Page 46 of Sin

I don’t know how I’m going to navigate this. The last two days have upended my carefully laid out plans. Friday night I was actively forcing Cassidy out of my life. I don’t think that’s possible any longer. One sweet taste of him, and the thought of a mere day without him seems impossible.

It's too much to process right now. I have to concentrate on the most imperative order of operations—get home so I can accurately assess the situation from an eyes-on view.

Not willing to wait for navigating commercial airlines, I arrange for a private charter while I listen to Mercer’s detailed account of what I missed the last two days.

I offer him a ride back with us on the plane, but all I hear is dead silence at my invitation.

“I think I’m gonna stay here for a couple more days. I have a gallery I want to talk to about showing my work,” he says, and I can almost see his eyebrow twitching as he speaks his bold-faced lie. I’m betting the extended stay definitely has something to do with Devlin, but that’s a conversation for another day.

I tell him I’ll see him back in Nashville and hang up. Then I shoot a quick text to Oliver, telling him that I need to meet with him ASAP, and then I spy on Cassidy. He’s finished his burger and is lying sprawled out on the bed, looking like he’s waiting just for me. Need for him hits me like a sledgehammer, and because I don’t know how I’m going to manage our new relationship along with the suddenly accelerated plans to get revenge on my father, I do what I learned to do as a child when things got hard: I go cold and shut down.

I come back to the suite, and Cassidy greets my return with a flirtatious smile. “Get dressed,” I order, in a tone that to my own ears sounds distant. “There’s been a change of plans. We’re headed home.”

Chapter 26

Cassidy

When Sin announces we have to be on a private tarmac in forty-five minutes, I don’t have time to question this sudden turnabout. Or try to make sense of the Jekyll-and-Hyde transformation that had just taken place.

He’d excused himself to go out on the balcony to make a phone call, but had winked at me and promised to come back and show mea few more firsts. Fifteen minutes later, when he walked back into the hotel suite, he was suddenly the distant, slightly cold Sin, who’d pushed me away so many times before.

I should be used to his mercurial mood shifts by now, but I can’t reconcile the cold, distant man with the one whom I just spent the last day and a half making love with.

Especially since the cold mask he’s wearing keeps slipping. Before we left the hotel, he made sure I had my asthma medication. On the ride to the airport, his hand unconsciously rode possessively on my knee the entire time, and now, when I see the small airplane we are flying into Nashville, my heart starts fluttering. I’ve never ridden in a smaller plane before. Sin glances over at me and catalogues my sudden paleness and panicked eyes, and immediately diagnoses my problem. He puts his arm around me and leans in. “It’s okay, sweetheart. I’ll neverlet anything bad happen to you,” he promises me. Rationally, I know Sin has no control over aviation mishaps, but at his touch and reassurance, and his heartbeat-revving use of the wordsweetheart, my panic instantly recedes.

The stony-faced Sin is back as the pilot and attendant greet us. He leads me to a spacious leather seat toward the back of the plane, and once we’re seated and he makes sure my seatbelt is securely fastened, he hands me his phone. “You need to know about the shitshow that’s greeting us when we get back home.”

I look down at the screen and am immediately caught by the headline of the news article he’s showing me from a respected news source.Well-known Evangelist Caught in Fighting Ring Scandal. Below the headline is a picture of Gideon with a friendly arm around Digger Mcree, the head of the Reivers Motorcycle Club, who over the last several years had become a grassroots celebrity for alt-right political causes.

My eyes go wide, and I open my mouth to speak when he gives a terse shake of his head and nods to the staff. I nod my head in understanding and read the article, which outlines a completely shocking account of the events of the last two days, which include Digger taking several people hostage and then streaming a pay-to-see fight intended to be a death match on the dark web that somehow was broadcast live on several news channels. The article then goes to the strong association Gideon and Digger had formed in recent years, including Gideon using the Reivers for security at the Citadel and the Take Back the Power men’s rights rallies they held all last summer and had planned to continue this summer. Most damning in the article is that an anonymous source is cited as saying there is a list of names of people who logged on to the illegal match, and Gideon Brandt’s name is on that list.

I pick up my phone and send a text to Sin.What does this mean?

He reads my message and quickly sends a text back.I’m still figuring that out.

We come home to anarchy. Media is camped around the house. Sin, used to dealing with the press, offers several “no comments” and bundles me in through the security gate that now has three security guards manning it.

Before we walk through the front doors, Sin stops me, his hand gripping my arm almost painfully, and leans into my ear. “In this house, we are strictly stepbrothers,” he harshly whispers. “No look, no word, and definitely no touch that hints otherwise.”

The last thing I want is for our new relationship to be exposed, especially to Gideon and my mother, so I nod, but as he opens the front door for me and I go inside, a part of me feels like Sin’s strong warning is a rejection. That what we shared this weekend is just our dirty little secret.

We find Gideon and my mother in the great room with a crisis management team circled around them, strategizing how to best combat the negative news coverage. Gideon looks up from a proposed press statement he’s reading and sees us standing there. His eyes lock on Sin.

“It’s about fucking time you got here,” Gideon yells. I look to see if any of the people in the living room are shocked to see the famous evangelical cursing, but they seem unfazed. “Jericho is falling, and you and your brother are nowhere to be found when I need you.”

“We were actually at Freedom Fest,” Sin replies. “We were celebrating my brother’s birthday.” He looks over at my mother,who doesn’t even blink at the pointed reminder that she missed my birthday.

Then he turns his attention toward Gideon. “Kind of a coincidence both me and your good buddy, Digger, were both in Lexington at the same time. We could have reconnected. I hadn’t seen him since I was a kid, and you used to make me go with you to?—”

“I don’t have time for your ramblings,” Gideon cuts Sin off, who gives him a victorious smile in response. “I have to defend myself from the allegations that have been fabricated against me.”

“Well, let me know how I can help you with that, Dad,” Sin says in a total change of personality. Gideon almost does a classic double take at Sin’s seemingly genuine offer.

“You’re volunteering to help me?” Gideon asks Sin, his brows practically in his hairline.

“Gotta protect the Brandt family name from disgrace.” He winks at his father. “And who better to help you with this than someone who has had more scandals than birthdays?”

His father looks skeptical, but the lead crisis specialist jumps on Sin’s offer of help, and together they make a tentative plan for Sin to help steer his father out of this crisis. Every time my participation is brought up, Sin redirects the focus of the conversation, for which I’m grateful.

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