Page 16 of Beautiful Sinners

Stupidly, I reply, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” But god help me, I think I do.

Con’s voice splinters when he barks, “The drawings in her journal. Do you remember the ones of the stars? The pattern? She said the man who attacked her had them inked on his neck. Right side.”

I can only shake my head. I refuse to believe it. I won’t. There must be another explanation. Another person with that specific tattoo in that specific place.

No. He wouldn’t. He knew what she meant to me.

In an instant, I finally understand the true depth of my father’s deception. The decade of lies he fed me that I so willingly and naïvely believed. Aoife and her family weren’t run off the road by a drunk driver. My father sent his right-hand man to kill the girl who was my everything because James Fitzpatrick was at the head of the Council, making Aoife next in line to the throne.

A gaping chasm rends my chest in two, ripped apart by a father’s betrayal.

I try to move, to take a step forward, but my limbs feel as though they’ve been submerged in a glacial pond, the frigid chill numbing my body. Forcing a deep breath into my lungs, I slap on a guise of composure I absolutely do not fucking feel as I fight to keep what little control I have left.

“I did this.”

“No, you didn’t,” Con replies through tight lips.

Fast footsteps approach as two guards come around the corner, Evan following close behind them. Great. We have an audience.

Con looks over his shoulder before turning back to me. Lowering his voice to just above a whisper, he says, “We have to tell her.”

How do I tell the girl who is my world that I’m responsible for destroying hers?

Evan looks at the damage Con’s fist caused. “Cillian isn’t going to be happy when he sees the bent metal railing.”

What a pompous ass.

“Can we have a minute?”

Of fucking course, he doesn’t give us one.

“He wants to see Syn.”

“I don’t give a shit what Cillian wants.”

“The man saved your lives,” he counters as if I’m indebted to Cillian for a service I never asked him to provide in the first place.

Feeling helpless and despondent over the girl who has suffered so damn much and whose heart I will soon break once again, I channel my frustrated anger his way.

“We don’t owe Cillian McCarthy or you anything but a thank you.”

Evan sighs and shoves his hands into his front pockets. “I’m a friend, Tristan. I always have been even when you didn’t notice I was there.”

“Bullshit,” Con says before I can.

I know Evan is a sophomore because Con mentioned that he accessed his student record, yet I can’t recall a single time last year I saw him on campus until he suddenly popped up in Syn’s orbit.

I thrust my finger at Evan. “I don’t trust you. I don’t trust Cillian. And unless you plan on killing us, we’re leaving. With Syn. Right fucking now.”

We need to get her out of here and somewhere safe. Regroup. Make a plan, gather our alliances, then make our move. Scorched earth style.

“I’d rethink that if I were ye.”

Cillian’s thick Irish brogue draws my attention to the far end of the foyer. Leaning a shoulder to the wall, he’s the quintessential Irishman with stark red hair, matching beard, and clover-green eyes. But there’s a lethality there that brokers no argument that this man is not to be trifled with.

The guards’ hands go to their shoulder holsters as I slowly approach their boss, Con at my heels because he will always have my back.

“I’d like some answers.”

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