Page 103 of Sinner's Perdition

“You’re not being fair.”

“Never have been. Never will be, but fuck if I wanted anything or anyone the way I want you.”

He gives me his vulnerability, offers me his weakness, shows me his feelings. His name out of my mouth, a plea for forgiveness.

He tucks me in bed, pressing a tender kiss against my forehead. “I’ll be right back. I have some things to talk over with Kieran.”

I cry again, curled in bed, while hearing Aurora calling my name, but I can’t answer. I know it’s her from the soft rap at the door.

“Chiara?”

I pull myself up the headboard. “Help me. I can’t stay with him. I just can’t. Please.”

“How can I help?”

“Your uncle.”

I see the indecision warring in her eyes.

“Help me escape. Please.”

She leaves and returns with a phone. She dials and presses a phone to her ear. I hear only bits of the discussion.

“I need your help . . . You wanted to help me escape. I don’t need that, but my best friend does . . . I can’t come. I have a tracker. . .”

A gasp follows from my lips. Kieran did that to her? The fucking asshole.

“Don’t hurt anyone,” she pleads and hangs up.

“Thank you,” I say, while squeezing her hand. I was about to give Kieran the benefit of the doubt when I find out that shit.

“Take this chance as well. He has you brainwashed. He even chipped you.”

“It’s not like that.”

“That you defend this despicable act tells me I am right.” He’s worse than Cato. Yet she stays with him. I doubt he deserves her love. When she leaves, a long sigh parts my lips.

When Cato returns to bed, I pretend to be asleep. I can’t look him in the eye. I prefer to hold on to the memories. Both of us will hate me when he wakes up tomorrow, but for now, I am the woman he would lay the world at her feet for,his life.

***

He’s asleep when the door creaks open, and Hayden raises his finger to his mouth. He’s in all black. My heart pounds in my chest; I can’t believe it doesn’t wake Cato up. A part of me wants to yell at him to wake up, to stop me. Tears gather in my eyes as Hayden sticks a needle in Cato’s neck.

“Don’t hurt him.”

“You should have thought about that before.”

Why did I think he would be any different, he’s also a prick.

“Wait downstairs. I am getting Aurora.”

“We should leave her here.”

“No.”

I change into a pair of jeans and a shirt and tiptoe downstairs, wrapping my arms around myself.

Aurora’s face is pale, and I grab her hand, repeating thank you like a broken record with guilt gnawing at my insides.

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