Page 206 of Never Die for a Sinner
Then his hand cracks across my face.
My head snaps to the side, the sound of it echoing off the walls like a gunshot. A flash of white heat bursts across my cheek, blooming into sharp, stinging pain. I taste blood—warm and metallic, in my mouth.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he says, but his voice is hollow. Mechanical. Like he’s rehearsed that line a hundred times. “But I gave you an order.”
“Go to hell,” I hiss, copper on my tongue.
“Sweetheart,” he says, crouching in front of me, voice almost tender. “Can’t you see? You’re already there.”
His cologne hits me—sickly clean, sharp, and artificial. It doesn’t cover the rot clinging to the walls. It makes it worse.
I try to shrink back, but the wall is already against my spine. My body trembles. Ice coats my veins.
“Are you doing this because I rejected you?” I ask, trying to buy time, tobreathe.“Or because you’re working for my father?”
He laughs—a low, cold chuckle that guts the room of warmth.
“Poor, simple Ava. You really don’t know anything, do you?”
His gaze sharpens as confusion tightens my gut.
“Why do you think I took the job at Cross Estate, Ava?”
My stomach sinks as realization sets in.
“It . . . it was you.” The words barely escape my lips. “This whole time . . .”
“You didn’t know?” Alex raises an eyebrow, feigning surprise. “Come on, Ava. You’re smarter than that.”
“You set us up,” I whisper, the truth slipping through me like poison.
“Very good, beautiful.”
He leans forward and brushes hair from my face. I flinch, every inch of my skin crawling.
He pulls a knife from his pocket. Cold steel catches the light, flickering like lightning across my vision. “Your father murdered mine, and you want to know the truth?”
I swallow past the lump in my throat, closing my eyes and praying to whatever power is in the universe that I could be anywhere but here.
“I was happy to watch the old bastard die. He was never a father to me, but . . . with his death, the connections died too. Everything I’d worked for under my pathetic, miserable excuse of a father, and for what?” I shake my head, but he grips my chin tighter. “I lost everything because of your family. Now . . . I’m going to pay him the same respect.”
He runs it along my thigh absentmindedly, his gaze searching mine.
“I always found you so beautiful, Ava—such pretty eyes. I can see now why Cross is so obsessed with you. That’s what makes this part so tragic.”
Then hestabsthe knife into my leg.
I scream when the sharp end of the blade pierces my skin. Pain explodes through my leg, hot and unbearable. My jeans darken as blood seeps from the wound, the sight of it making my vision sway.
“Where is he?” he asks, calm and emotionless, like he’s asking for the weather. His voice carves through the pain, razor sharp and unrelenting.
“I don’t know!” I sob, my voice cracking. “Idon’t know!”
He twists the blade, digging it deeper.
The world implodes into white-hot pain. I scream, raw and primal.
“I don’t think you’re telling me the truth, Ava.” He tilts his head. “You see . . . I know Cross. He wouldn’t let you out of his sight. And your father’s paying him oh so well to keep an eye on you. So, either you’ve run away like a naughty little pet, or he’s dead.”
