Page 20 of Beautiful Sinners

Not my enemy? I’m not dumb enough to take his word at face value.

I look up at Constantine. “I want to see Tristan.”

He’s been out of my sight long enough, and I’m getting antsy with the need to go to him—something the Irish giant picks up on. I should ask him his name, so I stop referring to him as giant. I think Evan mentioned it upstairs… Cotton? Cillian?

“Go tend to yer mate. When yer ready, a hot meal will be waiting as will answers to whatever questions ye want to ask me.”

With the world around me spinning in dizzying circles, I can only deal with one thing at a time, and Tristan is my primary priority.

The giant briskly walks off with the two men, and they disappear through a side doorway, but Evan loiters for a hesitant second.

Hendrix bristles, becoming overly territorial the longer Evan stares at me.

“Fuck. Off.”

I can’t see Evan anymore because Hendrix purposefully steps in front of me, but I hear Evan’s loud sigh, then his footsteps as they grow fainter and fainter.

With my hand still firmly gripped in Constantine’s, Hendrix turns back around and rolls his eyes.

“That guy is a twat.”

“Tristan,” I state and am pulled back once again, this time by Constantine, when I try to leave.

“Give him more time.”

I gently wiggle my hand out from his. “He needs us.”

We need each other, now more than ever.

“He doesn’t want you to see him weak.”

Why do strong men think that feeling any type of emotion equates to weakness? It doesn’t make you less of a man. It just means you’re human.

Using Hendrix’s turn of phrase, I reply, “Then he can tell me to fuck off.”

Hendrix muffles his chuckle that comes out more like a snort.

“That fucking sassy mouth,” he mumbles, lovingly patting my ass, and I promptly swat his hand away.

“Who was that?” I ask, peering toward the empty space the giant had been occupying.

“Cillian McCarthy. Irish mafia, and someone you do not want to piss off,” Hendrix replies.

An ironic, startled laugh almost erupts from my throat. Mafia? I had accused Tristan of being the son of a don. If what Cillian said is true, then I’m the one related to the mob. Good god.

I compartmentalize that revelation into a tiny box to open later. There is already a stack of them, one sitting precariously on top of another, a tower of instability as high as my mind can see. Too many questions to find answers to. Too much to deal with all at once.

So, I follow my broken compass.

There’s an internal compass inside every person, the one that guides you and keeps you on the path that you were meant to travel. Your true north. Clearly, my compass is broken. Tristan says I have no choice, but he’s wrong. I do have a choice. My broken compass led me to them for a reason.

“I’m going to him. Please don’t get in my way.”

CHAPTER 7

The tepid night air does little to help the constriction in my chest when I step out onto the front portico and see Tristan on his knees in the grass, head bowed low, shoulders hunched forward in defeat. The front lawn is so expansive it gets swallowed up by the darkness. Cillian’s house is bigger than Hendrix’s family estate but not as ostentatious or grandiose. There are no million-dollar pieces of artwork, or gold-framed portraits of stuffy-looking old men, or Rodins perched atop marble pedestals. From what I’ve seen, the interior of the mansion is simple and homey, like the inside of a fire-warmed cottage. Its dark, distressed wood floors and antique furnishings transport me back in time to what I imagine a traditional Irish home would look like two hundred years ago. I’m sure once the sun comes up and I’m able to see the property better, the outside will be just as gorgeous.

A swish of noise to my left has me twisting around to find guards quietly patrolling. Makes sense that Cillian would require protection since he’s allegedly mafia. But after what happened this morning, I’m wary of men with guns, so I watch the two nearby to make sure they don’t get too close to Tristan. They only give him a furtive glance as they stroll the perimeter of the house, and I wait for them to move far enough away before I leave Constantine and Hendrix standing in the open doorway and walk barefoot down the steps and onto the wet grass. Droplets of dew squish between my toes and slick my heels, muffling my approaching footsteps, but Tristan must hear them or sense me because he looks over his shoulder. So much hurt reflects in his golden gaze that it almost breaks me. There is no memory I can conjure where I’ve ever seen Tristan cry, not even after his father would strike him with a whip until his skin flayed from his back. I search for the circular burn on the back of his hand, and the hate I used to carry for Francesco Amato comes back a thousand-fold. As awful as it might sound to some, I hope Francesco becomes a casualty in whatever war Aleksander started today. And if not, then I’ll make sure he is.

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