Page 10 of In the Light of Sin

I fucking hated this.

This room. The walls.

Even if I knew I could trust every man in this room with my six, I still didn’t want to be around them. There’s a reason I lived secluded in the woods–so I didn’t have to deal with anybody.

But I needed a brotherhood in my life. It was my second chance.

I looked around, seeing that everyone besides Hex and V were already here. They never arrived until the minute church actually started. I couldn’t stand that, if you weren’t fifteen minutes early you were late to me. Part of my job as Sergeant in Arms was ensuring my brothers were punctual. However, it was overruled when Grim explained that we’re lucky if they showed up at all. Which was true. They would have both already been kicked out if this was any other club.

But we needed Hex here. V? Not so much. Even if he was kicked out of the club, he’d never leave. He’s been in the club since day one, as loyal as a dog on a leash. And he was absolutely on a leash.

Out of all the members in the club, Hex, V, and I were the most alike. We’re actions instead of words. The back line of the club. If you were ever unfortunate enough to see us come out of the shadows, you knew your time was up.

If you were on the Souls’ radar in the first place, your death was coming. The three of us? We were like Hades’ three-headed hound from hell.

I didn’t know what Hex’s deal was or why he was even part of this club. He was usually holed up in his room. No one knew what he did. Didn’t care to know either. Judging by the dead-eyed snarl he typically led with, I’m sure it was something fucked up. But he was the only brother to actually live at the clubhouse. Everyone else had a room here, but we all had our own spaces.

V used to live at Hellbound and spend his days with his “toys.” Toys being the dumbasses who were unlucky enough to get caught up in our web. V was the silent spider, slowly bleeding the life out of them. These days though, his toys were left rotting while he was over at Law’s shy daughter’s apartment, scaring the shit out of her just by existing. Oakley was afraid of her own shadow, and now she had one twice her size watching her every move. I didn’t know all the details. I just knew that Law was gonna put a bullet in his head sooner rather than later.

Couldn’t fuckin’ believe someone as emotionless as V was suddenly and intensely fixated on a girl who bakes for a living, no less. Having been in the club for four years now, he’s never shown an interest in anything besides beating fuckers heads in with that bat of his. But if anyone used the wrong tone in Oakley’s direction, without a doubt, he’d be digging their shallow graves. I thought it was always going to be that way.

Guess even the toughest of them had some type of weakness.

Blond hair, emerald eyes, and a smile that lit up the darkest rooms flashed through my head before I could block it out as I gritted my teeth. I slammed my eyes shut and willed her image away. She was already a temptation I’d stupidly indulged myself with and others had seen. That day in the interrogation where she tripped over the chair and I caught her, to the day where I went toe to toe with Prez was out of character for me. Anyone else, I would step over them after they had fallen flat on their face. I would have let the hateful way Prez spoke to them sink into their bones. But not her. I couldn’t just stand there and let her be hurt.

And it pissed me off.

Shepissed me off.

Joslyn Monroe wasn’t my weakness. She was a fuckin’ complication.

A weakness was something slipping through the cracks in your armor. I didn’t have any cracks in my armor.

It was already completely shattered.

“Is Joslyn okay?”

My teeth were going to turn into dust if I kept grinding them. “Don’t you fuckin’ worry about her.”

“Nyla’s worried about her, asshole,” Grim shot back. “She wasn’t answering her last night after the party. What happened?”

“Isn’t that why we’re here?” I didn’t want to hear the replay of what happened, let alone speak about it. If I had to listen to it twice, Hex would have to sedate me before one of them was dead on the floor.

“Yeah, Sarge kept her busy afterward didntcha?”

The dead brother would be Tyrant. Fucker knew how to push my goddamn buttons with that teasing bullshit he threw at me the day it came out that I let Joslyn ride on the back of my rod.

She’s the only person I’d ever allowed to ride with me.

I’m not the type to voluntarily give a ride to someone. I lead with my fists, not kindness. I mean, shit, I knocked a motherfucker out for accidentally bumping against me in a crowded bar not even that long ago. I’m sure he was sorry, picking himself up off the floor when he finally regained consciousness.

My mind drifted to that night. The brothers wanted to go out and celebrate someone’s birthday, and I begrudgingly went along just to get them to stop bothering me about it. It was a nightclub called Calypso, a favorite of some of the brothers here.

I was a large man at six-foot-five. I took up most of any room I was in, and a crowded club was no exception. A drunken man bumped into me, and after I slammed my fist in his face, breaking his nose, I was kicked out, which was fine by me. My brothers still gave me shit but didn’t ask me to go out with them anymore.“Too much of a hassle,”they’d said.

I didn’t realize that was the night I’d become cursed by a temptress.

“Tyrant,” Prez scolded. “We discussed this. I’m not spendin’ any more time in Hex’s clinic for you bein’ a dick!”

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