Page 67 of Sinner's Secret

That made him take a half-step back. “I haven’t hurt you,” he said as if he were a wrongly accused man.

“You wanted to, mister her blood smells so good.” She shook her index finger in his face. “I watched you tear a hole in Baz’s neck, gulp down blood faster than I would a Slurpee, then barf it all back up. What. The. Fuck?” She stepped back, crossed her arms over her chest, and waited for a reaction.

He blinked, then grinned. “I think I’m in love.”

She rolled her eyes. “No thanks, and to be clear, it’s not me that’s the problem, it’s you.”

Baz was suddenly there, putting himself between her and his cousin. “Back off. She’s under my protection.”

Protection? Protection?

She opened her mouth to complain about the protection she’d received in the last twenty-four hours, but the words dried up in her mouth when he turned to meet her gaze. A ring of blood circled his mouth and splatters of red covered the rest of his face.

“You have blood all over your face,” she told him, proud of how even her voice sounded.

He froze for a second, then wiped his sleeve over his mouth.

“You’re going to need a shower,” she told him. Did they think they were vampires? Or was tearing out the throats of anyone who threatened you some kind of twisted fighting technique designed to terrify your opponents?

Now that she had a moment to examine both men, their clothes were covered in blood and bullet holes too.

How were they still alive?

Part of her wanted to figure all the weird shit out, but her brain was in no condition to make sense of any of it.

“And a change of clothes.” She remembered the bags she’d grabbed and found them on the floor of the tunnel not far away. “I’ve got some, but we need to find a place where I can rest without worrying about people trying to shoot me, blow me up, or drink all my blood,” she said the phrase with all the dry humor she could scrounge up. Because if she didn’t she might remember that this was real, that the two men helping her could just as easily kill her. This was no time to let panic take over.

“Nika, you need to forget everything you sa—” Baz began.

She cut him off. “Bullshit. After what I just saw, I want the truth. The whole truth. After I get some sleep.”

“Shit,” he said to the sky, well, the manhole size of sky above them.

“Tell her,” Yvgeny said, once again in an overly loud whisper. “She already knows too much.”

“And you,” Nika said, craning her head around Baz’s body so she could make eye contact with the other man. “Shut up. Every time you open your mouth, you make things worse.”

“Hey, I’m trying to give you what you want, information.”

“No, you’re trying to start shit. Again.”

“Bah.” Yvgeny threw his hands up in the air.

“Yvgeny,” Baz said, his tone hard and unavoidable. “We have problems that must be dealt with. I think someone is after our territory here, and whoever that is, they know Nika is...important to me. Or maybe, just that she’s important.”

“And,” Yvgeny added. “One of my people has betrayed me. There are only a few individuals who knew about the additional protections built into that room at the motel.”

Baz didn’t reply, just waited like they had all the time in the world.

“What do you want to do first then?” Yvgeny asked finally.

“Find out who in your organization is unfaithful.”

“And kill them?” Yvgeny asked with way too much anticipation. He was like a too excited child sometimes.

“I would never counsel you to commit murder in front of a police officer.”

Yvgeny looked at her, then stage whispered to his cousin, “I think she knows anyway.”

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