Page 70 of When Sinners Fall
Blood starts splattering around after a bit, flecks of it landing on the cream upholstery and light-grain, wooden floor. I watch it land. Seems I’m more interested in it than the beating going on. I’m not really. I’m staring through it. Thinking. Trying to find a way that’s gonna work for Wren without me telling her everything she doesn’t want to hear. Not sure there is one in reality. Maybe she should hear it all.
“Brother.” I look left to find Abel walking into the room. He checks in with Knox, then turns his head back to me, considering the clear damage that’s already been inflicted and Knox still carrying on. “What’s his deal?”
“Which one?”
“Knox.”
“Don’t know. Pissed, I guess.”
We both watch for a while longer, both intrigued at the fact that this guy – Levi whoever – is pretty much on the way to dead. Not usually Knox’s style other than some threat coming for one of us. “You’ve got the money, though?” Abel asks.
I shake my head.
He’s over and hauling Knox off instantly, dragging his still-fighting frame backwards until they’re over by the window. Abel’s words are low as he murmurs in Knox’s ear. I don’t need to hear them. They’ll be cooling words. Words that wind him down from wherever his head’s just been at. Don’t know where that was, but it sure as hell wasn’t in this room.
“Go wash up,” he says, pushing Knox over to a bathroom after a while. “Start looking,” he says to me when he comes back.
So we start trashing the apartment. Every door’s opened. Every cupboard ransacked. Every painting tossed from the wall until we find a safe hidden under a rug and beneath the floorboards in the bedroom. I look back at the body coughing up blood in the main lounge and trying to move somewhere. Doesn’t take me long to get a code out of Levi, and we end up taking whatever is inside the safe as compensation for his screw-up.
Another turn around the place and I find the security surveillance equipment stored in the office space. That gets trashed too, and I make sure it’s not connected to anything other than his own private server. Not that we need to worry too much. Assholes like this never go to the cops about us because their life chances go to zero if they even try.
Knox is still hovering over the dick as we’re trying to leave, occasional kicks still being thrown in to cause more damage. It takes me guiding him out to make his feet move before he does kill the dick.
“I need to see you both at The Bourbon Lounge, tomorrow night,” Abel says as we get to our cars. “We’ve got something to discuss. All of us.” I nod. Knox still stares blankly. “Knox?” Nothing. No fucking coming down from wherever he is in his head. Able reaches inside Knox’s jacket and tosses his keys at me. “I’ll take him home. Call one of the guys to get his car.”
They pull out, and I get on with phoning one of the guys as I watch them disappear. A couple of cop cars pull past on the main street as I’m waiting. They slow as they drive by, getting a good look at me and what I’m doing in these parts. So I light a smoke and stare back, leaning my ass on my car. What are they gonna do? Arrest me? Unlikely. They don't want this Dragon inside any more than I want to be there.
CHAPTER TWENTY - FOUR
WREN
The wedding is a beautiful success.
The venue is stunning, adorned in the sunset colours of the flowers that set everything off in spectacular fashion. It looks and smells amazing and is totally worth the trouble of last night.
I would be lying if I said this win for me wasn’t needed. Since Dante came back into my life, my erratic behaviour and appearances at the office have put my job in jeopardy. Unintentionally maybe, but it's been a consequence. And I have no intention of giving up my job.
I watch the couple stand in front of their loved ones and proclaim their love for one another. I’ve seen it a hundred times before. Each wedding is a copy of the last in some respects. Couples think that the effort has to go into the wedding and not the marriage, though.The commitment is to each other, not getting the wedding day perfect.
How committed is Dante?
The question pops into my head, and I think about what Abel told me, hell, what Dante's even skirting around.
Love.
I think about everything he's done. His over-the-top, indefensible actions are to keep me safe. I shouldn't accept that, but there’s a side to me that’s attracted to it. It's become a dark snake of desire wrapped around a part of my heart, and it likes the obsessive nature of his protectiveness. It’s dangerous, though. I’m sure that most people would describe it as unhealthy, but I'm thinking about the relationship I had with Paul. That wasn’t healthy. And I wasn’t going to take that.
But with Dante…
The guests cheer as the bride and groom kiss, and my mind pings to a vision of Dante and me. I take a deep sigh and head to the exit to sneak away. There are two Louisa Sage employees covering the evening entertainment, and my part of the planning is over, so I have time to make it back to the office for Dante to pick me up.
The venue orders a taxi, and I wait outside, a sense of accomplishment settling over me. I’ve been able to focus today and put my job first. But as I slide in the back of the cab, and we travel the streets back towards the city, Dante’s words from this morning play over in my mind – his comment about the women and the pole.
It’s funny because I thought I could handle whatever he did. Until he actually told me his role in the business. Hearing for sure – knowing that they deal with women and brothels – makes me nervous.
Ironically, more so than the violence and killing.
That aspect feels different. Isolated. He said he didn’t go around murdering random people, and in my skewed-up mind, I can accept that, but when he said he’d be watching women fucking a pole, it shocked me. I didn’t like it, and it was my time to feel an irrational sense of obsession with him. They wouldn’t know he has a girlfriend because, well, he’s been hell-bent on keeping it a secret, but would that stop someone? Would it stop Dante? If this is his normal life, if girls are part of that, then… what?
