Page 23 of Liberated By Sin

“Is this where you live?”

“Ouch,” he repeated, groaning as he attempted the door a second time. “Ajuda.”

Portuguese.

Something in my chest tightened when he spoke what had been my first language.

“Você fala português?”

He smiled brightly but didn’t have a chance to answer before the heavy door tore open, and an older man looked at us with wide, confused eyes.

“What the hell? Thiago?” He scooped the boy in a flash and stepped back, suspicion twisting his expression as he stared me down. “Why do you have my son?”

“I think the better question is, why is yoursonwandering the halls at three in the morning?”

The man’s gaze flickered to a chair left by the entryway.

He was either still half asleep or stunned into silence. But it was too late to care.

“I would probably secure that door a little better.”

Not bothering to wait for a response, I turned and finally headed for my unit across the hall, two doors down from the escape artist.

Scalding water rushed over my head as I braced my hands againstthe shower and let tears I hadn’t shed in years slide down my cheeks. Something about Santino’s presence brought forth a host of emotions and memories. I wasn’t sure why he reminded me so much of Kai and Derek and that period of my life that ultimately destroyed everything I was. But there I stood, my soul torn open as I let pain and grief consume me while I mourned their absence. But it was better this way. Safer. For them. For me.

I’d always have a reason to run from my past and look over my shoulder, until the day Ronan lay dead at my feet.

Raking nails across my skin, I released a sob when the echoes of screams thundered in my ears and visions of unforgiving cruelty flashed behind my eyes.

Powerless, vulnerable…nothing.

“Never again,” I whispered, scrubbing harder against my reddened flesh.

I knew no matter how much blood I shed, those deaths meant nothing as long as Ronan Cain was still breathing. I had to sever the head to kill the snake. Like I did with my brothers, I’d kept tabs on him and clocked his location from afar, biding my time until I was ready to take him on. But four years ago, he fell off my radar. It was as if he’d vanished into thin air. No funeral. No mention of his death. Ronan was just gone.

I knew better.

He was still out there, and he was mine. In the meantime, I’d reap the city of men with a taste for depravity and pain. They made it easy. These sick men and the women who supported their vices came flocking the moment they thought they’d found their next victim.

I cut the shower spray and rested my forehead on the hot tiles.

“They made me this way. Broken inside, but never weak.”

11

Loudvibrations against wood pulled me from a dream as my eyes opened against the rays of light filtering from the window above my head. I glanced at the device and saw Cambri’s three messages and missed calls. Slight panic shook me from the stupor, and I snatched the phone, only to exhale a breath of relief when I realized there wasn’t a life-or-death emergency.

“Talk about a heart attack for breakfast,” I huffed, scratching behind Phoenix’s ear. My Bengal cat purred and nuzzled my neck as I settled my nerves.

I’d promised myself I’d always be there for Cambri the way she had been for me. She’d saved me that night. And I vowed to always have her back. Though she wasn’t aware, I’d killed twice forher, and I’d do it a million times over. I wished I could tell her how beautiful her bastard ex-husband had screamed for me. And how her stalker had cried like the pussy he was when I gutted him. But none of that mattered, as long as she was safe.

Just as I meant to push the callback button, a number with an unfamiliar area code lit up my screen. I wasn’t one to answer phone numbers I didn’t recognize, but something told me to pick up. I said nothing and waited for whoever was on the other end to speak first.

“Amara?”

Santino.

A strange current swept through me at the sound of my name on his lips.

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