Page 87 of Beautiful Sinners

After a few swallows, I boldly inform him, “I’m taking back my father’s seat on the Council.”

His sharp nod precedes, “Good.”

Good?He murdered Eva to get Patrick’s vote, then staged a coup, and I’m supposed to believe that after killing his brother, he’s just going to let me waltz in and take over?

I set the bottle of water down too hard, and droplets splatter on the glass of the coffee table like rain. Tristan was right. Aleksander is playing me.

“This was a mistake.”

I abandoned the guys in Texas to come here because I thought… what in the hell was I thinking?

I leap to my feet. When Aleksander follows suit, I shift my weapon toward him once again, a warning not to make any sudden moves.

He ever so slowly raises his hands in front of him, but it does little to alleviate my distrust.

“Aoife, please don’t go.”

Retreating toward the elevator, my footsteps falter momentarily at the desperation I hear. I jab at the button to call the lift.Come on. Come on.Fucking elevators. I’m never taking one again. I’d rather suffer the agony of climbing up and down flights of stairs.

“You promised a truce if I came back to Darlington. Well, I’m here. You also swore no harm would come to Tristan, Constantine, or Hendrix. If you or anyone else from the Society so much as breathes on them, you’ll be joining your brother in hell.”

“I will never break a promise to you,pevchaya ptitsa,” he vehemently declares.

Is he for real?

“You and Aleksei went to Hendrix’s family estate with one clear goal. You were going to kill them. Why would I believe that you won’t try again?”

As soon as I hear theding, I hop in the elevator. When Aleksander lunges forward and blocks the door from closing, I shove the nozzle of the gun to his forehead. It would be so easy to kill him right now. Squeeze the trigger and be done with it. But something stops me.

“I didn’t know you were alive, and that changes everything. And I won’t touch them because their deaths would only hurt you.”

“Back up,” I warn him, and he immediately complies.

Just as the elevator door shuts me safely inside, Aleksander’s parting words cut me wide open.

“You can’t trust them, Aoife. They’re lying to you.”

CHAPTER 30

“She’s not here.”

I quietly approach where Aleksander stands at the window, hands shoved deep into the side pockets of his dress slacks, looking very much like a man with a lot on his mind. The curtains are half drawn on one side, and the light coming in outlines his profile in stark relief as he stares off into space.

“But she was,” I reply.

I knew as soon as Keane said she was gone that she would come here.

Aleksander turns away from the window to face me, his head tilted to the side. His silver irises gleam in the soft aura filtering through the window. His head tips downward, slowly and deliberately, cloaking his features in a shadow. The bold outline created around his body, like the ring around the moon during a solar eclipse, shudders as he directs his gaze to me once more, a note of ice-cold menace evident in his voice.

“She’s magnificent, isn’t she?”

“She isn’t yours,” I snap, glaring intensely at the man I have despised for years and who has despised me in return.

Aleksander breaks out in a smile. A smug, sickening grin which stretches from ear to ear beneath his predacious eyes.

“She’s not really yours either,” he retorts, sliding his right hand from the interior of his pocket and pulling at his open collar. After a moment or two of absentminded adjustment, he lets his arm fall back to his side. “I saw how she kissed Constantine and Hendrix at the bar. I have to admit, it was hot as fuck to watch. How does it feel to know the woman you love wants your best friends more than she wants you?” he murmurs, his expression a display of mock sympathy. “It must piss you off.”

I don’t want Aleksander to have the satisfaction of seeing how much he’s getting to me.My fists clench and unclench at my sides as I desperately try to control my rage. It takes every ounce of self-restraint I have not to cross the room and choke the life out of him.

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