Page 151 of The Sinner's Bargain

Christ. What the fuck had he gotten himself into?

“I’ve been waiting for over an hour,” he barked, getting a hold of himself.

I stayed by the door, partially because of the smell, partially because I was already ready to leave. “Why are you here, Ronin?” I said again.

I felt Vance’s arrival when he bumped into my shoulder in his haste. I didn’t look at him. My assumption was that he’d been in the office and was alerted to the rat in the house and had hurried over.

Ronin straightened the black and green windbreaker he must have dug out of the city dump judging from the number of questionable stains and the tear in the seam over his right arm.

“You have two weeks,” he practically panted.

He was sweating. Straggly strands of hair was pasted to his temples and beads of it clung to his brow. I’d seen my share of strung-out junkies in my line of work, but this wasn’t drugs. He wasn’t jonesing for a hit. Despite the tremors keeping his balled hands unsteady at his sides and the muscle in his jaw flexing like a heartbeat, his eyes were clear. His stance angry, but not erratic.

“You’re out of time,” he yelled as if I was working his last nerve. “You should stop fucking around and give up.”

I kept my hands tucked in my pockets, my posture relaxed, but I was ready if he decided to do something stupid; the will said nothing suspicious could happen before I was married. If he was shot after, that was just family business.

“No one is going to marry you, Thoran. It’s too late. You’re ... you’re embarrassing yourself.”

I wondered what he would do if I just turned and walked out. The thought of the look on his face amused me, but it would cause trouble that may draw Naya down and I didn’t want that. She didn’t need to watch me kill another man in front of her.

“You should leave,” I told my cousin. “Pay off whatever bookie you owe and get your shit straight.”

His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Typical. So high and mighty from your glass house. Not everyone had everything handed to them.”

I was beginning to think maybe there were drugs involved if he believed that. Sure, I was the son of the eldest son so I inherited the bulk of the business, but I built my own, too. I didn’t gamble it all away. I owned multiple successful clubs, apartment buildings, and a couple of casinos he’d been banned from because he owed the house — me — thousands of dollars. If I were anyone else, I would have already had his kneecaps shattered, but I let it go. But to stand there and accuse me of having it better because I wasn’t careless was both hilarious and insulting.

“Go home, Ronin,” I said again, my impatience unmistakable in the command. “Don’t come back. Forget where I live. Forget this house. You will no longer be permitted onto the property.”

Several hues of shock and fury coursed over his unshaven face. An array of colors ranging from purple to red in rapid succession that matched the thrum of rage in the bulging vein at his throat.

“You can’t keep me out. This is my family home, too! I’m a Lacroix just like you. This was my dad’s house, too.”

It was our grandfather’s house until my father inherited it. Uncle Byron had left his portion of the inheritance to Ronin who squandered it. There was nothing else.

But I said nothing because I was done. I had a wife waiting for me upstairs and a night I was too excited to start to let this fucker ruin it.

I started to turn away.

“Don’t you turn your back on me, Thoran!” Ronin snarled.

I felt Cyrus edge closer to my side, making me think Ronin had started forward.

Sure enough, when I glanced back, he and his smell were much closer.

“I will be back here in two weeks with my lawyers, and I will have you and your thugs thrown out—”

The soft click of heels on marble silenced even Ronin’s tirade. All our eyes turned just as Naya appeared at the end of the corridor, still in her pretty dress. Her eyes met mine and all my annoyance washed away.

“Hi,” she said, moving forward somewhat hesitantly. “I’m sorry. I know you said to wait, but I needed some help with my zipper...” she trailed off when her attention slid to the small cluster of people gathered around the front of the dining room doors. “Did I come at a bad time?”

There was a bad joke in there somewhere, but her timing couldn’t have been better.

I held out my hand and she took it without hesitation. I pulled her to me.

“Ronin, meet my wife,” I said softly, peering down into her face. “Naya Lacroix.”

Ronin wasn’t moving when I turned to him. His gaze was on Naya like he’d seen a ghost. The dark blotches of red in his face had dissolved to white.

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