Page 24 of Savage Sin

I have to get out of here. “Don’t worry, Gabriella. I’m coming for you.” I whisper up a prayer and I hope I get to her in time.

I flex my fingers and try to work blood into the tips before I really lose them. I stifle a groan when needles prick at my skin.

The door kicks open and my captor takes up the entire doorway with his massive body.

Trying for a steady tone, I ask, “What will it take for you to allow me a shower?” Sexual favors don’t seem to motivate him, so I don’t go that route. Thank God. He’s had ample opportunity to take if he wanted, anyway.

“Like I told you yesterday before you passed out again—”

Yesterday? I raise my fingers since I can’t move my hand to stop him right there. “Don’t say help you kill my step-father. Just don’t.” I have zero power in this situation. I’m not a fool. But if I help him, it means putting Gabriella in the direct line of fire. Nothing about this man screams stealthy. More like a raging bull jacked up on revenge. He’ll go in with guns blazing, his aim unbiased—everyone will get a bullet. As if to prove my point, he continues with words that have my stomach hollowing out.

“Your family dead is all I want,” he snarls.

My heart lurches into my throat. “So now it’s my whole family?” I expected him to push, but to hear the dead tone in his words snuffs out any chance I have of getting past the blood thrust and talking to the man.

My captor rubs at the tattoos across his knuckles. I squint but only make out what looks like dark lines of ink.

“Promise me your family’s blood and you can have your shower. Maybe even some proper food.” The cherry at the end of his cigarette bounces from the darkness as he talks. Behind him, shafts of light throw his face and most of his body in deep shadow. All except for that damn cigarette.

“Promise you how? Like kill them myself?” Bile rises in the back of my throat at the idea of raising a gun to my mother’s head.

He takes a long drag. One millimeter at a time, I watch the fireball consume dry tobacco, leaving ash in its wake. Much like my life if I give in to this guy’s demands. “You don’t have to lift a finger. Tell me where and I’ll do the rest,” he offers, looking like a dragon with smoke billowing from his mouth.

“No gracias,” I say flatly and damn near stop breathing from the force of his narrowed gaze. Weight of his sins is a black aura around him. He personifies wicked deeds just by drawing air. I’d do well to remember just because he hasn’t hurt me doesn’t mean he won’t.

I swallow hard. “I am not a killer and I won’t help you spill familial blood.” I shake my head against the pillow as another flame of hope in me dies. “I can live on bread and water for a long time. It’s nothing new.” I’m not handing over my innocent sister to be slaughtered. He’ll kill everyone in his path.

“How long until you cut me up? I want to mentally prepare myself.” One way or another, this stand-off will end. “By the way, my step-father would actually consider me dead as a gift, so I’m not sure if you will get the desired effect you’re looking for. Postage is expensive.”

My captor moves away from the door and since he’s not reaching for a hacksaw or a pair of pliers from the dresser, an unsolicited amount of hope revives inside me.

With him not blocking the doorway now, I can tell it’s daylight, and the sun is high in the sky. Which means now is the perfect time to escape. Possibly. If I can get him to let me go. I haven’t left this bed. So far, things are not moving in my favor.

“My step-father’s actions aren’t my fault, whatever your name is.”

He roams deeper into the room, bringing with him the smell of a fresh shower. And is that cologne or shampoo? It’s rich and warm. Masculine. It invades my headspace and pushes out the desire to see him dead.

He throws open the curtains and serrated edges of sunlight stab my eyes.

“Cabrón!” I howl. I turn away and blink rapidly against the tears filling my light-sensitive eyes.

I take a minute or two of blinking before I can see again.

“I’ll give you a moment to reconsider.”

He faces away from me, bracing an arm on the side of the sliding door.

I look at him. I mean, really look. Before now, I saw the anger and grit. But the longer I keep my eyes on him and study the way shadows cling to him like the sunlight clings to a field of flowers, I see the grief. I recognize it because I’ve lived various degrees of it since I realized my father killed people for a living, all in the name of money and power.

Is this man lying to me? Is this really about his brother? Or is he playing the hero for a lover? A wife? My eyes drop to the hand hanging at his side. There’s no ring. I have no reason to believe he’s lying, but that doesn’t mean I should trust everything coming out of his mouth, either.

I’ve often wondered what kind of person avenges another. How many times did I wish someone would stand up for me and my sister and fight for us?

Countless is how many.

Days on end locked up in a boiling basement, left me with little to do but daydream. In my mind’s eye, I crafted the perfect man who would swoop in like some fairy book hero and save me from my evil step-father. In no way did that hero look anything like the man standing in front of me.

Given my horizontal status, it’s hard to tell his exact height, but he’s big. The expanse of muscle explains why his T-shirt drapes over me, whereas on him it would be snug against the hard plains of his muscles.

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