Page 60 of No Small Sin

“Shit!” She gasped, her hand going to her chest like my sudden presence had brought on cardiac arrhythmia.

I knew the feeling well, my heart had been pretty sensitive to outside forces lately. I frequently found it trying to fuck right off out of my chest if I thought too hard about much of anything in my life the last few days.

“Isodid not mean to scare you,” I said, rounding the counter and sidling up next to her on a bar stool. “I was just all in my head up in my room and needed to get out. Can I help?” I offered.

“Sure.” She opened a drawer and pulled out an extra cutting board, grabbed a knife from the block on the countertop, and slid both toward me once I’d finished washing my hands. “Sorry for not popping back up to check on you sooner. I’m so used to being here alone all the time. Not to mention that I will typically have one thing in mind and end up totally distracted doing something else before actually getting to the first thing.” I fully understood that. She scooted an untouched pineapple toward me. “This is for you, by the way.” She pointed to the product of her hard work with the end of her knife before hacking into the flesh of a mango.

I’d never cut a pineapple before, but I didn’t think it would be super hard to figure out how. I placed it upright on my cutting board, then tilted it onto its side and hacked off the top, eyeing the massive bowl of mixed fruits. “Looks amazing, but I’m really not so sure I can eat all of that by myself,” I laughed.

She tossed a handful of mango cubes into the bowl and considered. “Yeah. Probably overkill.” She shrugged. “I don’t have very many guests over, but I figured I should probably feed you something.”

“Fruit is actually perfect,” I reassured her. The pineapple skin was surprisingly thick. I pressed down with the knife, bearing my weight on it as I carefully sliced away the waxy outer part. “My ADHD meds leave me without much of an appetite, so I have to basically force myself to snack throughout the day. This kind of thing is my go-to, and it’s a huge bonus that it’s already chopped up and ready to go.” I cut the yellow center into quarters and then cut each quarter into smaller wedges before dropping them into the bowl.

Hunt grinned, her eyes lighting up a little. “Big same.” She rinsed the sticky fruit juices from her hands under the faucet and dried them with a kitchen towel before tossing it to me so I could do the same. “Literally couldn’t come up with much else in a pinch because I hyperfixate on foods for weeks at a time, and lately it’s been fruit.”

“Good. Then we can share,” I smiled. It was nice meeting someone who could relate.

I suspected there were other things about her that I would find relatable as well. I was anxious to have someone to talk to about Beck, especially since Andi had proven herself to not be such a dependable friend after all.

I let my thoughts wander a bit. If Andi would have just come to me, I would’ve found a way to help her. But I guess we didn’t really know one another well enough for her to trust me, and it seemed like whatever she needed money for was big, given the lengths she’d gone to to get it. It could have been any number of things.

I would likely never fully know what she’d gotten herself into, I just hoped that she found a way out. I wasn’t really in the position to do much to help her at this point, anyway.

The sound of Hunt opening the door of a stainless steel wine fridge under the counter brought me back to reality. She looked over the labels and settled on a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc. She pulled it out and sat it carefully on the counter. From an upper cabinet, she grabbed two stemmed glasses before pouring a generous amount into each and passing one over to me.

She took a small drink of her own and popped a pitted cherry into her mouth. “While the circumstances seriously suck, I’m glad you’re here,” she said genuinely.

I forced a tight smile. It couldn’t be easy for her to be so cut off from the rest of the world, stuck in the mountains with no one to talk to for days on end. “Me too,” I replied, and I meant it. I was glad we were both safe. “It’ll all work out. I mean, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t scared, but at the end of the day, I really do trust Beck to come up with the best solution. He’s been dealing with shit like this for a long time.”

She hummed, chewing another small hunk of fruit. “It must be nice to feel so cared about. I really do hope the best for you both.”

She didn’t feel cared about? Mattia had basically locked her up on house arrest to keep her safe from something like this happening to her. It was so much easier to get tangled up in the dangers of what his world had to offer than a person would think.

I thought of Andi again.

I couldn’t imagine all the threats to Hunt’s safety, knowing who she was married to. “Your husband seems to care about you,” I noted hesitantly. “Just look at this place.” I gestured around the room.

She scoffed. “Yeah. A literal fucking prison. I just want to be free… to live my life and be normal. And while I’m safe from the outside world, I am most definitely not safe from Mattia.”

I tensed at her bluntness. I’d apparently struck a nerve, but I was nothing if not nosy. “How do you mean?”

Her eyes searched my face, perhaps wondering if she could trust me and then deciding to go for it. “I didn’t ask for any of this. Not this house, not this life… not my husband. But all debts need to be paid and apparently, my father isn’t above handing over ‘his hot piece of ass daughter’ to the highest bidder in order to cover his own.” She drained the rest of her wine. “And as far as how safe I am, I’m Mattia’s favorite punching bag when he decides he needs to pop in and let off some steam. I dream of slitting his throat in his sleep. And he knows it.”

I wanted to comfort her in some way but came up short. “Why don’t you, then?” I asked seriously, raising one eyebrow.

“Yeah. Right. That would likely land me in an even worse scenario than the one I’m already in.”

I accepted her response. She knew more about her own situation than I ever would, but I silently vowed to find a way to get her out of it.

I smirked to myself. Beck would love that.

She scraped the stem of the glass on either side with thumbnails, staring into the emptiness of it as if it had some semblance of an answer for her. She huffed out a breath and changed the subject. “I was going to ask how you got involved with someone like Beck, but I guess I already know the answer to that,” she paused. “I suck at small talk.”

I let out a small laugh. “Me too.”

We sat in silence for a moment before she said, “How do you trust him with this? I mean, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t. I don’t know him or you or anything about what’s between the two of you. But any of the men who work for my husband… they’re ruthless. And I’ve never known even the best of them to care about anyone but themselves.”

She wasn’t wrong to question me about this. A lot of the time I wasn’t really sure myself. “I think we’re fated mates or some shit,” I said thoughtfully, only half joking.

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