Page 4 of The Sinner's Bargain

Skin red and raw, and pulsing from the scalding water, I emerged twenty minutes later, jaw clenched. No sooner had my fist closed into the plush material of a towel when a knock soaked into the opaque cloud of steam.

Cyrus peered back at me from the other side of the door with a dark smear of impatience curling down his lips. It was the look he wore only when I wasn’t going to like what he was about to tell me.

“Ronin is here.”

CHAPTER TWO

NAYA

Midnight.

Time slipped and vanished with that single tick on the antique clock.

Another year had come and gone.

The single flame on my pilfered cupcake shivered as if anticipating its end. Its little heart glowed such a vibrant blue, fighting so hard to stay alive, yet knowing it wouldn’t. I understood the desperation; we were both prisoners with no voice and a blade at our throats. Fate had been unkind to us.

A delicate pearl drop of wax glided the short length of the candle’s shimmering side to bleed into the chocolate frosting. A second followed almost immediately, and I couldn’t help feeling like it was crying.

My own eyes burned as I felt my heartbreak for us. It was foolish to try and tell an inanimate object that at least it didn’t have to worry about being sold for the patch of skin between its legs. I didn’t think it needed to be assured that there was a good chance its novelty to the man who now owned it would ultimately wear out and it would just be another used-up candle discarded with a pretty settlement as a thank you. Once I blew it out, it could live the rest of its life in peace at the landfill which was more than I could hope for.

A candle would never understand how lucky it was.

Choking back a sob, I bent and snuffed out my little friend, giving it rest at last. The warm scent of wax bled into the vanilla and jasmine Mother insisted all the rooms smell like. Gray coils wound up into the dim confines of the window seat, illuminated by the pregnant globe of the moon. I wiped the loneliness from my cheeks and watched the candle weave its final tendril of smoke before going perfectly still.

“Happy birthday, Naya,” I whispered into the silence of my locked room.

Below my feet, something crashed and shattered. Voices boomed in riotous laughter that sent chills down my spine.

Malcolm was down there somewhere.

Part of me doubted it. My brother hated Mother’s parties. Hated her friends. Hated the devil in their eyes as the night thickened and wine made them feel invincible. He always made me leave the minute the laughing grew too loud and the fingers gripping my arm carved black marks into my skin. He was always there, pulling me away from the men with the searching fingers and sticky breath, pulling me out of the room and upstairs.

“Stay inside, Naya,” he would hiss, blue eyes feverishly bright against the pallor of his handsome face. “Don’t open it for anyone, for any reason. Not even me.”

He closed the door between us and waited until he heard the crack of tumblers snapping into place. The shuffle of his feet filled my ears beneath the muffled hum of jazz as he returned to the top of the stairs where he would sit until morning.

Mother never seemed to notice once she was five glasses in. She was as loud and frightening as the company she kept.

But Malcolm.

Sweet, darling Malcolm who was my whole world kept me shielded from the evils I knew existed. He put himself between me and the men Mother brought to see me.

Men like Jarrett Brixton.

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