Page 63 of Sinners Atone
My eyes narrow. “Why’d you need that?”
“He keeps beating me at blackjack, so I donated a million dollars to the Washington Bird Sanctuary on his behalf,” she says brightly, tugging her keys out of her pocket and jangling them at arm’s length. “And look, they sent me this cute keyring as a thank you!”
But I can barely register her obnoxiously large magpie keyring. Can barely fucking think.
She’s right. I could have found out her secret years ago, and in minutes. And if it was anyone else, I’d have ripped it open like a kid with their gifts on Christmas morning.
But it’s the Angel in Pink.
I made a vow to myself, for my ownsanity, that I wouldn’t.
Self-loathing runs hot under my shirt.Why did I fucking ask?
Rory nods down to the Frankensteined gun between us. “What are you making?”
I bite on the change of subject and slide it over the table. “What you asked me to.”
Her demeanor flips one-eighty, and she lights up with a childlike wonder. “Oh, my Goose,” she breathes, holding it up to the light with cupped hands, like I’ve handed her the Holy Grail. “Does it work?”
“Only one way to find out.”
Her eyes meet mine with a spark of mischief, and despite the tightness at the base of my skull, a reluctant amusement bleeds through me.
This girl, honestly. There’s not much of me that’s soft, but there’s a tiny speck, somewhere between my top and bottom rib, that’s a little soft for Vicious’s wife.
I knew of her long before she sank her claws into my brother. Long before Uncle Alberto sank his into her, even. She’d been calling the hotline for years, confessing the pettiest shit with the weight of the whole world’s guilt in her voice.
If Mildred Black’s calls were my drug of choice, Rory’s were the sitcoms I’d watch to buffer the blow of the comedown. I’d find amusement in her small acts of revenge—tampering with Alberto’s whiskey, cutting the brakes of Dante’s car. Then as her wedding to Alberto grew closer, her calls changed genre, and suddenly, I was watching a limited series thriller I couldn’t turn off.
I listened to each call as if they were episodes. The show was slow in the beginning, picked up pace in the middle, and ended with the perfect plot twist: she was going to shove Fat Al off a cliff before he could force her to marry him.
Angelo went and spoiled the fucking ending, of course. Popped a cap in his head and wiped out any chance of a second season.
But now that she’s my sister-in-law, she entertains me in other ways. Like bringing me moodboards with her latest inventions, and in my spare time, I bring them to life.
“This is so cool,” she exclaims, cocking the gun to the ceiling and posing, like she’s one of Charlie’s Angels. “It’s like Russian Roulette but cuter, right? Instead of firing blanks, it shoots off confetti canons?”
I lunge over and snatch it off her when she turns it around and peers down the barrel.Jesus.I double-check the safety is on and make a mental note to go over the basic rules of gun safety,again, before we get to the range.
“Are we taking the Harley?” She jogs over to the wall and lifts her motorbike helmet from the hook.
Before I can reply, Emile pushes through the door with his shoulder. He smiles at Rory and glances at me before heading over to the sink.
I drag my front teeth over my bottom lip, sensing the air shift. “Yeah. I’ll meet you out front.”
“All right, but hurry up, we’ve got to get back before Angelo wonders where I am.”
She turns on her heel and hops, skips, and jumps over the destruction she caused moments earlier. As if the puddle of oil and upturned bucket suddenly reminded her of why she stormed in here in the first place, she pauses at the door and turns around, pinning me with a sober expression.
“I’ll talk to Wren, but you have to promise me you’ll leave her alone,” she says, swallowing hard. “She’s innocent. In fact, she’s the only wholesome person I have left. She doesn’t know about…us.”
I cock a brow. “Us?”
“The family. She doesn’t know what you guys do, and I need to keep it that way. So, no stalking, no vetting. And definitely no shoving her into cars. Just pretend she doesn’t exist, okay?”
It takes a beat before the realization hits. She means her little friend has no idea that she’s living, breathing, and roaming inCosa Nostraterritory.
Heat rushes up my spine. Christ,the girl must be more ignorant than I thought. It doesn’t take a genius to see the blacked-out cars and men in suits to realize they’re probably the reason this tiny coastline in the ass end of nowhere bleeds with wealth.
