my towel, and the change of clothes is a long white gown with billowing sleeves and a high collar with the ruffle detail duplicated on my wrists. It’s almost like an old-fashioned nightgown or something you’d wear under your dress in the old days.