Page 11 of The Sinner's Bargain

I exhaled and rubbed the tips of my fingers into my sore and gritty eyes. “Ronin can’t have Lacroix House. He’ll gamble it or sell it to anyone with a dollar.” I lowered my hand to my lap and squinted at the blurry silhouette on the sofa. “I want more than anything to burn it all to the ground, but I promised my dad I would keep it in the family, not let that troll take it.”

“The contract is very clear on the matter,” Vance settled back. “You must be married before your thirty-fifth birthday or you forfeit your inheritance which includes the house, the cars, and everything in the bank. This would also extend to businesses your father had before his passing. You will be left with nothing but your clothes and any business that you own.”

Maybe letting Ronin captain a sinking ship was the better plan. He could take the rot and mold. And the whispers at night. And the ghosts. And the fucking curse and shove it all up his ass. I could move somewhere with real sunlight. Somewhere the fog and perpetual dampness didn’t exist. Somewhere I could meet someone the normal way and start a normal family where I wouldn’t have to watch her die.

My fingers reflexively rubbed the five intertwining blooms twisting around scarred flesh.

Somewhere I wouldn’t have to add a sixth rose to the vines.

Was that even possible? Would the curse just stay in the walls of Lacroix House? Or would it follow me for the rest of my life?

Maybe it didn’t matter.

I was a killer.

A murderer no one could touch. What woman was going to want a life of worry, wondering if I would do to her what I did to the others? How was I supposed to explain? How was I supposed to assure her I could protect her when I had failed five times already?

Blunt fingers dug into veined forearms. Into the lives I couldn’t save.

“I can’t bring another here,” I told the man watching me with all that quiet wisdom behind dark eyes.

Vance, if surprised, made no indication. “Then perhaps it’s time we began making preparations.”

“To move.” It wasn’t a question, but Vance inclined his head.

“The will was clear. You will be removed as head of the Lacroix family and Ronin will take your place.”

I knew why my father did what he did.

I knew he hadn’t put the clause in to make my life harder. It was as he always said — Lacroix House must stay in the family. As next in line after him, it was my job to build that family and leave them the manor when I died. Failing my duty meant losing the family legacy. That couldn’t happen. Having a fail switch in the form of Ronin made sense.

Initially, it would have been my uncle, Father’s youngest brother. Byron died five years after my father, leaving his worthless, idiot son in the running.

No.

I couldn’t allow a man who gambled his own mother’s ashes to take my family’s home. I loathed it and would happily burn it all to the ground, but it was mine.

“Do they still have mail order brides?”

CHAPTER FOUR

NAYA

Quiet slivers of conversation spilled through the open doorway of Father’s office. The crack divulged secrets I was never supposed to hear but tended to simply because no one ever expected me to do anything about it. After all, no one worried about a lamp telling the enemy the plans to attack. I was less important than a lamp. A lamp gave light. I did nothing.

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