Page 11 of Sins (The Sins Trilogy 1)
“Caleb can’t buy the best liquor.” Harry gestures at the crowd. “Look at all these people.”
“Have you seen Ivy?” I ask.
“No. Why? Is she here?” He cranes his neck.
“She came here with a girl. Terrible dresser. Fire-engine red lipstick. Curly brown hair.”
“That’d be Sue Ellen. They’re best friends.”
That makes me feel marginally better. Best friends watch out for each other in places like this.
“Come on. Let me introduce you around.” Harry puts a hand on my shoulder and pulls me toward a small group of guys by the pool.
I start to follow, then stop. I’m not here to socialize or have fun. I’m here to find Ivy and make sure she’s okay.
“Let me check upstairs first, then I’ll join you,” I say.
“Caleb’s not letting anybody go upstairs. Said his dad’s going to whip his ass if he lets anybody up there.”
“Still…” There are so many people the house feels like a sardine can. Caleb can’t monitor all of them. “Just let me check.” I start to hand the drink back to Harry until I remember I took a sip. I place it on a table awash with cups, paper plates and junk food wrappers. “I’ll catch up in a few minutes.”
“Okay.” Taking a quick swallow from his cup, Harry ambles toward his friends.
I do another quick sweep of the first floor, checking every room, including the bathrooms. Then I hurry upstairs, a nasty knot forming in my gut as nobody comes out to stop me.
Upstairs means bedrooms. The idea that Ivy might be getting naked with one of these cretins puts a red film over my vision.
The Wentworths’ home doesn’t have as many rooms as my family’s, but there are still a lot of doors on the second floor. I barge into them one by one—guest bedrooms, bathrooms, a home office, some boy’s room with posters of pinup girls—but don’t see Ivy.
Only one room left.
I twist the knob, but it doesn’t turn. I shove my ear against the door and listen. There’s definitely some sound coming from inside. I knock. Nothing.
Fuck it. There’s more than one way to get inside. I kick the door in. It opens with a deafening crash.
The first person I see is the girl who drove the roadster. She’s standing close to the door, looking at whatever’s going on in the room with a loose fist over her chest, her eyes wide and bright. I walk past her and see five guys, all of them sizeable, in a loose semicircle around Ivy. Her back is pressed against a wall.
One of them has her wrist and is pulling her forward. “Don’t be shy, babe. If you don’t want to play the strip drinking game, we can do something else.”
“Let go, Caleb,” she says, trying to jerk her wrist out of his grip, but she’s no match for the big bastard’s football player body.
He grabs the back of her neck and forces a kiss, while his asshole buddies go “whoop, whoop, whoop” and pump their fists in the air. His other hand pulls the fabric on her shoulder and rips it, then moves down to grab at her breast.
Feral rage burns through me. “Let her go, shitface.”
All four of the friends turn to face me. “Hey, what the fuck?” Caleb says over his shoulder, his mud-brown eyes squinting.
“Who let this asshole in?” One of the bigger boys turns to the roadster girl. Sue Ellen. “We told you to watch the door.”
What the hell? Is she part of this? What the fuck kind of a best friend is she? If she weren’t a girl, I’d knock her teeth out.
“Get rid of him,” Caleb says, holding on to Ivy.
The four of them approach. They’re depending on size and numbers to intimidate me. What they don’t know is that I’ve spent years training in kickboxing in my quest to be the perfect son. My vision suddenly hyper-clear, I duck, punch, kick and circle, making it impossible for more than one of them to come at me at a time. In the confines of the room they get in each other’s way, then meet a kick to the head, an elbow in the solar plexus or a knee slamming into the gut.
In moments, two of them are out cold, and the other two are doubled over, wheezing and groaning. Pathetic. I kick them until they collapse in unconscious heaps.
Turning my attention to Caleb, I shove a hand into his hair and yank him back. He yelps, and I get a whiff of alcohol and breath mints. One punch would be enough to knock him out, but I don’t want that. Hot blood roars in my head as the monstrous fury inside me expands until all I feel is a raging desire to make Caleb bleed. He needs to feel every bit of pain I’m about to deliver and be beaten until he can’t even crawl. Never lift a finger against Ivy or any other helpless girl again.
