Page 71 of Born in Sin
“You can ask me anything.” He braced his forearms on the railing, staring out at the bustling street below.
“Why a fixer? What made you choose this profession?”
Virat froze, clearing his throat and trying to think of a safe answer to give, one that would appease and soothe.
“No,” Cara said softly, reading his mind. “Don’t whitewash it. Tell me the truth as it is.”
“I couldn’t fix the most important thing in our life. I couldn’t fix us.”
“So, you’re going to spend your lifetime fixing everything and everyone else?”
Virat straightened. “You know what the most important thing in the world is, Celi?”
“Money?” she hazarded a guess.
“Power. Information is the ultimate power. Information in the form of knowledge, secrets, truths and lies…all of it. It’s a spider web of power and one that I weave to my advantage.”
He inhaled deeply. “That night, I was powerless. I swore I’d never be again. I’ve spent all the years since accumulating power in all its avatars. You’re not the only one who can’t sleep, Celi.”
She stepped closer, her shoulder brushing his side.
“You’re sure you want to go ahead with this?” he asked, the urge to protect her, to care for her strangling his good intentions.
“I am. This started with me. It should end with me.”
“Are you sure? You have a life now, Celi. A good one.”
“Do I?” she smiled, sadly. “I thought you said knowledge was power. Don’t you know everything there is to know about this good life of mine?”
Virat didn’t answer. Some questions didn’t need replies. They stood together in silence, the past and present swirling in a painful, tormented mess around them.
“Vir?”
“Hmm?”
“Do you ever think about the ‘what ifs’?”
Virat turned his head to look down at her. Her beautiful profile was gilded by moonlight, her thick, lustrous hair pulled back in a french braid.
“What if that night had never happened? What if you’d never left me?” she whispered. “What if we’d grown up, gotten married, had children? What if Vir and Celi had found their happy ever after? Would you still be a fixer? Would I still be Cara Ferns, actress and star? What would we have been if they hadn’t destroyed us, Vir? Do you ever think about it? What would we have been?”
It took him a moment to force words past the emotion clogging his throat but in the end, he managed to answer her.
“We would have been happy.”
Crestwood
“CELINA!!”
The shriek had her jolting out of her nap, heart pounding. Celina sat up in bed, staring wildly around the room. Her roommate was nowhere to be seen. Someone was banging on the door, screaming her name.
She threw her bedcovers aside and ran to pull the door open. A wild eyed Dhrithi was on the other side, panting, her hand still raised to keep banging on the door.
“What happened?”
“You have to come,” Dhrithi gasped, pressing one hand to her side like she had a stitch. “You have to come now.”
“Where? What’s happened?”
