Page 21 of Sinners Keepers
He hefted me up, carrying me back up the stairs, his chest vibrating with each step. I clung to him with my face buried in his shirt, hoping to avoid the gory image being burned into my brain.
We reached my bedroom door and he shoved it open, continuing through to the bathroom. He sat me gently on the sink and walked over to the massive tub, turning on the water.
Muffled footsteps sounded on the carpet, and then clacked across the tile. I'd yet to open my eyes, but I knew it was Alec.
He clasped his hands on either side of my shoulders and tugged me forward, unzipping the back of my dress. I tensed, causing him to pause the action.
"It's okay, baby. I've got you. Nothing I didn't see while you were in the hospital." I thought of all he'd seen. More than just my bare skin. Alec had seen me at my lowest—both mentally and physically—and chose not to look away. "I'll make sure Law closes his eyes," he smirked, reassuring me in that playful way of his.
He held me close, his hands running up and down my back, as he slowly removed the dress. He lifted me to my feet, sliding it down my body. His touch grounded me as I felt the fabric pool around my ankles. He stood in front of me, blocking Law's view, as I stepped out of it and onto the cold tile.
There was something so alluring about surrendering to them completely, even though I had no tangible proof they were beingcompletelyhonest with me about everything. Sure, Alec had just killed a man for mistreating me, but the fact they remained in contact with Ijah gave me an uneasy feeling I could not shake whenever it came to mind. A small part of me still wanted to run far away and never look back—to find a way to make it on my own—but that wouldn't have been a smart choice, either. I was stuck in this weird limbo, somewhere between what my mind told me Ishoulddo and how easy it would be to just give in to them fully.
The undeniable draw I felt toward them and the way they seemed to care for me made it hard to continue considering leaving at all.
Even after all of this was over.
The taste of gunpowder sat on my tongue and clung to my nasal passages. I felt as if all of the violence and death that had surrounded me for years had culminated in this moment, hitting me like a tidal wave, knocking me down, and dragging me under.
I'd never been so affected by violence. I had lived surrounded by it, and I didn't know why a simple gunshot had sent me over the edge like this. I'd seen men battered and bloody, shot, their cold dead bodies littering the main areas of my home almost daily for my entire adult life.
Alec and Law seemed to understand the effect it had on me, and even though they knew the things I’d seen and how I lived, they didn’t question my reaction in the way I was. I don’t think any of usexpectedme to react the way I did, they just seemed to be less surprised by it than I was for some reason.
Maybe they’d always been under the impression that I was weak and not as desensitized to these types of things as I was.Men.
“Let’s get you rinsed off in the shower while the tub fills,” Alec said, nudging me under the spray that Law had already warmed up for me at some point during the last minute. I was in such a fog that I barely registered the things happening around me.
As the water ran over me, warming my chilled body, my tense muscles loosened and my heart rate finally began to slow. Through a patch of condensation on the glass door, I could make out Alec standing with crossed arms, a towel in one hand, his gaze fixed on me with an expression of concern. His presence made me shiver in a way that had nothing to do with my anxious state.
Once I was free of any remnants of blood or bodily fluids, I turned the water off and reached for the shower door, pushing it open. I expected Alec to wrap the towel around me, but Law waltzed right over and deftly snapped it from his hand before holding it open for me to step into. I waited to feel embarrassed or shy, but those feelings didn’t come. I just felt cared for.
Alec led me over to the tub, my brain finally starting to unfuzz. “You don’t have to baby me,” I said to the pair of them.
He pulled the towel away and helped me step into the deep tub. “The fuck we don’t. I just snapped at the sight of that bastardspitting on youand likely traumatized you for life.”
The water enveloped me as I sunk down into the tub and I suppressed a groan.
“I’ve seen worse,” I snorted, settling myself.
I breathed in the scent of eucalyptus and spearmint, undissolved grains of Epsom salt scraping against the bottoms of my feet.
The scent was so specific that it triggered my once-precious memories of the times I’d soaked like this… with Ijah.
He’d sit on the floor by the tub while I relaxed in my master bath after having disconnected all the cameras in the house while Mattia was away. I can’t count on one hand the number of times he’d call Ijah to havethe boyscome fix his security system when they were the ones who’d fucked with it in the first place.
A tear slipped free from the corner of my eye and I quickly swiped it away, hoping that Alec and Law hadn’t noticed.
I laid my head back against the edge of the tub and steeled myself against the emotions that threatened to overcome me again.
I couldn’t live like this forever, never moving on from the things I wished were real.
They were real to me.
I wondered if they’d ever been real to Ijah at all, or if I was just an easily accessible piece of ass. A challenge. A way for him to stick it to his boss or something. And even if that were true, what led to himshooting me? I felt like that was a question I’d be asking myself for the rest of my fucking days.
He’d always been disgusted by my father. There was no part of me that could have ever imagined that he would take his side inanything, especially not to hurt me.
I guess things change.
