Page 2 of Sinfully His

I adjusted my grip on the heavy box, having a small appreciation for what the maid went through as I carefully stepped around a raised crack in the sidewalk and walked the last way to the dimly lit church.

Several of my close female friends had been targets of violence recently due, not only to my mother’s nefarious actions,but to our connection through marriage to the Manwarrings and their growing feud with the Irish mafia.

Something I, of course, was not supposed to know anything about as the sheltered, heiress daughter of the exalted—at least in their own minds—Astrid family of both New York and England.

The soft glow of the church’s stained glass windows was within view.

Only a few more steps and I…

A gloved hand covered my mouth.

The box of delicate ornaments fell from my hands and crashed to the pavement as I clawed and struggled against the hard grip that dug painfully into my jaw.

My heels scraped against the cement as I kicked out, to no avail.

An arm wrapped across my chest, squeezing the air from my lungs as I was dragged against my will into the dark alley next to the church.

CHAPTER 2

THOMAS

The alley smelled of piss, pizza, and desperation.

It was a vile combination, even when muted by the biting cold of the sharp wind.

The city had always been swarming with sinners, all pretending to be good people. As if the dollar a man dropped in the collection plate absolved him of the adultery staining his soul or rid his wife of her demons.

Maybe it did.

But as she walked out of the church, popping one of her kid’s Ritalin pills followed by an oxy and a drink out of her overpriced fashionable tumbler so that she could keep up with the Joneses, all while pretending she didn’t know her husband was screwing the nanny in the next room, her demon was alive and well before she reached her car. And her husband’s soul would be soiled just as soon as his kids went to bed.

The same people showed up every week, not because they believed in God’s mercy or the salvation the church provided, but because that was what “good people” did. They were ones to talk about the godliness of their charitable acts but would kick a homeless man who dared to ask for a buck.

God, I missed New York City.

A muffled scream came from further in the alley, and I followed the noise, a dark excitement buzzing in my veins.

“Hey, you get your hands off of her,” I yelled as I saw four men, all dressed in black, wearing matching ski masks—as if the bright red hair sticking out, freckles on their exposed skin, and green-and-black tattoos peeking out from their sleeves didn’t identify them as Irish mob.

Usually, I wouldn’t care.

My family had spent enough time in bed with the Irish mob for me to know that crawling in myself wasn’t worth the hassle. But the girl in their possession wasn’t some Irish street rat.

She was a means to an end.

My means for my ends.

They could pursue other avenues of retaliation.

“Mind your business,” one of them yelled.

“She is my business,” I said calmly. “Leave now.”

“He ain’t going to do nothing,” one man said.

“I could call the police,” I bluffed.

There was no way I would call the police. They would only get in my way.

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