Page 54 of The Sinner's Bargain

I shook my head. “Never.”

Lost in a shop window display containing an assortment of designer bags Mother would have paid a small fortune for at a regular boutique, I didn’t see the lanky man coming up behind me until I had pivoted straight into him. The collision dislodged Lacroix’s hand from mine as I staggered back on my much too large boots. I lost my balance and hit the display window I’d been studying. Not hard, but hard enough to rattle the frame.

The man, head shaven to display the hood of tattoos winding up his neck to cover his entire scalp released a stream of expletives as he dove after the phone he’d dropped in the bump. He turned the device over in hands heavily marked with faded ink and shiny, steel rings.

“Fuck! You busted my screen,” he snarled, lifting hooded eyes the hue of tree bark to pin on me.

“I’m so sorry,” I breathed, straightening away from the window without losing a boot.

“Watch where you’re going, you stupid—”

I didn’t hear the rest of his snarl. Lacroix’s fist had twisted into the front of his filthy, white top and he was slammed into the same glass with a crack that left a smear of crimson in the jagged crack that hadn’t been there before.

Lacroix’s expression was frighteningly calm, but there was a fire in his eyes, a blood lust that chilled me down to my core.

He leaned in, simultaneously dragging the other man higher onto his tiptoes to match Lacroix’s considerable height.

“Go on. Finish,” he rumbled deep in his chest. “I dare you.”

Each word sliced past clenched teeth inches from the man’s terrified expression.

“Mr. Lacroix,” the man stuttered, brown eyes enormous and vividly bright against the ashen texture of his complexion. “I ... I didn’t know she was with you, sir. I had no idea.”

“Does that matter?” The black crow across the back of Lacroix’s hand rippled with the tightening of his fingers. “Is that how you treat a lady?” I didn’t see his free hand wielding a small knife until it was edging dangerously close to the man’s right eyeball where a cluster of tiny X’s gathered at the corner. He tapped them deliberately with the point. “Rushken, right?”

Too terrified to move without having his eye removed, the man could only make a choking sound that must have been confirmation.

“It’s been a while since I paid my old friend a visit, but I think I might have to make the inconvenient trip if this is how he allows his men to behave.” The blade dragged down to his quivering windpipe. “Apologize.”

The man was dragged away from the window and forced to his knees at my feet. It was done with the knife never leaving the tender skin. It was a miracle his throat wasn’t slit open as he was made to look up at me.

“Please, I beg your forgiveness,” he panted, face a bleached white under all the ink.

I raised my eyes to the other man, the avenging demon standing just over the man’s shoulder, golden pools of fire fixed on me.

Waiting.

He had put the man’s life in my hands. One word from me and Lacroix would drag a red line across his jugular. I should have been horrified.

Disgusted.

What kind of monster would do such a thing? In a public place, surrounded by at least a dozen witnesses. It didn’t seem to bother him at all.

But I was fascinated.

No.

I was something else. Something hot and powerful, and ... heady.

Aside from Malcolm, no one had ever defended me. Certainly, no one had ever shot a man’s hand off for touching me or offered to kill a man for disrespecting me. I probably shouldn’t have, it was probably insane, but I couldn’t stop the electric buzz that pumped through my heart.

“His life is yours, love. Say the word.”

Say the word.

Such power behind those three, small words. It sent a shiver through me.

God, what was wrong with me? Was I seriously considering it?

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