Page 17 of When Sinners Fall
“I'm checking in with you.” I keep staring, damn sure that's the exact same thing. “You weren’t here. And you don’t stay over when you fuck.”
“And?”
“Then where were you?”
I pause, trying to work out what he’s suggesting, then try tracking my steps over the last few days to see if he could have followed them. Doubt it. Trailing after me while I trailed after Wren isn’t his style. “Why?”
“I think the question is, why aren’t you telling me?”
My glare drops. I’m in the wrong mood for antagonism or some kind of deference he’s after. “I think the answer is, it’s none of your goddamn business where the hell I was.”
“Touchy.”
“Tired.”
“It was fucking then.”
“Yeah. A whole goddamn whore house. You wanna know their names and numbers too?”
He chuckles and walks past me, heading through to the kitchen. I follow, watching as he opens the refrigerator and grabs a lump of meat out of it. He stares at me as he eats it and leans on the countertop, still quietly laughing to himself about something.
“What?” I ask.
“You won’t find comfort in it, Dante. I’d back off whoever she is if I was you.”Fuck.“All a woman will do is drown you, and you’re not the marrying kind.” That, at least, breaks a laugh out of me, even if it doesn’t release the tension he’s bringing with him. “Not like you’ve got anything good to offer a decent one. And we both know that’s the only sort you’d try hiding from me.”
I move in closer and take a seat at the counter, smiling. “Last thing I’m doing is marrying anyone, Abel.We don’t need that talk.”
He chews, swallows. “Good.”
I don’t know what the hell is going through his mind as he keeps staring at me, but he knows something. I don’t know how he knows, but I guess he’s been around me the longest, been above me the longest. Maybe he can see the kind of interest I used to have in me years back. Or maybe he’s just hedging his bets like Abel always does. One thing he doesn’t like, pretty much more than anything, is things being hidden from him. Knox is already crossing that line with the Cane shit. Guess we both are on that count.
Wiping his hands on a cloth, he leans back up until he’s back in the fridge and pulling a soda out of it. “So, Mariana’s got some asshole causing her problems. She says she has it handled. You want to deal with that or me?”
“Who is it?”
He starts reeling off some story about a guy who isn’t treating her the way she should be treated, then tails that into the fact that the same guy’s father has something to do with one of Mother’s businesses. I don’t give a damn. The moment my sister got mentioned, I started losing what little patience I had left this morning. Which is probably why he’s telling me.
“Alive, Dante,” he murmurs.
I sneer and move to stand, ready to get dressed and get on with my day. “Yeah.” Doesn't mean there won’t be a warning in his future as and when I see him.
“You’re with me today until then.”
I frown but keep moving for the bedroom instead of letting him see it. I’m not supposed to be with him today. I’m supposed to be getting on with threatening some people on a list, dealing with a tonne of trouble at the haulage yard, and burying some intel that links us to drugs we’re not taking the fall for. I was also going to spend my night in exactly the same place I've been for the last few nights. Maybe finding some balls to try talking to her again, but probably just being a perverse stalker because that seems to be my thing now with her.
I smile at the last of it, amused with myself. Never held back from a woman in my entire life. Haven’t had to. Never wanted to either. But this is full of something I’m not used to. It’s becoming more insidious by the day, and yet it’s making me feel closer to her than I know what to do with. Haven’t even damn well touched her, and I don’t know what will happen when I do, but one thing's for sure – it’s gonna be a moment neither me nor her ever forget.
By the time I’m in a suit and heading back out to him, he’s cracking his second bottle of high-sugar soda and waiting by the door. He nods at me, as I get to him, and opens the door himself. We’re both out of it with little to say on the matter of what I’m doing with him at all today. Who cares in reality? Not me. It’ll just be another day doing what we do. With any luck, it’ll finish soon enough that I can get on with what I want to do.
CHAPTER EIGHT
WREN
My alarm doesn’t wake me because I’m already wide awake, staring at the ceiling.
My heartbeat didn’t slow down for half of the night, just like it hasn't for the last few nights. Every time my eyes drift closed, all I see are those tiny eyes and dirty teeth - again. Even thoughts of my guardian devil couldn’t keep my nerves from playing tricks on me.
My guardian devil.
