The Billionaire Darkness

Chapter Ninety-Six

Adrian Winters

I imagined it was some kind of sin to go to church late at night, nevermind behind the wheel of an Aston Martin. I was the definition of at least half of the seven deadly sins, and here I was at a church staring at the dimly lit entryway before climbing out of my car and shutting the door with a dull thud behind me. Crossing the small parking lot I climbed the steps and slid through the heavy oak doors, and found myself staring up at the gothic arches of the church's cathedral. Candles wrapping around the room and casting the faint smell of warm wax through the room and the seemingly countless rows of wooden benches.

Pacing along the aisles I stopped near the front where maybe half a dozen benches remained in front of me and found myself sitting in the middle of my conscious chosen pew. It was the first time in a very long time where I'd found myself sitting in a church. I'd been with my grandparents but I didn't come here as often as I should. I did however know why I'd come, the very reason was still in my jacket, the razor blade I'd discreetly lifted from the ground and now held between my fingers, the blade reflecting the sunset candlelight as I inspected it.

If I was meant to be there for her this time how many other times was I there and didn't know. Fuck.

My mind tried to recall all of the times I was in Brooklyn all at once, but that was pointless since I was currently living in Brooklyn, and the rest of the year I'd been driving through it every day to get to Thornbrook from the Hamptons. Still I couldn't free myself from the idea that I was meant to help this girl heal, that and the natural wish to learn everything about her, which I couldn't not as things were.

So instead I did the very thing that I didn't think myself worthy of doing—but when the hell had I ever asked for permission when doing anything?

"God I don't know what to do, I don't know how to overcome what I've been going through, and I don't know how else to cope other than how I have. I haven't followed scripture. I've drank until I've become drunk, I curse more than I should, and I am prideful, I spite others and I have certainly done things that have sinned against the body you've blessed me with. I just want to know if you can forgive one of your children for becoming a devil, or will I always be a fallen angel in your eyes?" I began, and it was perhaps the first time I'd ever truly recalled and admitted to my own personal choices, that I'd gone against what I knew to be right.

I also received no sign of a response.

Why the fuck would I have expected one.

"You don't even need to forgive me lord, I know I am not worthy of that much, and I don't even know if I trust in you as much as many other believers, I'm an ignorant fuck, and I know it, but out of all things a sinner coming to beg for repentance, and forgiveness isn't even uncommon I'd imagine. I-I just want that girl to be safe, and I need you to guide me in my mission to do so. Keep her safe from harm, give me the strength to protect her from all the evils of this world."

The words had fallen from my lips easier than I'd have expected given my reservations about religious belief most of my life and the fact that I was a pragmatist, and I didn't bother believing in a single thing that I didn't have personal truth for.

Maybe I'd get it one day, but I doubt it would be any time soon.

Exhaling I raised my head from my white knuckled fists, and I wondered what it must have looked like seeing some heir with all the material possessions in the world begging with a deity he didn't even understand, to protect a girl he didn't even know, I barely knew what she looked like behind the makeup and the bruises, and the damage she held with her weighing her down.

Ridiculous likely.

"Maybe this was a mistake," I mutter, going to rise before I heard a door shift across the room and I looked up to find a pastor standing in the doorway his eyebrows knit together as he stared at me.

"Evening," he says, tone light while I stepped from the pew.

"I know, I'm not supposed to be here, you're probably closed to the public anyways," I say, turning towards the doors and getting all of two strides in before he spoke.

"The church is open to all of God's children. That's why people seek sanctuary here," the pastor said and I turned to face him, the dry sarcastic smirk I was practically known for already peeled across my lips.

"I'm a sinner pastor. I'm not deserving of God's forgiveness or acceptance. That's why he took my parents," the pastor's eyebrows rose, while his crystalline blue eyes seemed to flash with recognition.

"Is that what you believe, Adrian Winters," the pastor says tilting his head while I had the completely incomprehensible urge to hurl something at the pastor because how in the fuck did he recognize me?

"How do you know my name?" I counter, suddenly void of my previous repentant feeling, the sensation of guilt replaced by a cool seething anger.

"I was the pastor at your parent's funeral, and you seemed familiar to me. Now what about my question to you?"

"I've done enough to earn the title of devil of New York, every single person out there calls me it, and the orphaned billionaire prince," I mutter the titles gifted to me by the media mere weeks after my parents deaths like acid in my mouth.

"I don't see it, I see a broken and angry young man in need of guidance, and scripture has it Mr. Winters, even if you don't seek it, it's there, he is there," the pastor says, a bible practically fucking appearing in his hands as he outstretched them, though he probably always carried one which felt more odd. If he was presenting me with his own bible, I couldn't refuse regardless of my personal beliefs, I was raised better than that.

"Don't count on it, pastor. I'm not worth forgiving, I just..." I trail off the dichotomous urge to tell the pastor about my prayer, but also to tell him to fuck off in the most civil way I could overcame me.

"I just want him to look over someone else who is worth saving," I offer, taking another step back as I accepted his bible and stared down at the dark leather bound cover with its golden writing on the surface declaring the translation.

The pastor smiled for the first time since he'd approached me, it made me feel a lot smaller than him despite the fact I was perhaps four inches taller.

"That might seem like nothing to you, but sometimes asking for the safety of others is exactly the thing that saves you in God's eyes. He has used countless sinners for his work, maybe you're the same," the pastor said now, not sounding like a religious follower, but someone offering advice about his own understanding of the bible.

"Maybe," I offer turning away once again, and this time he didn't stop me, instead he watched as I left the cathedral, glancing back only once at the building as I left towards my car.

The sidewalk had begun to be speckled by rain droplets, which were now also distorting the polished paintwork of my vehicle which I dismissed, turning my face upwards towards the clouds and the night, to the same moon that I hoped that girl could see. I hoped for that brief moment that she finds her peace, that one day she could heal from what Demetri had done to her.

"One day, and maybe then I'll get to glimpse you happy, how you should be," I whisper to myself as I pulled my gaze away from the thick grey clouds and forced myself to quit being a sappy fuck and just get back into my car.

Pressing the start button, I shut my eyes for a moment as I leaned back into the leather seats and took the time to envision her beside me here. For that I could be selfish, which I became violently aware that I was picturing being the one to make her happy, to give her what I wanted for her.

Of course I'd torture myself like that. Fuck sake.

Irritability overtook me at my foolishness before I pulled the paddle into first gear and drove off into the night, doing my best to forget.