Page 22 of Sins that Find Us

I can hear Alice moving around a bit more now, and I hesitate before balancing the tray on my stump, pressing my thumb to the keypad, and listening for the lock to move. The moment it clicks, I hear her scramble away, and then the place is as silent as the grave.

She knows she’s in danger.

Smart girl.

I use my stump to press the handle down, and then I hip-check the door wide. It creaks loudly, then gives way to the dark. It only takes me a minute for my stump to find the switch, and the room is suddenly flooded with a painful LED.

It was meant to be that way—harsh and cruel, and the effect on her is immediate. Her eyes slam shut, and she presses herself against the wall, holding her knees to her chest. I take a few steps into the room, and her entire body goes so tense she’s probably going to pass out if she’s not careful.

“Careful there, darling.”

Her head snaps up, and she forces her eyes open, though I doubt she can see me very well. “You.”

“James,” I tell her. I didn’t introduce myself that night at the bar because that would have been stupid. But it doesn’t matter now. “It’s good to see you again.”

Her eyes narrow into little slits, and she drops one leg, though her posture is still defensive. “Where the fuck am I?” Her voice is hoarse, and her fingers shake—probably from hunger as much as from fear. I carefully balance the tray on my hand, and I set it on the edge of the bed.

One of the water bottles topples off to the side, and she jumps half a foot.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” I tell her. Not a lie. It won’t be me giving her pain. I take her in as her gaze shifts to the sandwich, and this close, she’s even thinner than on the screen.

A small fire made of rage and disgust begins to crackle in my belly. How does a man like Guido Romano let his last surviving child—his one treasure—get this bad? I can’t help but wonder if maybe Kane got it wrong because she certainly doesn’t look like the spoiled Romano princess he claims she is. She sure as shit doesn’t look like anyone’s taken the time to love her in a good long while.

“You need to eat, and you definitely need water.”

“Fuck you,” she spits, and I can’t help my grin as I walk across the room and snag the chair that’s shoved up against the wall. It’s obvious by the look of surprise on her face she hadn’t realized it was there, but then again, how could she? She was unconscious and then woke to nearly pitch-black.

“We can visit that idea later,” I tell her with a wink as I drop into the chair. I gesture at the tray again, and she looks at it like she’s contemplating throwing it at me. It wouldn’t be the wisest choice. I don’t particularly want to hurt her, but my patience is paper-thin right now, and I have no problem leaving her here to suffer on her own while I work out why the hell I feel this way. “If you want those drugs out of your system, you need to eat.”

“Right, and get knocked out again so you can do God knows what to me?”

I meet her gaze steadily and tell her the most brutal truth about her situation. “Darling, we don’t need to knock you out to do anything.”

Her skin goes even more wan, and she swallows thickly before finally reaching out and snagging one of the bottles. I can see her silent sigh of relief when she realizes the bottle is sealed, and she wastes no time gulping it down. It’s only when I realize she’s going to make herself sick that I jump up and snatch it from her hand, and she stares up at me, panicked.

“Slowly, darling,” I tell her. I carefully use my extended pinky to tip her chin up, then press the bottle to her lips again. I can’t take my eyes off her throat as she swallows a few more delicate sips. “Good girl.”

She shudders, and I shove down the ideas now forming in my head about that. But she’s only here for one thing: Kane’s judgment and sentence.

“What do you want with me?” she finally asks.

I sigh at that because it’s the one question I don’t want to answer. Tucking the water bottle in the crook of my stump, I reach for the cap and twist it on before setting it down and pushing the tray toward her. When she stares again, I roll my eyes, then snatch up one half and take a bite before walking back to my chair.

“Is it, like, some kind of secret? Or is this some sadistic form of torture by keeping me in the dark.”

I laugh because, yeah, we’ve all got sadism and masochism running through our veins, and I don’t think she knows how right she is. “It’s just not my information to give, darling.”

She scowls at me as she nibbles on the bread crust. “Stop calling me that.”

“Don’t think you could make me,” I say with a shrug. She could beg, but it wouldn’t do her any good. The nickname helps me keep my distance from her. I know she’s Alice Romano—the daughter of the man responsible for the worst pain I have ever experienced in my life. I want her to suffer the way I suffered, and yet, I can’t help but see all the wasted life in her eyes.

Before I can taunt her more, or maybe flirt with her because who the hell knows what I’m actually doing right now, my watch buzzes. It’s a message from Phoenix letting me know that Kane’s back. I rise from my chair and head toward the door, and I hear the bed creak as Alice shifts to the end of it.

“Where are you going?” she demands.

I shrug and reach for the light, stopping when she makes a noise of panic. “Something wrong, darling?”

“Don’t leave me in the dark,” she whispers.

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