Page 88 of Sweet Sin

“No, Vannah. I want you here. Where you’re safe.”

I squeeze his hand. “I’m safest with you.”

“I’ve got security on you. My father arranged it. We’re being watched twenty-four-seven.”

“Oh.”

I neglected to tell Falcon that my father said he’d get security on me as well.

I’m surprised I haven’t gotten the third degree about why I’m staying at Falcon Bellamy’s place.

Then again…

My father keeps tabs on me. He probably already knew I was… Seeing? Dating? Sleeping with? Falcon Bellamy.

He didn’t mention it.

How could he? He was ready to marry me off at eighteen. He doesn’t have the normal feelings a father has for a daughter. I’m a commodity in his world.

I’ve no doubt that he loves me, but he’s a product of his environment.

We all are.

I am.

And so is Falcon.

And his environment for the last eight years has been prison.

I take a sip of coffee and lean into Falcon’s hard body.

I’m not sure I have any strength left, but on the off chance I do, I want to give it to him.

He’ll need it.

27

FALCON

I was in a sterile room a lot like this one when I told a police detective that I wanted to plead guilty to manslaughter in the death of Jaden Perez.

He was young, only twenty-six years old to my twenty-two, and he was out hunting mule deer in the brush adjacent to the Bellamy property. He was also a cop—a rookie—and besides child molesters and rapists, there’s nothing Texas hates more than cop killers.

My attorneys tried. My father pulled out all his Cooper Steel clout and all his money…but someone was going down for killing this up-and-coming police officer.

I knew only that it wasn’t going to be either of my brothers, so I was the only one left.

My brothers wouldn’t have survived prison.

Hawk would have gotten stronger for sure, but at nineteen, big and muscled though he was, he would have been seen as fresh meat with that cleanshaven face of his. He’d have gotten hurt before he was able to fight back.

And Eagle? At seventeen he’d have gone to juvie and then transferred to the adult prison on his eighteenth birthday. Ex-juvies don’t have an easy time in adult prison. Eighteen-year-olds are kids as far as prisoners are concerned, and kids can’t hack that life.

If the poor guy hadn’t been a cop, I’ve no doubt my father could have made this all go away. Or the worst Eagle would have gotten was a few months in juvie.

But Jaden Perez was a cop. Not only that, he was a new husband with a baby on the way. He worked as a youth counselor at his church, and he’d just lost both of his parents in a car accident.

He was the poster boy for “someone has to pay for this.”

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