Page 44 of Heartless Sinner

“I didn’t know who you were.” I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve said those words. Each time I do, I hope he’ll see that I’m telling the truth.

I hope he remembers how that night played out and it was he who approached me at the bar and asked me to spend the night with him.

I hope he remembers how hesitant I was right from the get-go and sees that those things are synonymous with a person who has no idea who the other is.

“Do you really think not knowing who I was makes stealing from me okay?” He fixes me with a narrowed, questioning stare that reaches deep inside me.

“No, it doesn’t make it okay.”

“I’m glad we can agree on that.” The ghost of a smile tilts his lips. “By the way, I believe you didn’t know who I was. Apart from the fact that it doesn’t add up, I don’t think a girl like youwould have come near me if you knew me.” His voice drops lower, darker, wrapping around me like barbed wire.

My heart pounds against my ribs like it's trying to break free, each beat a desperate warning. He comes even closer, and the air turns to ice in my lungs.

I try to swallow, but my throat's too dry and his closeness has made the walls close in, suffocating me.

My skin prickles with electricity, every nerve ending screamingdanger, run, hide.

But I’m chained to this wall with nowhere to go but beneath his gaze.

His hand comes up, and I flinch—a full-body shudder I couldn't hide if I tried.

He doesn't touch me. He just places his palm against the wall beside my head, trapping me in the cage of his body.

"Your father told me everything,” he speaks in a firmer tone. Although fear still writhes through me, I’m grateful for the change of subject.

“Everything?”

“Everything. I know about your brother and the debt to your ex.”

I clench my jaw against the rush of humiliation. “I wouldn’t have agreed to do the job if not for the debt.”

“The debt or your ex?”

“He would have killed my father.”

“You sound certain.”

“Iamcertain.”

If we make it out of here, Anton will be a bigger threat than ever. I can just imagine how mad he must have been when his men didn’t return. I’m sure at least one of them escaped the war to tell the tale. He’ll be furious that we got bigger fish involved.

“How the fuck did you get mixed up with a guy like that?” His words ghost across my cheek.

Another stab of humiliation grips me. “I don’t know.”

I don’t know what the hell he expects me to say. I suppose the attraction to all things bad is my mother again. Dad was her exception. And she didn’t stay with him.

Every guy I’d heard she’d been with was either an ex con or scum. So, maybe I got that streak from her.

“What did the men at the factory say?”

Good, another welcomed subject change, but my mind is jarred from everything that’s happened over the past few days, so I have to think hard to remember those men.

“The guy in charge was called Estes. He had an accent—Eastern European. But not Russian.” That guy had a different accent. “There were five of them. The one who led me into the factory had a Navy Seal tattoo. I didn’t have any dealings with the others, but when they discovered the chip wasn’t working, he said the boss wouldn’t be happy about this.”

Micah gives me that probing stare again, but this time, he seems to be thinking, not trying to pick me apart.

“What else can you tell me about them?”

---