Page 201 of Never Die for a Sinner
I fucking failed her.
Visions of what he could do to her flash through my mind like a fucked-up zoetrope. My entire body stiffens, my mind screaming in agony until it drowns out the heavy beat of my heart.
“You know I’m going to hunt you down,” I growl, a calm clarity settling over me. “And when I find you, I’ll feed your balls to you like hors d’oeuvres while you bleed out in whatever cesspool you’re hiding out in.”
“Relax, your little pet is alive for now. See?”
A soft sniffle comes through the line, and my chest tightens painfully.
“Levi?” Ava’s voice filters through the phone, and I nearly drop to my knees.
“Baby, I’m coming for you.”
“Levi . . . I’m scared,” she breathes, and I can hear his laugh in the background.
“I know, baby. Just hold on. I’ll explain everything to you later, just don’t—”
“Time’s up. Sorry, I’m a very busy man,” he muses. “You have one hour to get me Marks. If you fail, I’m slicing her throat.”
Click.
Rage bubbles through me—a quiet storm brewing on the horizon.
My girl.
“There’s something else,” Christian says quietly, holding up his phone for me to see.
It’s an email from an encrypted number. One of his old contacts with the FBI.
It’s what’s in the email that fills my chest with lead.
My blood runs ice cold.
Christian sees it too. “A body just washed up on the south shore . . . It was Palmer’s.”
I blow out a breath through my teeth. Scrub a hand through my hair. Suck in a shallow breath through the rage bubbling through me.
I lift my head—slow, deliberate. Eyes cold.
I chamber a round with a snap. The sound echoes through the cottage like a promise. Then I shoulder past Christian without a word.
“Mendez just signed his fucking death warrant.”
AVA
. . . 1 Hour Ago . . .
I’m ashamed to admit I’ve let my grandmother’s house go.
The place is a wreck. Cobwebs hang from the corners, the fridge smells like death’s cousin, and it’s so cluttered, I don’t even know where to begin.
Luckily, it’s enough to keep my mind occupied on my first day on my own, leaving me little time to think about Levi, my mysterious father, and the threat of whoever is hunting me looming over my head.
After all, cleaning is my specialty.
Except when I start, I find a picture of Gran and me and end up in a puddle of my own tears on the floor.
So . . . in the silence of my new home, I cry as loud and obnoxiously as I want. I cry for Gran. I cry for Levi. I cry about a cat I had when I was twelve, who went missing one day. I’d found him in the window, too young to realize until I tried to pick him up that he was already dead.
