Page 95 of Sinful Mates

I attempted to pacify her worry with a brush of my fingertips along her hip, but she flinched. “This is where I conduct my reckoning.”

She swallowed hard. “Did you bring me here to punish me for not telling you about Mia?” Apprehension dominated her scent.

I clasped the column of her neck lightly enough that she could retreat if necessary. “If I wanted to punish you, I’d take you to my dungeon.”

Her scent changed, calm mixed with the slightest bit of arousal.

“Sorceress, you have nothing to fear from me.” I swiped my thumb along her jaw. “Except dying of overstimulation when I edge you.”

A slight smile crept over her mouth. “What if I overspend on your bank card for Christmas presents?”

I laughed darkly, already knowing she did, then tried to pay me back. Mia’s school fees and purchase of a laptop wiped out her bank balance. “I told you I’d fuck up your credit history.”

“There goes my bank loan to buy a house big enough to fit all of us.” I loved that we shared a dark sense of humor.

I held out my hand, testing if she trusted me enough to take it. She did, and the darkness in me smiled. Easing her mind, I inched her to the TV monitors, telling her how this place came about. How I used my Thoth powers to purchase the property and install the bunker beneath the barn, away from spying eyes of satellites, drones, and government planes taking pictures of properties for the Department of Lands.

That I ran this place with the assistance of Cameron, my legal mentor and former boss, who was retired now. Our joint endeavor to rid the world one human at a time of the corruption and greed choking this world. From time to time, that included eliminating a public official, one who escaped the hammer of the law in a trial Cameron or I worked on.

I ran a finger along the side of a screen. “Thoth and I won’t stop until we’ve wiped filth like these captives from Earth and freed humanity from their dirty clutches.”

She leaned on the wall, bunching my leather jacket in her fists, tugging me closer. “No wonder you’ve been so busy, my dark, secretive man.”

Sometimes a man had to keep secrets to protect the ones he loved. After I lost my wife, my dog, my house, and my fucking legal career, thanks to the triad, I had a lot of anger to work off. Wrath my good companion for many years in balancing the Maat for Thoth.

“You’ve been wrestling with guilt over killing Danny.” I pressed her to the wall with my body. “I thought I might be the one to help with that.”

Aaliyah’s eyes darkened with an ancient power for a few seconds, Isis recognizing my meaning. My mate’s eyes then flashed back to their regular blue.

Her gaze flickered behind me, to the demon I knew menaced her. Danny’s ghost. “How?”

I lifted her from the wall, spinning her, pointing at the top left screen. “All my captives deserve to be here. They broke the law of Maat.”

She nodded although she still didn’t understand, her confusion and worry peaking on the bond.

“Albert Johnson.” I tapped the screen, my reckoning rising to meet my anger at the injustice done. “Corporate psychopath and bully. Two trainees in his employ committed suicide. Charged with failure to provide a safe work environment under the workplace health and safety laws. Murdered the lead whistleblower in our workplace bullying case.”

Her body tensed beneath me as if she sensed what I would say.

I pushed away from her and swiped my jaw. “Jury ruled in favor of his company and he got off with no consequences.”

“Fuck.” Disgust strangled the bond.

Darkness crowded every inch of me for the blatant disregard for human life, and the lack of remorse of the offender. “For every day he broke the mind of his staff members, I break him.”

She nodded out of acknowledgment, not out of agreement.

I moved on to the next screen. “James Dolher, CEO of Morna Pharmaceuticals. Altered and falsified trial data to get his drug approved with the Therapeutic Goods Administration.”

Medicine interested Aaliyah and she crowded the screen, examining the man with keen eyes. She slowly came around.

“Three months after release, his drug killed two and half thousand people and was pulled from the market.” Cracks trailed along the edges of my control. Justice demanded serving. “It left my client with serious brain damage and the inability to work and support his family.”

Aaliyah clutched her stomach. “Oh, God. How do you punish him?”

Thoth smiled inside me, and my darkness eased.

Isis teased along the border of my mate, her power swelling with rage and shadow. Like Thoth, she punished the wicked, including her brother, Set, for murdering her husband.

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