Page 26 of Beautiful Sinners

With barely enough room to fit, Tristan sits down opposite Hendrix on the bench. “Because he’s an egotistical asshole who wants something that doesn’t belong to him.”

“What does he want?”

Tristan’s thigh knocks mine when he shifts on the bench, and he takes my chin, turning my face toward him, the expression on his face serious and deadly.

“He wants what’s mine.”

There seems to be a double meaning hidden somewhere in that, but I reply to the most obvious one. “It’s not really yours, though, is it?”

His grasp on my jaw tightens, and he closes the distance between us until our faces almost touch. His show of dominance sends pulsing tingles directly between my legs. Before last week, I had never known sexual desire and want, and since the night on the patio, I can’t shut it off around them. We’re having a serious conversation, but all I can think about is Tristan laying me out across the back of the grand piano and fucking me.

“Care to test that, Red?” he challenges, and my clit throbs from his deep timbre at the same time his arrogant reply brings out my stubborn streak. I really am screwed up.

“And if I did?”

My father was the head of the Council before he was murdered. Betrayed by one of his own. The seat Tristan will soon occupy rightfully belongs to me. I don’t want it, but I do see the value of such a position. It would provide me with the resources to find my parents’ killers and wipe them off the face of the earth with no repercussions.

Tristan grins, and Hendrix reaches around me to shove him off the bench. “No, she doesn’t. Cut it out.”

With a glower, Tristan picks himself up off the floor. “Bylaws dictate—”

“Will you bloody fucking stop? Our plan was to take out our fathers and take over the Council so we could destroy the Society from within, not perpetuate it and make it stronger. Aleksander did half the work for us. Let’s finish it and get the fuck out.”

I share a quick side glance at Constantine to see his reaction. He’s been very quiet since our shower.

“Plans change,” Tristan says.

With obstinate arms crossed over his chest, Hendrix replies, “Not for me. Once it’s done, I’m out. I want a chance at a normal life and some fucking peace. That wasmyplan. And I’ll be damned if I let you drag her back in.”

“If that’s what she wants.”

Hendrix groans and looks to the vaulted ceiling before settling his blue gaze on me. “But it’s not what she wants, and you’d know that if you’d listened to anything she has said this past week.”

I really hate that they’re talking about me like I’m not sitting right there sandwiched between them, but Hendrix is right. Old Aoife might have been content with following the path Papa set out for me. But Syn isn’t. She wants to finish college and go to medical school…andI really need to stop talking about myself as if I’m two different people.

I’m also impressed, in a bemused sort of way, that Hendrix actually listened. It feels good to know that through all our recent nasty bickering and arguments, heheardme, much like how Constantineseesme. Two separate validations that are equally important.

Tristan squats, grabs my hips, and turns me ninety degrees so we’re facing one another.

“What do you want, Syn?”

I want them. I want love. I want a family. I want a chance at happiness. A life. An education. I want my body to be whole and not scarred. I want every person who has ever hurt or betrayed me to suffer as much as I’ve suffered.

“I want revenge.”

“With fucking pleasure,” Tristan replies and presses a hard kiss to my mouth.

Hendrix slams his hands down on the piano keys, creating a discordant boom of sound.

“Fuck this,” he says and slides off the bench, knocking Constantine’s shoulder as he walks off.

I’m already up and in pursuit. When he gets to the end of the hallway, he stops and looks both ways, unsure of which direction to go.

I dash to his side before he takes off again. “Hendrix.”

“He’s going to get you killed because of his stupid, inflated ego.”

I twine our fingers together. “I need this. I need the nightmares to stop. Please help me find who killed my parents. I need you.”

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