Page 34 of The Sinners Gambit

“No,” I say as my body goes rigid. His joke about what he learned while stalking me brings my focus back to why I’m here. This isn’t supposed to be happening. This was supposed to be my winning move.

“No?” Killian asks, feeling the tension in my body.

I back away. “No!” I yell this time.

He leans forward, putting his hand forward to touch me.

“I can’t do this. I can’t fucking do this. Not with you!” I start screaming louder as I back away toward the door.

“Why the fuck not? I know you feel this too!” He walks forward, his veins are pulsing in his neck with frustration. “You can’t keep running from this.”

“Because I won’t fall in love with my mother’s murderer!” I scream out. Killian flinches back like I slapped him again, his jaw agape.

I can visibly see him take a breath of air as his chest expands, and he releases it through his mouth. “Just to note, wewillbe going back to the ‘fall in love’ bit of that statement later. But what do you mean your mom’s murderer?”

“She was your first kill! I know it,” I cry out.

“Nai, I told you, my first kill was a man,” he tries to explain.

I start to shake my head. “No, you lied to me! I caught you in it. You showed me that stupid pocket watch to confuse me!”

“Why on earth would I do that? I want to help you find who—”

“No! Axel told me about the little girl you’ve kept tabs on. You made sure she had a family and a good life.” I take a deep breath. “And now you kidnapped her. You’re a sick fuck!”

“Yes, but also no! I followed her story because—”

“No, I caught you in the lie. The picture in the watch showed a family of four.”

“NAOMI!” he screams, startling me into silence. “I didn’t kill your mother. But that mother in the pocket watch”—he points out the door—“did kill her oldest daughter and then herself.”

My heart sinks at the thought of a mother being capable of that, but I know how cruel the world can be. “You’re lying.”

“No, I’m not. She was so scared for her and her kids' lives after what I did to her husband, she thought it was safer to just die.” I run my hand through my dark strands. “That woman baked a bunch of her crushed pills into a pie and fed them to her kids and herself. Thankfully, by some miracle of God, the youngest daughter survived.”

“No . . .” I whisper, not wanting to believe it. “Then that wasn’t your first kill.”

“It was! And it was my last outside of contained walls, and without solid proof of wrongdoing. My fuck-up cost a family everything. Which is why I vowed to make sure that little girl didn’t end up a negative product of her tragedy. She’s thriving.”

“On paper maybe . . .” I mutter as I try to piece all of this together.

“What do you mean?” he asks.

“I look good on paper, too, but tragedy stays with you no matter how much you look like you’re thriving. It worms a hole into your soul and you rot from the inside.”

“Naomi, you may be twisted like me—and I need to understand what this all just was—but I love each part of that.”

I look up at him as tears fill my eyes with the flood of overwhelming emotions coursing through me. I’m so confused. “You didn’t kill my mother?”

“No, that’s why Axe and I have been on the phone today. We’re going to help you piece it together.”

“I want to believe you,” I say as he moves toward me.

Killian pulls me into his arms. “You should. I wouldn’t do anything to intentionally hurt you or betray you. And that would be the ultimate betrayal.”

I let my body melt into his before saying, “Then I need to tell you something that you may not like.”

Chapter 18

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