Page 208 of The Sinner's Bargain

Used her.

Fucking sold her.

I would have lied.

I would have said no.

I would have kissed her cheek and walked out because the plane ride was only an hour each way. I would be back before dinner and her mother would be dead.

I beat my fist into the door. The wail of forgotten children and abandoned TVs stuck on the same station roared through the musty corridor. The stench of urine and burnt sugar clung in the air.

She opened the door as far as the chain would allow and poked one eyeball up at me.

Naya’s blue eyes.

“What?” she hissed.

The chain may as well have been made of foil. It crumpled and snapped with just a heave of my body against the wood. Her scream was met with the barrel of my gun pointed straight between her wide eyes and my warning to shut her mouth.

I didn’t hit women.

I never fucking hit women.

But this one ... we were going to have a long chat. Not long enough because I promised my wife I would be at the dinner table with her in five hours, but I had four hours and ten bullets, and twenty years she owed Naya.

Jeannette was last on my list.

I darkened her doorway while Naya was at her shop, distracted by the volumes she loved so much. Too preoccupied to take notice when I kissed the side of her head and told her I had business to oversee.

Not entirely a lie. Unlike Jarrett and her mother, I wasn’t dealing with Jeannette my way. Handley was right about her being someone people would notice missing. They would ask questions. She had a family, and even pissed off with her, they would resist anything truly awful happening to her.

But beyond all that, why draw attention to myself when it was unnecessary? Jeannette was a special case and needed to be dealt with accordingly. Calmly and methodically.

There was also the fact that Dr. Roberts, his son, and grandson were all necessary members of the community. They were far more valuable to me than Jeannette.

In the end, Jeannette Roberts was dealt with in the only humane and discreet method I could think of. It was far more than she deserved, but the people she left behind would never miss her. They would never look for her. She had simply walked out of their lives on her own two feet and vanished into the vast world beyond the village gates.

I had no doubt her son may one day search for her. Perhaps her unborn grandchild, or not. Maybe they would simply let her go and be relieved by her absence. Whatever the case, she paid for betraying Naya. For trying to profit off Naya’s pain. For trying to get Naya taken from me. It was unfortunate because if Jeannette Roberts had simply concealed her hatred, she would be alive and with her family.

But accidents happened.

EPILOGUE

NAYA

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