“Tell me the story about this,” I murmur, tapping on his tattoo. He shifts beneath my head, his pecs flexing as he turns to place a chaste kiss on my sweat-dampened forehead.
“It’s for my sister,” he replies, his hand coming up to take mine in his. He tangles our fingers together before going silent again.
“Sister?” I ask, wanting to keep him talking. I want to learn more about him.
“Foster sister, to be more precise. She was killed fourteen years ago, and I got the tattoo to remind me of her. She’s the reason I became The Carver. I wanted to get revenge on the men that hurt her.”
A lump forms in my throat, and I tighten my fingers around his. “I’m so sorry, Sinister. Why a bird, though?”
“It’s a wren. Her name was?—”
My veins fill with ice water, and I yank myself away from him. Backing away from the bed, I stumble over my feet as I shake my head. “No.” Sinister jumps up and advances toward me, his face wreathed in confusion. I putmy hands up and retreat until my back crashes into the wall. “It’s impossible. You—you’re dead.”
Why does my chest hurt? I glance down at it, and my body staggers as black spots dance around my vision. My hands cover my heart as images from the past slam into my mind. I raise my head and reach my arm toward my dead brother—the boy whose body I watched Richard throw into the river.
“Sin?”
Chapter 8
Sinister
“Sin?”
Agonizing pain tears through my chest, and I freeze in place as my mind scrambles to keep up. Dolly—no, Wren—sways and her eyes roll up into the back of her head. I leap forward and grab her before she can crumble to the floor.
I crush her body to mine, still reeling. It can’t be. She can’t be Wren. Richard said he killed her, and Jack confirmed it—he even taunted me about it. This has to be a joke. I plop back down on the mattress, cradling my sister in my arms. As much as my mind balks at the idea, my heart whispers the truth.
My thumb runs over her forehead, searching for the little dent she got when Richard knocked her against the corner of a wall. It’s there, and fourteen years of grief and guilt spill out of me. Tears stream down my face as I rock her in my arms. I tell her over and over again how sorry I am. How no one will hurt her again. That she’ll never be alone.
While the words pour from my mouth, my conscience screams,You just fucked your sister.But she isn’t my sister, isshe? Not really. We’re not blood related, and we didn’t grow up together.Stop trying to come up with rationalizations. You. Just. Fucked. Her.
After all these years,nowmy conscience wants to make an appearance? It can fuck right off. We did nothing wrong. The woman I watched kill a man, isn’t the innocent little eight-year-old she once was. I don’t know where she’s been all this time or what’s happened to her since I last saw her, but I know one thing for sure.
She’s like me.
I changed the day Richard threw me off the bridge. I was no longer Sinclair, but Sinister. And I have the feeling Wren is the same. Why else would she call herself Dolly, if not to reinvent herself? We aren’t the same downtrodden children who spent three years together in Limp Dick’s fortress. We’re something different. Tougher, stronger, more jaded.
Killers.
Our executions may differ in style, but we’re doing the same thing, aren’t we? Taking out the trash. Pride blooms in my chest when I relive her kill. She took out one of her abductors by herself. My arms tighten around her.Two down, little bird. Four to go.
Wren moans and thrashes in my arms. “Sinclair, help!” she cries, her eyes scrunched tight. “No, no. Don’t throw him in the river. Let me go!” I keep murmuring my assurances to her, and she eventually quietens, her breathing evening out.
She saw Richard do that? Jesus. Why? Why were they all so invested in making us believe the other was dead? Was it just for the grief it would cause us? Or something else? We may never have all the answers we want, and I’ll have to come to terms with that.
I lie back and draw the blanket over us, my mind toobusy to fall asleep. When Wren wakes up, we’re going to have an honest and open conversation—about everything. I need to know what happened that day, and what her life has been like since. Then, I’m going to take her to meet Aidan. I want her to know the man who saved me and helped me become the man I am today.
After that, we’ve got plans to make. We’re going to take down the other three men, then go after Richard. I’ve allowed him to walk this earth for far too long—it’s time to put him down.
Soft footsteps ploddown the stairs, and I glance up from the kitchen table. I popped out to a local twenty-four-hour diner and grabbed breakfast while Wren slept. Not only is the kitchen not functional, but the appliances don’t work either, and there wasn’t a scrap of food to be found anywhere in the warehouse.
Wren’s steps slow, and she appears at the entrance. She’s donned thin sweats and a T-shirt that have seen better days, and left her hair a tangled mess. Sunlight pours in from the skylight, emphasizing her big blue eyes. If I had seen her up close and in better lighting earlier, I would have known who she was by them alone.
I push the chair back and walk over to her. She stares at me as if I’m a ghost, and I suppose I am. We both thought the other was dead, so being here together feels surreal. A single tear slides down her cheek, and I pull her into my arms. “Shh, little bird. It’s going to be all right.” Her fingers curl in my shirt, holding on to me like I might disappear again.
After a few minutes, she pushes away, her cheeks blooming rose. She refuses to meet my eye but gesturestoward the table. “What’s all this?” Her husky voice stirs my cock, remembering how she screamed my name when I made her come.
“Breakfast. Come on and eat.”
