Dark Side of the Cloth by Brooklyn Cross
Two weeks had passed since her time in the woods.
She’d silently rode home with Dean, staring at the other cars passing by, and felt nothing. She’d sat in shock for most of the gruesome torture and the eventual death. Dean had kept his promise. There was no sugar coating what she saw. It was horrifying, but it was what she asked him to do—get retribution for her sister’s murder.
Once the rage wore off, she was utterly numb. Dean had methodically cleaned up. She watched him with fascination as he turned the once strange kill zone into nothing more than an innocent little opening in the forest, and there would be no body to find. He’d poured something on it in the shallow hole he’d dug and told her the body would be dissolved in a couple of days. And just like that, the man who’d taken her childhood innocence was wiped from the earth.
Even now, as she sat in her kitchen staring at her cooling coffee, she didn’t know how she felt. At first, she thought relief would accompany the knowledge that the man finally paid for what he had done, or that guilt would follow because she should feel guilt over playing a part in a murder, but no.
She was void of all emotion.
She picked up her car keys and stared at the vehicle emblem.
She had no idea how Dean had pulled it off, but he’d picked her up the next day to take her to the doctor in her car. He had been sporting his usual robes, but she couldn’t picture him as a godly man of the cloth any longer. They were a costume, just a part of the mask he showed the world to hide who and what he really was.
So the question was, how did she see him?
She had no clue.
How she felt? Well, as troubling as it was, she loved him. There was no point in denying it, no point in lying to herself. It was a simple truth.
She could’ve turned him in at the hospital, she’d had many opportunities, and she knew he wouldn’t have tried to stop her. But, instead, she told the doctor that she’d fallen during a run. Although technically true, a lot was missing from that story. She lied so easily to the doctor, so what did that say about her?
She’d twisted her ankle and torn her Achilles, so she was officially on crutches until it was fully healed.
Yasmine hadn’t known how she was going to pull off the funeral she had to prepare for the Wednesday after her ordeal, but Dean had remembered. He didn’t ask or talked to her about anything more than the funeral and then prepared everything. He’d even helped her prepare the body for service.
So many, many, opportunities she’d had in the last two weeks to tell Dean’s secret to someone, anyone, and yet she hadn’t. As far she was concerned, she was no better than him now. She’d watched a man die in a terrifyingly horrible way and didn’t care. Worse, she’d encouraged it. She’d been willing to do the job herself—could she have gone ahead with it if Dean had handed her the knife? Yasmine had no clue, but in the moment, her rage was pure and white-hot, and it felt like she could have taken on a thousand Simons.
She shook her head to rid it of the image of the man and the sound of his screams. Raising the cup to her lips, she took a sip and let the warmth spread throughout her body. Yasmine surveyed her surroundings and really took in where she was. She was sitting in her kitchen, but everything else was frozen in time—frozen in a time when her family was happy and smiles filled this room. She’d allowed herself to become stuck—and for the first time, her sister’s murder was not with her. She felt free.
The front door opened and closed, the little bell letting her know someone had arrived.“I’m in here,” Yasmine called out.
Dean’s scent filled her senses before he walked into the kitchen, and her very confused heart beat harder. Dean stepped into the doorway.
“How are you doing?” Dean asked, not moving further into the room.
She lifted her shoulder in answer. “There’s coffee if you want.”
“I’m good, but thanks. May I sit?”
Yasmine nodded, and without being asked, he refilled her coffee before sitting. He laid a thick file folder on the table and rested his hands on the top.
“I need to plan for what comes next, so I will ask you straight up. Would you like me to leave town?”
Yasmine played with the frayed end of the table cloth.
“No.” The answer came out quiet as she stared at her hands.
“Are you sure about that?”
His voice, always so commanding and calm, seemed unsure as he spoke. She dared to look into those captivating eyes that made her pulse race and couldn’t bring herself to be horrified. She knew she should be. Logic and ethics stated she should scream, run to the police and never see him again. Anyone that could do that to another human shouldn’t be trusted, but her heart told her something different.
“No, I don’t want you to leave. I… I’m just confused, and I don’t know how to feel about—well, you know,” she told him honestly. “Why do you smell like cinnamon?” she asked as the wonderful aroma hit her. She sniffed the air again and sighed.
“I brought this as a peace offering in case I needed it.” Dean pulled a white bag out from beneath his robes and slid it across the table.
“Is that what I think it is?”
“If you think it is Mabel’s fresh cinnamon buns, then you would be correct.” He gave her a wink as she grabbed the bag and moaned at the sight of the sticky goodness.
“Thank you. These are the best.”
“I know that what I do would be hard for most people to accept, but maybe this will help you make up your mind. If you choose never to see me again, I will leave town. Of course, I hope that’s not the case.”
Dean pushed the thick folder on the table over to her. He stared at it like he was unsure if he should show it to her and then removed his hands from the top.
“What is this?”
“This is every person I have punished or am in the process of researching since I completed my overseas tours of duty and joined The Righteous. Each one was a terrible person, like the man that hurt your sister. I make sure that my information is thorough and accurate before I ever decide their punishment for their crime..”
“I don’t know if I want to see this.”
“That’s your choice, but I want you to understand who I am. I have also included a file on my father and some of what was done to me. I don’t like to talk about it, but…” Dean stopped talking and looked away from her eyes.
“Who is The Righteous? I thought it was a term you used to talk about those higher up in the church, but I know now that is not what you mean. So who or what are they?”
“They are who I work for. They’re a secret organization that was a sidearm to the government for a long time. Now they are the same group, but we work behind the scenes of the law to deal with those that have skirted the legal system or hide from it completely.”
“So there are more of you out there doing what you do?”
“Yes. I don’t know exactly how many, but we are many. Only those that are elite in their field are chosen, and we are all given a new cover.”
“This is a lot to take in.” Yasmine rubbed her face, her mind reeling.
Dean reached across the table and opened his palms for her. She took the invitation and placed her hands in his.
“I want a future with you. If you can live with what I must and am sworn to do, then I’ll make it possible for us. I meant what I said, Yasmine. I’m in love with you.”
She couldn’t believe what he was saying. Dean stood and was gone before she could form a sentence. She took a steadying breath. He loved her, and he wanted a life with her. Could she live with a murderer, with a Righteous killer?
Her hands shook as she opened the folder and began to read. Simon Harris: that was the name of the man that took Raquel from this world. Photographs of videotapes, the car, and DNA evidence were all neatly labeled. She chewed her bottom lip, took a sip of her coffee, and settled in to learn what it truly meant if she stayed with Dean.