Page 38 of Beautiful Sinners

“I’ll grab some bags of pretzels.”

I wiggle into the white bohemian button pullover blouse and poke my head out so Tristan can see my grimace. “No airplane food. I want a cheeseburger. Very well done,” I add, just to mess with Hendrix.

Constantine takes over buttoning the first two buttons on the blouse, making sure my boobs aren’t on public display since I’m not wearing a bra. I grip his forearm to hold myself steady and step into a pair of black stretch designer leggings that cut off above the ankle.

“Will you ever go back to being blonde?” Tristan asks from the doorway, his heated gaze set upon my bare sex as I struggle to fit into the tight Lycra.

There’s a saying about the carpet matching the drapes, which mine clearly do not. I stifle a giggle when I think about how ridiculousdown therewould’ve looked if I colored it the same as my rainbow-streaked hair last year.

“Do you want me to go back to being a blonde? Constantine said he liked the red.”

I honestly don’t care what my hair color is. The only reason I started dying it different colors was to distract people from staring at my left arm. I’d rather have people notice my hair color than the burns.

Tristan rubs his thumb over his lower lip in serious contemplation. “I wouldn’t mind seeing you as a blonde again. Just saying.”

“If anyone cares to know my opinion, I’m with Con,” Hendrix states, finally getting up from the bed.

Con clears his throat, and I caress the backs of my fingers over his Adam’s apple. “How’s your voice feeling?”

He grabs my wrist and brings my hand up to his lips. “I’m good.”

My freaking heartbeat stutters and trips over itself every time I hear him talk. It also reminds me how he lost his voice in the first place. If there is one man who deserves to be wiped off the face of the planet, it’s his father, Gabriel Ferreira.

Papa never subjected me to the cruelty and abuse that the guys suffered regularly at the hands of their fathers. Papa showed me that love, kindness, and compassion were just as powerful as hatred, fear, and brutality. It was an odd dichotomy given the fact that he also taught me how to harness my anger and kill without remorse.

“Where’s Gabriel?”

The guys haven’t said anything about him. Tristan recently saw his father, and Patrick Knight was at the house last night, but not a word has been said about Gabriel.

Tristan slides by me and rummages around the bathroom vanity until he locates a toothbrush and a small tube of toothpaste.

“We don’t know where anyone is, which could mean that Aleksander had them killed. I’ll try to reach out to some contacts once we get to Levine’s.”

He finishes brushing his teeth and rinses the toothbrush off, then applies more toothpaste and hands it to me.

“You could’ve used Evan’s laptop.”

“Hell, no.”

Hendrix’s deep tenor carries from another part of the plane. “Can we please get off this fucking plane now?”

Tristan tips my face up with a fingertip. “When we get to Falcon Tower, you stay close and don’t leave our side.”

Jesus, not that again, but I keep my mouth closed. Some battles just aren’t worth it. I look at Tristan and Constantine.But some are worth everything.

Sitting in the cramped back row of the eight-passenger Escalade, I watch the lights of skyscrapers and tall office buildings blur past my window. Whenever I think of Texas, I think of cowboys and the Wild West, not thriving metropolises that are all chrome, steel, and glass. Then again, Texas does boast three of the top ten largest cities in the States: Houston, San Antonio, and Dallas.

I peek over at Tristan’s stoic profile. Similar to the drive from Cillian’s estate to the private airfield, no one has spoken a word. The car ride has been done in deafening silence, and the closer we get to our destination, the broodier Tristan becomes. I don’t have to be a mind reader to know that he’s anxious about seeing his sister. I am, too. I don’t know how to feel about her or what she did because in every way that has mattered over the last ten years, Alana… Dierdre… has been my mother.

Leaning sideways, I rest my head on Tristan’s shoulder. His arm snakes behind me, and he pulls me as close to him as my seat belt allows.

“We’ll be there in about five minutes,” Evan says from the driver’s seat.

“Tell me about Andie. What’s she like?” I’m curious about this other cousin I never knew existed.

Evan taps a button on the steering wheel and turns off the soft music that had been playing.

“She’s pretty cool, if a bit intense,” he replies, hitting the blinker and making a right turn at a stoplight. We pass by a large police precinct with several officers milling about outside on the sidewalk.

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