Page 2 of Sinners Keepers
“Please,” she whispered into my mouth, then groaned, exasperated. Her desperation to have me inside her mirrored the intense need I had for exactly the same thing.
I thrust into her, filling her completely in one go. She clenched around me, so fucking tight that I lost my sense of anything else.
We fit together like two pieces of an existential puzzle, longing to come together for all of eternity. This was home.Shewas home.
There was one last thing I needed to take care of for her—her dad. He had to go, there was no question about that.
My girl had been restless with anxious anticipation each day that passed and Ellis Cauley was still breathing, but I’d reassured her he was an easy hit. I wasn’t willing to risk anyone’s safety to get to him. We just needed to wait until he was stir-crazy enough to crawl out of the hole he was hiding in. He couldn’t stay in that dump of a house forever.
All the things we would need to cross in our path to get from point A to point B were small potatoes compared to what Hunt had already lived through—and what she’d already overcome.
Our happily ever after was just around the corner.
She was my one and only; the other half of my heart. My fucking soulmate. The bond between us was unbreakable, and nothing and no one could ever change that or take it away now.
CHAPTERONE
Hunt
SEVERAL DAYS LATER…
My husband was dead.
And while there was no way to get back the last eight years I'd lost being forced into a ridiculous, unwanted marriage, there was one thing I could do to ease the constant heaviness carried around inside me—and it was the only thing I had on my mind tonight:revenge.
A dish best served cold, and this vengeance had been cooling on the counter for a long fucking time.
Ijah had said we needed to wait, that he would eventually come out to play on his own, and that when he did, we’d be waiting. But I was tired of waiting. So fucking tired of the men in my life making decisions for me. I knew Ijah did genuinely have my best interest at heart, but before him, no one else had. I was no longer willing to leave my future in the hands ofanyoneelse, and that included Ijah.
He may have considered what I was about to do a bad idea, but I knew when I returned home to him with one less thing on ourto-dolist, he’d be thankful. He would most definitely punish me for it, but I looked forward to that, too.
Those things aside, this was something Ineededto do for myself. I didn’twantIjah or either of his men to be the ones who got to see the light leave my dad’s eyes. He was so adamant that I would not be the one to have his blood on my hands—oranyblood on my hands.
His worries were valid. I’d never been on this side of things and having been enforcers for my dearly departed husband, they had plenty of experience. But I wanted to be the one to do this.
He’d takeneverythingfrom me, and I wanted to be the one who took everything from him—or at least, all he had left: his pathetic life.
I wanted to see the regret in his eyes as he took his last breath, if he was even capable of such a thing.
I doubted he was.
My fists clenched at the thought, a familiar fire lighting in my chest. I'd spent so long feeling powerless. Helpless. But now that I was free, I refused to be a victim of my circumstances any longer.
Tonight, myfatherwould get a taste of his own.
He’d yet to make his intentions known in the wake of Mattia’s death, but I knew him better than I knew myself and there was no shortage of wealthy fucks to whom he likely owed an exorbitant amount of money. And while he still had significant influence in Fate Trace, I knew that behind closed doors he was the same man he’d always been: terrible at managing his filthy fucking income and likely broke as shit again. The fact that I was newly single meant only one thing to him: I was up for grabs, readily available to offer up as payment for his debts.
My heart thrummed in my chest as I carefully grasped the cold steel of the .45. I gripped the slide, pulling it back with only a small amount of difficulty. There was a soft click, and I released an easier breath as the cartridge slid into the chamber. I was no expert when it came to firearms, but I'd seen them used enough that I'd learned the basics and educated myself thoroughly on the rest.
My father had continued living in my childhood home despite the fact that my hand in marriage had cost myloving husbanda fat chunk. At one time, Dad had been someone worth having ties to, and many men had thought doling out the cash for my hand in marriage would provide them some amount of protection in Fate Trace—that it would make them someone important. Mattia had been the highest bidder, and spending the money he’d been paid on below par drug investments had left my father in search of whatever other shady shit he could find a way to deal in.
When you’re the decorative companion of a crime lord, you hear shit. I’d hear story upon story of how a quick buck was all that had ever mattered to my dad, no matter how soon it left his hands after. I figured the only reason Mattia had kept me around once Dad had fallen from favor was because no one else would have wanted a sadistic old bastard like him, and he wanted to spend enough time making me as miserable as fucking possible just to get his money’s worth.
I shoved those thoughts from my mind as I trudged across the overgrown lawn and up the front steps.
Just outside of Fate Trace, the single-family home was a nice place at one point in time. Back when my mom was still around, anyway. I often think about how drastically different my life may have turned out if she hadn’t been diagnosed with cancer when I was seven. My dad had always been a piece of shit, but it didn’t matter because I’d had her to protect me, even when her body was so worn from the disease that she could barely function.
And then one day I didn’t anymore.
