Page 37 of In the Light of Sin

My jaded view of the world changed the night I first saw her.

Even when Joslyn wasn’t here, she was still haunting me. She’d been haunting me for over a year. And after I’d realized just how addicting she was, I had to do what I knew best. I got rid of her.

I got rid of anything that made me feel even remotely like the man I was before the… incident.

A sigh left my lips as I went to the kitchen, ready to pour myself another glass of scotch. I’d given up my nightly ritual for Joslyn, seeing her struggles around alcohol. It didn’t take a genius to figure out it was a vice she still struggled with years later. My phone blared, breaking the heavy silence that was threatening to drown me. I knew a call at this hour was never a good sign, so I answered with a more than agitated tone, “What?”

“Joslyn’s gone.”

The muscle in my chest halted briefly before picking up a frantic speed, beating wildly behind my ribs. I bent over, gripping the countertop, exhaling hoarse and heaving breaths. “What do you mean she’s fuckin’ gone?”

“She slipped out the window.” Grim sounded out of breath and slightly frantic as I heard Nyla freaking out in the background. “She switched the alarms off before she left. Nyla told her about them in case somethin’ happened—”

“You were supposed to watch out for her!” My words came from a place I hadn’t felt in six years. “How long?”

“Hours, at least. Nyla came to bed around nine.”

“I’m gonna fuckin’ skin you alive, Grim,” I promised him before slamming my thumb down on the red end button. Dialing Joslyn, I stood up straight, trying to regain some sort of composure. My left hand was still holding the end of my counter with a painful grip as I listened for the usual trill of the connecting ring.

Voice-mail.

And here I thought she’d be capable of reining in her idiocy. If she didn’t want to stay with Grim, fine. But to run away in the middle of the night? She’s fucking insane. I genuinely don’t think a lick of the danger she’s in has gotten through her thick ass skull. My gut sank, my pounding heart still throttling at a pace I couldn’t think through. After three deep, growling breaths, I finally took off at a run for the door. Damn near ripping the door off its hinges, I burst down the front steps with a feeling that I’d long since forgotten starting to return.

Fear.

Fear that they got to Joslyn. Guilt that I let my own issues come in the way of her safety. If I could bash my own fuckin’ head in, I would, but I didn’t have the time. Wrestling my way through the thick sheet I’d hung in place of a garage door, I decidedly ripped it off. I’d already lost too much time. I had exactly zero seconds to fuck with that damn thing. Tossing the remnants to the ground, I hustled toward my bike to saddle up. As I backed it out of the garage, I froze at a rustling in the trees.

Slowly, I swung my right leg back over to stand firm, gripping my Glock in my waistband. “Who’s there?”

No answer but more rustling. My footsteps were slow and calculated as I made my way over, slipping my gun out of the waistband of my jeans. The rustling grew louder as I narrowed my eyes, trying to locate the source. I lit up the flashlight I kept on my keychain. Since it was midnight, I couldn’t see shit in the dark. The trees blocked too much of the moon to get a good look at whatever was in the foliage.

I didn’t have time for this shit. Pointing my gun in the general direction, I aimed my flashlight at the tree line and whoever was on my fucking property. “You don’t want to test me right now. I’ll blow your fuckin’ brain out the back of your skull. Come out. Now.”

Instant relief hit me like a truck as my eyes landed on blonde hair and dirty, pale skin.

“Uh.” Crouching, she grinned up at me, feigning innocence. “A little help? I’m kinda stuck.”

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ, Joslyn.” Finally dropping my gun down to my side, so many thoughts and emotions began to flood my system. Anger, relief, and guilt still lingered. “What the fuck were you thinkin’!”

To my surprise, her dirtied face morphed quickly into anger.“You don’t get to be angry at me.” She heaved, enunciating every syllable slowly.

“Like fuck I don’t!” The anger that coursed through me was growing by the second. “You fuckin’ snuck out? Jesus, did you fucking walk here? Come on, Joslyn. You keep making these stupid fucking decisions that don’t just affect you.” I reached down, waiting for her to grab my hand so I could help her out of the sticks. “You don’t listen, do you?”

“Well, I am deaf. So, no. No, I don’t,” she sarcastically shot back at me, leaving my hand dangling as she stood. She brushed herself off and locked her eyes on me once again. I scanned her body to calm my nerves about her being injured. I couldn’t help but notice her clothes—bright yellow sleep pants and pink, fuzzy slippers. My enormous black shirt tucked in the front of her sleep pants.

God, she was insufferable sometimes. “Now’s not the time to joke about that shit, Joslyn. You keep doing stupid shit like this, and you’re gonna get killed.”

“Hilarious,” she drawled out in a bored tone, crossing her arms over her chest. “You fight is a goddamn underground ring where the goal is literally death. You’re a part of a club that promotes death like it’s a badge of honor or something. You–”

“I can handle it. I’m in control in every situation I put myself into,” I barked, cutting off her rant. Her trying to throw my misdeeds and dealings with the club back in my face threw me over the top of my bullshit threshold. What I do down in the ring is my outlet. It’s the only one that keeps me sane. Until she so happened to show up, I’d never even been hit. Not once. And what the club did say today was no one’s fucking business but ours. It was the only way we managed our suffering, and only we understood it. “The men after us aren’t stronger than us.”

“You’re not stronger than a bullet,” she threw back, eyes trailing my new scar from where the bullet grazed me. “Or a hidden knife. You’re as vulnerable to them as I am.”

That wasn’t even remotely close to the truth, but I was tired of talking. I can’t make her understand our ways. That just comes with time. Coming down from the high of losing her for that split second only replaced those emotions with other, more immediate needs.

I stepped away from her, eyes trailing absentmindedly. “I built this myself,” I mumbled in her direction, gesturing to the now barely standing garage, thanks to my little ray of sunshine. Building things was something I did in my spare time to keep my hands busy and clear my head. If I let myself get lost enough in a project, I could take myself back in time to when I got to build things with my Pops. “Took me six months.”

“What about your cabin?” She huffed out, shuffling her feet. I could tell she knew where I was headed with this particular conversation.

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