Page 145 of Awakened by Sin

He should have beenhome hours ago. Carmen paced around the living room with her phone in hand, willing it to ring. She’d called Vinny twenty-three times. His phone had long stopped ringing and now just went straight to voicemail. Maybe he forgot to charge it. He called her six hours ago and said he had one meeting and then he would be home. She dressed in new lingerie and waited … and waited. She was tempted to call Gavin, but she couldn’t show him how worried she was. She insisted Vinny get the position, and now she had to live with it.

A tight ball of dread was in her stomach. This was so unlike him. He wasn’t the type not to call to let her know he’d be out longer, and he wasn’t the type to forget to charge his phone. He was compulsive about things like that.Is this what her life would be like now?Long nights waiting up for him? How did Mom do this?

A knock on the door stopped her in her tracks. Maybe Vinny got in touch with one of the guards, and he wasn’t sure if she was awake. She rushed to the front door and opened it. Gavin and Lyla stood on her front step. She was vaguely aware of SUVs parked in her driveway and the unusual amount of security milling around. It took her a split second to take this in, but her eyes were riveted to Gavin. She knew him long enough to know something was very wrong. The light cast his face into stark relief. His hazel eyes were fixed on her, unwavering, trying to communicate something … There was only one reason he would be on her doorstep at this hour, only one reason he would be staring at her with a mixture of pity and rage.

Her heart stopped. Color bled out of her world, and her mind immediately latched onto denial. She stepped back, shaking her head.

Gavin reached for her. “I’m sorry, Carmen.”

“No!” His hollow apology echoed in her head. This couldn’t be happening. It wasn’t possible. “No! Don’t say it.”

“I’ll find who did this and—”

His placid calm ripped at her. She launched herself at him and beat her fists against his chest. “You promised me, Gavin!”

Someone pulled her back, but she wasn’t finished with him. She lashed out and was nowhere near satisfied when her open palm cracked against his cheek. She ripped herself away from whoever was tugging on her. She didn’t want to be touched. She reached for the closest object and hurled it at the wall. The sound of smashing glass was so satisfying that she grabbed something else and then another. She embraced fury and denial because she couldn’t handle the guilt ripping her soul to shreds. This was her fault. If she hadn’t convinced Gavin to … She picked up another object. She didn’t care what it was because it could be destroyed, and that was all that mattered. She maimed, slashed, stomped, and demolished everything she could get her hands on. Art she worked so hard to acquire and preserve wasn’t safe from her. Her life, her perfect, beautiful live was shattered and so was she.

She saw an iron poker and swung it at a statue. The statue weighed a ton and didn’t move when she attacked. She felt the impact reverberate up her arms, but she didn’t stop. Her hands were numb, and she was out of breath, but she didn’t stop waging war.

A sharp, stabbing pain broke through her rage. She whirled to kill her assailant. The poker was wrenched from her hands with such force that she landed on her hands and knees. She panted as her limbs began to feel weighted down and unresponsive. As if from a long way off, she heard the burble of voices but couldn’t make out the words. She stared down at her hands, at the diamond ring on her left finger. No Vinny. No husband. No future. Nothing.

“He can’t be gone,” she whispered. “I can’t live without him.”

Gentle hands stroked her face. “I’m so sorry,” Lyla said.

Her eyes slid shut against her will. She felt herself being lifted. She tried to fight, but her body didn’t obey. She forced her eyes open and saw Blade’s ugly mug instead of Gavin’s and let her eyes slide shut again. He set her on a soft bed, and her limbs flopped uselessly around her. She lay on her side, staring straight ahead as tears leaked out of her eyes. Vinny was dead. She would never see him again.Howdid he die? No, she couldn’t handle that. Did she kiss him before he went to work this morning? She couldn’t remember. She and Lyla went shopping for a wedding dress today and now … now, Vinny was gone.

A warm, wet washcloth wiped her sweaty, tear-streaked face. Fresh tears replaced the ones Lyla wiped away. As the full ramifications hit her, she began to shake. Lyla climbed into bed and hugged her tight. She grabbed fistfuls of her clothes because she needed something to hold and began to sob her heart out. Lyla’s voice was soothing, but it couldn’t penetrate the pain that engulfed her.

Vinny was gone. She killed him.

20

Carmen wokewith her face wet with tears and her heart threatening to explode. She lashed out and heard something crash to the floor. She threw her head back and screamed before she dropped her face on her knees and sobbed as hard as she had the night she lost him. She rocked as she tried to contain her emotions. The sound of her pathetic whimpering filled the room.

Vinny was her everything. Aside from her parents and Lyla, no one had ever accepted her as she was. Vinny understood her moods and impulses better than she did. He handled her far better than her parents ever had and didn’t try to curb her wild ways. He allowed her to run free, knowing she would come back to him. He was her anchor, her everything, and he was gone along with her father, the only other man who loved her unreservedly.

She reached for her phone to call … who? A glance at the clock revealed she’d only been asleep two hours. Mom was out dancing, Lyla was with Nora and Gavin, Maddie would have no idea what to do with her, and Alice would probably give her a pint of ice cream and suggest they watch HGTV. That wouldn’t curb what was going on inside her. She wanted to rage, to scream, to curl into a ball and die. She wanted to jump out of a plane, race headlong at another car to see who would swerve out of the way, or strip on stage to cast out her demons and give them to someone else. She needed something to draw her out of the darkness or it would forever consume her.

It took her several tries to find Marcus’s number since her hands were trembling and she couldn’t see through the tears. When the phone began to ring, she rolled out of bed and paced, one hand flapping to keep herself from completely losing her shit.

“Hey, babe,” Marcus said.

Just the sound of his calm, soothing voice made the pain lessen. She clutched the phone with both hands. “I need a purge.”

“What?”

“I-I need …” What did she need? She needed to lose herself in something,anythingto take her mind off the memories stabbing at her. Sex was the best antidote. Touch, adrenaline, oblivion. Yes, sex. She needed it so bad, she was shaking. She wanted it rough and dirty. “I need a fuck.”

There was a short pause. She stopped in the middle of the room and closed her eyes, tears streaming down her face, silently pleading for him to say what she needed to hear. She couldn’t be alone right now. He couldn’t leave her like this, but if she told him how fucked up she was, he would definitely avoid her at all costs.

“Can you come to me?”

Relief so heady that she became lightheaded made her bend over at the waist. She attempted to sound normal as she said, “Yes, I can.”

“There are several events going on tonight, and I’m not sure how long I’ll be. You can attend with me, and then we’ll leave when we can.”

Knowing ecstasy and oblivion were in her near future allowed her to think past the pain. “Yes, I can do that.”

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