Page 10 of The Sinner's Bargain

I would have laughed at the delusion if I could just reign in my rage. “I haven’t shown you hostilities yet, Ronin, so get to the point.”

The cubes of ice clatter restlessly at the bottom of the tumbler with the swirl of his bony wrist. “It seems you neglected to mention just how important the next two months are to us both.”

I didn’t glance to where Vance sat, face the perfect line of calm indifference. Oliver was nowhere to be seen, and I momentarily believed miracles were possible. But I knew where Ronin was headed with this line of useless bullshit. I knew what had that shit eating grin on his face.

Fuck!

“Something you’d like to share, cousin?”

There was a lot I would have enjoyed unloading on his fat, empty head — like ten tons of wet concrete — but anger was the root of all downfalls. He wanted me mad. He wanted me to lose my temper and break my fist in his face ... again. His father wasn’t there to stop me this time, but I wasn’t eighteen anymore and I had a better grip on my homicidal tendencies.

For the most part.

“I don’t think there is anything to share.” I ventured, moving to stand at his side. I kicked his naked ankle with the tip of my steel toed boot. His yelp of pain was satisfying. “Get out of my chair.”

No longer smug, Ronin rolled to his feet and limped to the sofa facing Vance.

“Bullshit there isn’t,” he huffed, rubbing at his shin with the hand not holding his glass aloft. “How long did you think you could hide this from me?”

“Given that I have no idea what you’re talking about...”

“Bullshit!” he yelled again, muddy, brown eyes peering through a tangled, unkempt mop of hair to glower at me. “I know about the will, Thoran. I know this place is half mine.”

I sank my fingertips into the stiff foam of my armrests but kept everything else securely bottled up. “Your lawyer is clearly as stupid as you are. Lacroix manner is mine. It belonged to my father who left it to me.”

Mostly, I added silently.

But Ronin knew that. At least, part of it.

“Only until your thirty-fifth birthday and only if you’re married.” He must have thought he’d gotten one over me because his smirk returned as he reclined against the sofa, one arm extending across the back. He swirled his drink. “Too bad all the women who agreed to marry you died unexpectedly. What, did they see you naked and died from shock?”

“My dick is pretty impressive,” I countered without missing a beat and was amused to watch the grin slip off his face.

“That wasn’t what—”

“You came all the way here for no reason, Ronin. You should sue your lawyer for wasting both of our time,” I broke in before I had to listen to him try and explain his poor insult.

“You’re not married, Thoran, and your birthday is in two months,” he pointed out, a dark, twisted sort of glee in his eyes. “In two months, Lacroix House will be mine. There is no way...” he threw back his drink in a sloppy swig that dribbled down his stubbled chin to stain his baby blue dress shirt, “you’re going to find any woman by then, especially not with your reputation.” The tumbler that cost more than his entire filthy apartment hit the glass coffee table with a jarring crack. “No one will want you once they know what you did to your other wives.”

Cyrus showed Ronin out with a hand twisted into the back of the little rat’s collar. Ronin sputtered and flailed but he was no match for the other man’s seven feet of muscle. His shouts of protest carried through the corridors right until he was chucked out into the night and the front door was closed in his face.

I let the silence extend until Vance spoke for the first time.

“He isn’t wrong. The people of the village know what happened here—”

“No, they don’t,” I broke in. “They know what the police report told them.”

Vance put a hand up. “I understand that, but it wasn’t one or two. There were five. Each one died mere days before your birthday one year apart. That is no longer a coincidence. That’s a pattern, Thoran.” He drew in a breath and let it out slowly. “No one is going to take that chance. You need to find a woman not from around here who hasn’t heard the stories and lies.”

Who hadn’t heard the story in the age of social media? For a while, I even had a name in the news, a label that had guaranteed I would never find another candidate.

The Beast of Lacroix House.

The bride killer.

I was a serial killer. A monster who butchered the women I was supposed to marry, and they weren’t wrong.

I had killed them. It was my fault they were beautiful corpses rotting in the family plot behind the manor. Five perfectly dug plots. Each bride a year older in decay than the next.

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