Page 62 of Never Die for a Sinner
He tilts his head. “Yeah? Only to come home and fix another girl’s car?”
“Am I being interrogated?”
Jesus Christ. “You’re being asked.”
I scowl. “I’ve got shit to do.”
He shrugs. “I don’t give a shit who you’re seeing. Just don’t bring—”
“Don’t bring shit home. I know.”
We stare at each other for a long beat, tension like static in the air. Then he leans back against the counter, jaw ticking. Watching me.
“You don’t need to worry about me,” I grunt, turning the car over before he can say anything else.
The car coughs, sputters, then miraculously roars to life. I rev the engine a few times, listening to the uneven tick like a time bomb counting down. There’s no way this thing survives the winter.
Where the hell did she even find this car? A junkyard? The ocean floor?
“I’ve been thinking,” Christian says suddenly, “about this lodge. This house.”
“What about them?”
“You really want to spend the next fifty years doing the same shit?”
I shrug, scrubbing my hands in the sink. “Wasn’t our decision. Mom and Dad did that.”
“Yeah, well, there’s nothing saying we can’t change it.”
“You want to change the lodge?”
“Just a thought.”
“If you want to change it, change it. You won’t hear any complaints from me—”
I freeze.
Across the gravel path, Ava is walking toward the house, her laugh soft, head tilted back—and standing next to her is that smug, fuck-faced security guard, Alex Mendez.
My vision narrows.
Christian must feel the air change. He follows my gaze, and when he sees her, then me, he lets out a knowing breath.
“Definitely just my imagination.”
“Fuck you,” I mutter.
A rush of something pissed off washes over me.
“Have fun with that.”
Christian slaps my shoulder with a smirk and disappears inside, but I barely notice. My attention is pinned to the woman outside and the man who doesn’t know just how much I would enjoy slicing every one of his fingers off for touching her.
She doesn’t notice me lurking in the shadows of the garage, but Mendez does. The fucker looks over her head while she’s completely oblivious, and winks my way, a twisted grin spreading on his lips.
And then, she does something that’s going to cost her.
He’s brushing something—leaves?—from her hair, and she thanks him with that sweet, innocent smile she hasnevergiven to me. My stomach twists—my pulse pounds.
