Page 78 of Sinful

“She was dead to me, Sinclair. I-I thought I’d lost her forever,” I said, my heart aching with all those ugly memories I had from that time in my life. “Hearing she was alive has changed everything. And now I get to be here.”

We stopped, and he turned to face me.

“For how long?” he asked.

“Forever if I can help it.”

“And Asylum?”

I let out a soft chuckle and cocked my head to the right. “I can’t seem to shake him, but he loves her, and I do love him, so I guess that’s OK.”

Sin stared me down and looked like he was going to say something, but he narrowed his eyes and moved past me.

I turned to see what he was looking at and saw Danny Linley round the corner.

“Perfect.” I stalked forward, Sin at my side.

Danny caught sight of us and stopped in his tracks, his eyes wide as saucers.

“Hello, Danny,” I said, circling him in the opposite direction of Sin. “Just the guy we were looking for.”

“A-Asylum. I-I swear. I’ve stayed away from her. I-I jerked off to a picture of her last night, but I swear, I’ve not gone near her—”

“My name is Mirage,” I snarled in his ear. “Say it.”

“M-Mirage,” he choked out, squeezing his eyelids together.

“Now forget it,” I instructed. “Because I am he, and he is me, and we are we.”

Danny snotted and blubbered, nodding his head, his body shaking. “O-OK.”

“Prove to me you’re not the piece of shit who touched my girl in the woods,” Sin snarled out, nose to nose with Danny.

“I-I’m not. I swea-swear I’m not. I didn’t. I didn’t, Sin. Fuck, man. I didn’t.”

Sin raised his knee and connected it with Danny’s stomach, making him double over and fall to his knees.

I cocked my head to the right, watching Sin work. He was really something.

“Tell me what you know,” Sin demanded.

“I-I don’t know anything. I didn’t even know Sirena went to the woods without Ch-Church.”

Sin tangled his fingers in Danny’s greasy hair and tugged his head back.

“You swear you don’t know anything?”

Danny’s Adam’s apple bobbed, and he nodded.

“Then find out who hurt her in the woods for me. I want that fucking information.”

“W-why do you think I can get it?” Danny whimpered.

“Because you’re Danny-fucking-Linley. Your life is spent at the bottom of the fucking barrel, trying to scrape by. It’s where the monster is who touched my girl. Who hurt my siren. I want a fucking name.”

“O-OK. I-I need an incentive m-maybe. . .”

“How about this?” I asked, bending so I was eye to eye with him. “If you get us a name, the right name, I’ll not turn your trachea into my new wind instrument. How does that sound?”

---