Page 221 of Sweet Dominion

Uncle Song sat in the corner munching on peach cobbler.

A dollop of green whipped cream sat on top of the cobbler and caught my eyes immediately.

That’s Banks’s cobbler. When did he sneak in the kitchen and get it out?

Seven years ago, Banks had claimed one Thanksgiving that white whip cream was toobasicand didn’t match his swag.

The next Thanksgiving, he came up with his minty whip cream.

I thought it was going to be a disaster.

Peach and mint?

No.

But somehow, in that wild, Banks way, it actually worked.

People started talking about the green whip at family gatherings and it became Banks’s signature move.

Uncle Song forked up a big piece of cobbler with the cream on it and stuffed it in his mouth. A loud groan left him. “Mmmm.”

Realizing that we were in there, TT looked up at us. “Moni, I finished it!”

Leo lifted his view up from the Bible and put his gaze on Lei. “Just in time.”

What the fuck is going to happen now?!

Chapter forty-one

John 3:16

Moni

My pulse roared in my ears.

Leo gazed at me and smiled.

It wasn’t a smile that brought warmth or reassurance.

It was a slow, creeping thing, like something slithering out from beneath a rock.

His lips curled upward, but it didn’t reach his eyes—those remained cold, calculating, void of any human emotion.

The smile was all sharp edges.

Broken glass glinting in the shadows, cutting through my fragile moment of calm.

“Ah, Lei.” Leo kept that creepy ass smile on his face. “You’ve come just in time… I’ve been waiting for you.”

A chill run down my spine and my fingers twitched at my sides.

That smile—God, that smile.

It wasn’t human.

It was the kind of smile a predator gives right before sinking its teeth into soft, helpless flesh.

And I realized with horror that Leo was enjoying this. He was reveling in the terror coming off us.

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