Page 5 of Capturing Sin

I blinked.

Letting his words sink in as I straightened in my chair.

“So, just to be clear, I told you I was almost assaulted by two men, and you think I’ll have fun if I go to court to convict my attackers?” I tried to keep my voice within human hearing range, but the decibels were rising awfully high.

The hellhounds caged in the room next door were probably howling.

He frowned, as if considering my words, and shook his head in clear dismissal. “I didn’t mean it that way. Why do you have to be like that?”

I couldn’t cope.

I was about 3.2 seconds away from a throat-punching spree. But I was no longer the violent maniac I used to be just three weeks ago, before I’d swapped from operational demon hunter to scientist.

So, instead, I took a deep breath. In and out. Nice and slow. Calm. Controlled.

To top off what had been another spectacularly horrifying day in the hunter’s research division, last night, I’d been cornered by two thugs in the car park outside my run-down apartment.

Instead of breaking their bones—like the old psycho hunter me would have done—I’d fled and called the police like a sane, upstanding citizen of Riverside.

Though, if I was being honest with myself, old me would have stabbed the bastards too, somewhere particularly painful, to really put them off ever trying to harass vulnerable-looking women late at night.

It was probably a good thing I no longer carried a weapon. The thought of harming more people that violently turned my stomach, even if they might have deserved it, just a teensy bit.

Now I was being punished by this conversation, though, because I needed a few hours off to give a statement to the police. Even though it was a waste of time. Riverside wasn’t one of the biggest cities in England, but the chances they’d catch these guys based on my description alone was slim to none.

It wasn’t like I could just ask my uncle for the camera footage either.

I knew he’d seen me getting attacked last night, unarmed and still recovering from my injuries.

He hadn’t sent help.

My uncle claimed he’d mounted cameras outside my apartment building for my safety. Yet he’d only installed them after I’d woken up in the medical room and tried to flee the city.

Leo had run me off the road and hauled me back in secret, on my uncle’s orders, no doubt. I regretted ever giving my ex-fiancé a key. Not that he needed one, given the hunter chapter, and therefore my uncle, owned the damned building.

The incident in the warehouse had turned my world upside down, and I wasn’t sure how to process everything that had happened.

And what it meant.

All I knew was that I didn’t want to be a part of the hunters anymore. But I’d have to bide my time while I came up with a way to escape. Lull my uncle into loosening the leash a little first.

“Anyway, enough chit-chat. We’re here to discuss your performance.” Martin cleared his throat, trying to regain the upper hand in this abysmal conversation.

I waited as patiently as I could. The closest thing to professional I could do right now was a blank poker face. This was not what I wanted first thing in the morning, but being a scientist within a hunter chapter apparently meant seven-a.m. meetings and long, blood-filled days.

My boss reclined in his chair. “I am concerned about your future here, given your apparent issues with being able to handle the workload.”

It was all I could do not to launch myself over the table and throttle the idiot. That, or cry.

To my horror, moisture swam across my vision.

I quickly lifted my glasses, rubbing at my eyes as if I were tired, not on the verge of a breakdown.

I was fine.

Everything was fine.

Just a totally normal person with her shit together.

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