Page 24 of Sinner's Obsession

“Will you force me? You’re no better than my father then.”

Hurt transforms his face and he gets up, slamming the door behind him, leaving me confused and aching for his nearness.

Her words run on a loop in my brain. Aurora compares me to that man? I may not be a good man, but the comparison is undeserved. My sullen mood echoes in my steps as I walk into my office. Numbers bounce on the laptop, and I shut it with a growl. This will go down in history as the first time I wasn’t able to focus on work.

Cato and Cameron step inside, studying me quietly. If I wanted them here, I would have replied to their messages.

“What crawled up your ass?” Cato asks.

“How is Aurora?” Cam adds.

“Starving herself.”

A few hours under the same roof and she’s driving me crazy. A bit of gratitude would have been great, but no. Instead, she compares me to her father.

“She has to snap out of it if she’s gonna find a place in our world,” Cato says, looking out in the distance.

“That girl will never fit into our world. She’s weak and has too soft of a heart. This was a fucking mistake,” I mumble, dragging a hand down my face. The words taste sour and feel like acid rolling down my throat.

“You’re talking about my sister.”

“You don’t make a wolf out of a sheep. I need a ruthless queen at my side, not a lamb.”

Cam slams his palms on the table, and I shoot up, getting in his face. When was the last time we fought? I can’t fucking remember.

“Calm the fuck down. This is getting us nowhere. Get your head on straight. We have business to attend to,” Cato says, buttoning his suit jacket while I grab my keys, and we get in our cars. I am the first to reach the compound.

In the basement, our unwilling guests are secured to metal chains. One is my accountant and the other, a handler for the DeCavallaro family operating in New Jersey. I crack my neck, already feeling the tension leave my body. Tonight, I don’t ask. Tonight, I let the beast out. Aurora is right, I am a monster in my own right.

I look at the arsenal at my disposal. So many possibilities.

I test the knife and a drop of blood slips through. I lick my thumb, and Jeremy, the accountant, pisses himself. I haven’t even started yet.

“I’m sorry. Please.”

He could have come to me and told me someone was threatening his family instead of betraying me. Family is the greatest weakness—stronger men have done stupid things in the name of it. I would have understood. But no, my own employee decided to betray my trust.

“You should have come to me.” Jeremy has gone from rattling in his chair to saying a prayer.

My fist knocks the air out of his lungs. With Aurora’s words clamoring in my head, I pounce like the monster I am. Like the monster she considers me to be. Grunts come from the second guest. I prolong his misery just because he is well aware of what happens in our world when you get caught.

When I am done, I look at the pile of limp flesh under me.

Cato, Cameron, and our six most trusted men stare from me to the bloody mess on the floor. I take the machete from its hinges and sever his head with one swing of my arm.

On my way out, I say, “Get this shit cleaned and make sure everyone knows. The price of stealing from me is death.” Our enemies never learn, but again, I am also in the business of dealing with criminals. And I had to become even more ruthless.

“Aurora might be a lamb, but she’s good at transforming you into the king of monsters,” Cato says, both he and Cameron chuckling.

I wash my hands in the sink, looking at the bodies lying in a pool of piss and blood with disdain.

No one crosses me.

If some power-hungry son of a capo doesn’t understand the way things work, too bad.

I gesture for my phone and press call.

“I’m sending you a gift, Ricardo. If this happens again, you will be replaced. Don’t forget who we are.”

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