Page 5 of Beautiful Sinners

He looks down at Hendrix. “I thought she was yours.”

“Fuck you,” Hendrix growls, blood coating his bared teeth.

“I think I’ll let your pretty little thing do that once Aleksei is through with her.”

He gives an imperceptible nod, and the men pull a pissed-off Hendrix to his knees.

“Aleksander, don’t do this. Let her go. You don’t understand.”

Hendrix must hear something in the despair of my voice. His eyes bore into me with a ferocity that sends a clear warning. One that I won’t heed.

“Don’t you fucking do it! Don’t you tell him a goddamn thing!” he snaps at me, but I’d do anything at this point to ensure Syn survives.

“On the contrary, please, Tristan, tell me. Just know it won’t make a damn bit of difference on the outcome.” He shoves the blunt end of his gun against my forehead.

Our gazes lock, a silent battle being played out on the verdant grassy turf of the Knight’s backyard garden.

“Aoife.”

Her name is a scorched stone in my throat, almost impossible to get out.

“T, shut the fuck up!” Hendrix bellows, then grunts from the kick delivered to his side.

The metal of the barrel scrapes my skin when Aleksander drops his hand. “What did you just say?”

“Syn…is Aoife,” I grit out just as the echo of a gun discharging has my blood flash-freezing in my veins. “Aleksander! Do something!”

We can’t lose her. Not now. Not after we just got her back. I can’t fail her again, even if it means I give her to my enemy.

My head whips back as he strikes me in the face. Again and again, until a liquid red haze occludes my vision. He balls my hair in his fist and yanks my head back. Sunlight temporarily blinds my blurred vision until Aleksander’s enraged face looms over me.

“You’re fucking lying! I would have known!”

The other men struggle to hold Hendrix at bay as he tries to get free. Then just as suddenly, he goes completely still, his attention on something in the distance.

With Hendrix’s whispered, “Fucking Christ,” Aleksander and I turn our heads just as a whizzing noise flies past our ears.

The first shot tears through the man on Hendrix’s right, and he flies sideways as if tethered to the bullet on a string. In a fraction of a second, the other three men topple in perfect unison, their bodies collapsing like dominoes. Aleksander roughly pulls me to my feet and uses me as a human shield as he prepares to fire back. But doesn’t.

Like one of the macabre nightmares she described in her journal, Syn materializes from the gardens, her chin dipped to her sternum so only the pale blue of her eyes shine behind her waterfall of scarlet hair. She’s painted red with blood from her face to her bare toes, but her movements are steady, so I’m not sure if she’s injured or not. Her blood or not. Where in the hell is Con? Aleksei?

“Oh, god, firefly.”

Like a wraith from hell, Syn advances forward with measured steps, arm outstretched, finger pressing the trigger, the continuous clicking of the hammer like that of a grandfather clock ticking off time. The magazine is empty. No more bullets.

“Aoife?” Aleksander says in disbelief. She snarls at him in response.

In the next blink and with no warning at all, the ground beneath us trembles violently. A deafening boom shakes the earth, followed by a concussive shockwave that slams into us like a giant invisible fist when the house explodes.

CHAPTER 2

“Please! No! Aleksei, please! Please, don’t do this!”

No.

No.

Please, God, no.

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