Page 46 of Sinners Atone
Surely not.
Oh, my God. It is.
Under the dim light of the streetlamp, I can just about make out what’s in the trunk—rope, a roll of trash bags, and some sort of ominous duffel bursting at the seams.
That’s a murder kit, isn’t it? A crime scene waiting to happen. All it’s missing is the victim.Me.
“Stop!” I squeak, trying to wriggle off his shoulder and onto the ground. “I’ll go in the front! I’ll go in the front!”
Like hell I will, but I’ll say anything for him to put me down, then I can try my luck with the last option—outrunninghim, broken ankles be damned. It’s still a better alternative than being bundled into the back of Gabriel Visconti’s murder wagon.
He’s impervious to my pleas. They turn from screams to yelps to flat-out begging once my calves press against the cold rear bumper, and all of them fall on deaf ears.
“Please,” I whimper.
His hands slide from my thigh to my hips.
“I’ll do anything!”
He tugs me down until my chest is flush with his.
My hands fly out to grab his face. His beard scratches my palms as my fingers dig into his cheekbones. “But I saved your life!” I yell.
Something about those five words has an effect on him, and the world stops turning. Gabriel freezes under my touch, and the weight of a bad decision seizes my muscles. My hands slide back down to my side, and I stare, petrified, at the ink between his spread collar.
I don’t dare look up. If his expression is anything like what it was when I said those words earlier, I’m too close to him now to survive it.
As the suspense expands and contracts around us, I become aware of all the places my body touches his. Warmth bleeds from his torso to mine; the hard clasp of his watch digs into the small of my back. He’s hot where I’m cold, breaths steady between my ragged pants. Our heartbeats, they’re out of sync. Clashing against one another’s chest, his tempo slow and strong, mine skittish and tripping over itself.
Feeling his pulse does nothing to humanize him. It only brings a sour taste to my mouth, because for the second time in as many minutes, my thoughts turn to my mother.
Heartbeats always remind me of her.
All thoughtspoplike soap bubbles when his forearms loosen around my waist, and my body grates against his. Every buttonof his shirt snags on my satin dress on the way down, until my feet finally find purchase.
He retreats, leaving me just enough room to breathe. I steal a tentative glance up at him from beneath my lashes. He rubs a hand over his jaw, as if my touch was dirty, and his gaze floods with a look of loathing. Under this orange lighting, I can’t tell if it’s for me or for himself, but it’s a look so venomous it could kill.
But no look in the world is as sickening as his next command.
“Walk.”
The blood doesn’t even return to my toes before I’m fidgeting from one foot to the other.
Scraping a fleck of mud from my cheek, I squint up at him. I’m optimistic to the point of delusion, but even I don’t know why I’m still searching for any trace of kindness or humor in his face. Because, surprise, there isn’t any. It’s the same hardened irritation, interrupted only by that menacing scar.
“Walkwhere?”
He gives a curt nod to the treeline.
“But why?”
His reply is filtered through gritted teeth. “Because I said so.”
My stomach sinks. There’s no way Rory and Tayce are in there. They’re probably back at Angelo and Rory’s manor, heels off, defrosting by the fire and trying to figure out how the night ended like this.
It’s dark between the trees. Like, can’t-see-the-tip-of-your-nose kind of dark. And if that’s not where my friends are, there’sonly one reason a man known coast wide as the Boogeyman would want to march me into the forest, and it sure as hell isn’t for a teddy bear picnic.
With an odd sense of calmness trickling from my scalp, I stuff my frozen hands into the pockets of my coat and rest my gaze on the bulging vein ticking at Gabriel’s temple.
