Page 1 of Beautiful Sinners

PROLOGUE

Ten Years Ago

“I hate you!” I scream at my father when he rips the letter I’d been writing and tosses the pieces into the fireplace. The flames turn them to smoldering black ash in seconds.

I don’t hate him. I’m just angry at him and Mama for taking me away. They won’t let me talk to Con, Hendrix, and Tristan. No phone call, no email, no text message. Not even a letter—which I had been in the middle of writing before Papa discovered me. Every attempt I make to contact the boys fails. I miss them so much.

“Aoife, apologize to your father,” my mother scolds, hands on her hips and her mouth pursed in a disapproving line. She’s fed up with my belligerent behavior and daily temper tantrums.

We’ve been in Ireland for months now. I’m not allowed to go outside or go to school or do anything. They won’t tell me why. Only that it’s too dangerous.

I glare at my mother, refusing to back down. She throws her hands up in the air in infuriated exasperation, then hits me with a hard truth that stops me in my tracks just as I start to storm off.

“You are so bloody ungrateful! Everything we’ve done has been for you! To protect you and keep you safe. Do you think your father and I wantthis?” she shouts, arms spread wide in gesticulation of the new house we’re currently living in. A house in the middle of nowhere that is much smaller and less opulent than the one back home.

I actually like it better than our old house. I love the verdant pastural land that stretches as far as my eye can see. The thatched roof, pot-marked wood floors, wood-burning fireplace that fills the air with the pleasing smell of crisp cedar, and thick window glass that makes the world outside look wavy and distorted.

“Caroline,” Papa harshly clips, sending her an admonishing shake of the head.

She whirls on him, all anger and righteous fury. “No, James. I’m sick and tired of her pouty, obdurate attitude. We gave up everything for her!”

Papa’s face contorts into something horrible. It’s a look I can’t describe in words, but one that sends ominous shivers down my spine. He takes a menacing step toward her, hands curled into tight fists at his sides. Mama stumbles backward at his approach, her usually rosy-tinted cheeks pallid with fear.

“Are you willing to trade our daughter’s life for—”

Her eyes dart from him to me in censure as she cuts him off. “That’s not fair! You can’t expect me to choose between—”

I jump when Papa’s arm strikes out like the biting attack of a fanged snake, his punishing grip around her neck preventing her from speaking further. With a brutal jerk, he pulls her to him.

“Even after I discovered your betrayal, I stayed. I loved you. So don’t you fucking dare—”

“James,” she hisses.

I don’t understand what they’re talking about, and the way they keep interrupting each other makes it clear that they don’t want me to know.

“Papa?” I query, coming closer. I’ve never seen him so angry with Mama before. I don’t like it.

As if coming out of a trance, he shoves her away and drops to his haunches, opening his arms wide for me to walk into his embrace.

“I’m sorry,a stór,” he says, his beard snagging strands of my hair as he nuzzles his cheek against my face. “Everything’s okay. I didn’t mean to—”

I cry out when window glass shatters into a million, knife-edged pieces, slicing across my back, neck, and arms. Papa protectively curls his big body over me just as shouts and screams intermix in a confusing cacophony that I can’t understand. The air clogs with tiny particulate matter as loud pops of gunfire puncture holes through the wall, leaving behind perfectly circular peepholes.

“Caroline!” Papa’s bellow makes my ears ring.

When Mama doesn’t answer, I twist around to see her dragging her body across the floor toward us, a line of thick crimson trailing behind her. She’s hurt.

I claw at my father’s arms, wanting to get to Mama.

With a deafening roar, the front door crashes inward and splinters as two men storm into the house, their guns drawn.

“Aoife! Run!”

But my feet won’t budge. My legs have become stone pillars, refusing to bend. I struggle to hear anything over the thunderous beat of my heart. I see one of the men’s mouths move as his cold green eyes find us, but no sound carries to my ears. And then a wave of fury, unlike any I’ve ever experienced, consumes me, scorches through my blood until my veins sizzle.

“Aoife, no!” Papa calls out.

But it’s too late.

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