Page 81 of Sixth Sin

Closing my hand around my phone, I pull it close to my face, my eyes blurry from lack of sleep. After checking the number flashing on the screen, I let out another gruff curse and hit the answer button. “Hold on a damn minute.”

A soft sigh exhales beside me as Angel rests tangled in a cocoon of sheets. After the nightmare she had, I don’t want to wake her, but I can’t resist brushing a hand over the strands of dark hair spilling across the pillow beside me.

Hearing her sharp intake of breath, I freeze, waiting motionless for her breathing to return to normal. Still lost in her dreams, she rolls forward, the sheet falling to the tops of her thighs.

I fought this. I tried to deny it, but it was inevitable. I knew she’d be the one to get in. What’s worse is that she knew it, too.

“You love me, Dominic McCallum, why don’t you just admit it?”

I would’ve picked up the salad fork and stabbed myself in the eye before validating that statement. Angel was supposed to be a paycheck. But now the thought of never touching her again clutches at my chest like a vice. Being with her feels natural, and that’s dangerous.

The woman has fucked up my perfectly heartless world.

Which brings with it complications. Not counting Rosten and the shit storm a public affair will cause, there’s also Luciano.

My blood still boils at the insinuation he threw out the last time we spoke. I played it off, but inside, my brain was an eighteen car-pile up. There’s no way he could know about Phoenix. If he did, I would’ve been six feet under a long time ago.

So what angle is he playing?

I cast a quick glance back at Angel, her dark lashes fanned over her pale cheeks.

And what game is she playing?

Letting out a frustrated growl, I roll off the side of the bed and pull on my boxers. After closing my fingers around a pack of cigarettes and lighter, I close the door behind me and step out of the back door into the quietness of the dawn.

Shaking a cigarette from the pack, I pinch it between my lips and flick the lighter. Inhaling deeply, I blow a haze of cloudy smoke into the air before lifting the phone back to my ear. “What do you want?”

“I don’t want anything, you jerk off. I called to give you an update.”

I rub the back of my hand against my temples. “What more could there be?”

“Do you want to hear this or not?”

“Fine. Make it quick, I don’t have all day.”

“Watch it, McCallum,” he growls. “You don’t pay me enough to listen to your bullshit. How about I hang up, and you can figure it out for yourself?”

“Fine, what’s so important you need to call me so damn early?”

“There’s been a situation.”

This conversation is starting to piss me off. “I don’t like situations.”

“And I don’t like shit being out of my control, but we don’t always get what we want.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Anger swells in my chest, and I throw my cigarette down, stepping on it with my bare foot and crushing it into the cement.

Last one. I swear.

I listen as his voice filters through the line, my chest getting tighter. A distant roar swells in my ears with every confession and every truth I don’t want to hear.

By the time we hang up, I’m numb.

Sometimes things happen in your life you never plan for. Decisions are made in the midst of chaos that you bury in the past. You never question right or wrong or outcome or consequence. You put those decisions in a box and set it aside. Because what happened yesterday is over. All that matters is today.

Until yesterday becomes today.

I don’t know how much time has passed, but the dark mist of dawn has disappeared, and the bright light of a new day burns my eyes. One that comes with a choice.

---