Page 12 of No Small Sin

CHAPTERFOUR

Beck

Ileft Ijah’s office determined to shake off the shock of walking in to find her there.

Part of me was ecstatic at the sheer fortuitousness of having her wind up on my doorstep so soon.

I glanced out the window. The sky had darkened slightly with the threat of freezing rain. I’d never had any kind of faith in a higher power, but I would be lying if I said it didn’t cross my mind that perhaps something out there had had a hand in bringing her back to me.

It would have been better for both of us had she stayed far the fuck away.

Safer.

I couldn’t think of a single time in recent memory that I’d made a life choice for my own safety’s sake.

Yet something about her tugged at a part of me; a part that I wasn't sure had survived, a part left in the wake of the torpid destruction of my humanity.

Because of that, her safety mattered.

At that thought, I wasn’t so sure there was anything lucky about this at all, but there was nothing I could do to change it—short of fucking her over— because I knew she actually did need this job.

I would wait.

See how things played out.

Maybe get a bit of a buzz from her presence in the meantime.

That feeling was rare for me outside of forcing the last breath from a person’s lungs.

I was a fiend for it.

And I was selfish.

I rounded the corner nearing the front of the house. I rarely made my presence known at LC, but I had a feeling that would soon change. Law and Alec were less inclined to make themselves scarce — also less inclined to avoid not being found lounging at the bar midmorning on a day like today.

The shitty weather and the lack of work as of late were likely just the right mix that I’d find those two assholes cozied up exactly where I expected them to be.

To anyone else, they’d look like your average guys; two friends having brunch.

Just as Fate Trace is seemingly your average small town to an outsider looking in.

But there is a danger that skitters along the edges of each of the neighborhoods that make up Fate Trace, a filthy allure that sings its siren song to the depraved parts of people who live here.

Law, Alec, and I are who they face when the undertow pulls them down to the bottom — the scavengers who find their own ecstasy in the form of a dismembered corpse — in watching the bones sink to the ocean floor.

With the bar seemingly empty, I pulled out my phone to text one of the two. As I turned toward the back exit, I collided with a tiny blonde chatty form.

Fuck me, no thank you.

“Beck! Excuse you.”

“Yeah. Excuse me.” I shoved her roughly to the side in an attempt to dissuade her from any further interaction, but Andrea was not one to be easily ignored.

Actually, she downright refused to remain unseen by anyone, which, unfortunately, included me.

“What are you doing here so early in the day?” Her shrill voice grated on every single one of my frayed nerve endings.

“None of your fucking business,” I continued walking.

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