Page 28 of Awakened by Sin

“Yeah,” Gavin said.

She gripped his arm. “You promise?” Lyla told her last night, but she needed to hear it again. She needed to hear it from him.

He looked up. The light from his phone illuminated a thin scratch on his cheek that hadn’t been there the night before. He wasn’t wearing his suit or brass knuckles now. He wore sweats and nothing else. His energy was quiet but still alert.

“He’s dead? You’re sure it was Vega?” she asked urgently.

“Yes.”

Her voice was a bit hoarse as she asked, “Did you make him suffer?”

He stared at her for a long moment. “As much as I could. Lucifer cut off his head.”

She wouldn’t have been opposed to chopping off every limb with a chainsaw but being beheaded was okay. She only wished she could have witnessed it herself. “Why did he do it?”

He looked down, and she realized she was digging her nails into his arm. She released him and fanned her face, which felt hot.

“Vega wanted to prove to his father that he could do what he or Rafael had never been able to do.”

Marcus was right. “He did all of this to prove a point?” It was unfathomable that someone would cause so much death and destruction to prove to his family that he wasn’t weak. She lost Vinny over a fucker who had daddy issues? Her fingernails dug into her palms.

“Psychos don’t need a reason to kill. They just do it.”

“Right.” She let out a breath and rolled her head on her shoulders. “But he’s dead?”

“Yes.”

She frowned. “Lucifer beheaded him? I thought they were working together.”

“I cut a deal with Lucifer, and he handed Vega over.”

“You cut a deal with the devil?”

He gave her a cold look. “I’ll handle it.”

Of course, he would. “It’s really over?”

“Yeah.”

No more combat training, running for their lives, or waiting for the next disaster. Vinny had been avenged and she … she could start anew.

She smacked his shoulder. “I’m glad you’re still breathing.”

He glared at her as she exited. It wasn’t until she closed the door behind her that she realized she still wore the oversized sweater from last night that rode high on her thighs and nothing else. She hightailed it to the nursery and searched for her leggings and thong but didn’t see them. Gavin would shit a brick if he found out she fucked in Nora’s nursery. She went back to her room and found her leggings folded on a chair with her thong tucked primly into the fold. Marcus. He was so fucking cute and never missed a thing.

She stripped and stepped into the shower, tilting her face up to the spray. Relief, joy, fear, and guilt tumbled inside her like clothes in a dryer. Tears slipped down her cheeks, but she didn’t dwell on them. Moving on wasn’t going to be easy, but she was fucking game.

She stepped out of the shower and surveyed herself in the mirror. There were dark shadows under her eyes, but they sparkled with zeal. She lost a piece of herself when Vinny died, but she’d been given a second chance, and she wasn’t going to waste it. She would do whatever was required to push through the pain. Last night, Marcus helped her begin a new chapter. He awakened her body, which pulsed with life. That was the way to end this hellish ordeal—with a bang. She couldn’t live in purgatory anymore, not when she had a taste of ecstasy.

Her body was covered in scratches from her run across the desert and her hair … She fingered the ink black strands. It was time for a change. Thanks to her workouts with Blade and Lyla’s private martial arts instructor, she was in better shape than she’d been in years. She could do more lunges, but overall, not bad. She reached for her makeup bag and erased all traces of the past. The result was a fresh face, bright eyes, and a cheery peach lipstick that hadn’t seen the light of day for years. The dark, heavy makeup she’d favored for the past two years slinked to the bottom of her bag. She completed today’s look with white skinny jeans and a matching long-sleeve crop top.

When she passed the nursery, she found Gavin yawning as he changed Nora. Beau danced excitedly around him.

“Let me take her,” Carmen said. “Get some sleep.”

It was a measure of how exhausted he was that he didn’t argue. She beamed at Nora who smiled back. She watched Gavin’s retreating back before she gave Nora a mock serious look.

“You didn’t see anything last night, did you?”

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