Page 67 of Where Sinners Repent

The spell breaks when panic pleading fills the silence. “Please, please, this wasn't my idea. I didn't want to do this.” The terrified sounds are mixed with the shuffling of shoes on concrete. Kaleb shoves the young man until he stumbles by our feet.

He looks to be only my age, with shaggy dark hair and eyes wide and full of fear. My heart clenches.

What's happened here? Kaleb said something about the shipping containers being empty. Did they rob the Devils? If they did, then they're fucking stupid. Nearly as fucking stupid as my brothers. Are they working with my brothers?

The thought sends ice-cold dread through me.

Kai picks the man up by his neck almost as easily as he maneuvered my body, and slams him against the metal shipping container.

The smell of piss hits me, and I wince.

“Seriously, what the fuck? This wasn't my idea. I fucking swear!”

“Did Zeke put you up to this?” Kai asks in a flat, bored tone.

The boy scoffs, shaking his head. “Zeke’s dead.”

The muscles in Kai’s back ripple beneath his leather. One look and all the colour drains from the boy’s face. Kai’s grip tightens, the boy clawing for his life, helpless nails scrabbling sleeves and skin and nothingness. Coughs tear from his throat as his face darkens to a sickening shade of red.

Oh God. He’s going to kill him.

Dread floods my veins, and I stumble back a step. Then another, getting ready to spin and floor it out of here. But my back collides with a wall of solid muscle.

I don’t have to look to know it’s Kaleb.

“Uh, uh, Roxanne...” Kaleb sings into my ear, amusement dripping from his voice. His arms lock around me, pinning mine to my sides with effortless strength. “The show isn’t over yet.”

Tears blur the vision in front of me. No matter which direction I look, there is no escape. Only the brothers.

Kai doesn’t look at me, his focus on the man gasping beneath his palm, yet I know when he speaks, he is speaking to me.

“His struggle excites me,” he says, his voice a calm whisper. The words land under my skin. “Does that make me a good person?”

The man’s boots drag frantically across the concrete, as he fights for air.

“Please...” I whisper, but even I’m not sure what I’m begging for anymore.

Kai’s hand opens, and the man crumples to the ground, sucking in ragged breaths, clutching his destroyed throat.

Kai reaches into his pocket, and another blade catches the dull moonlight. The man’s eyes widen and the word “no” barely falls off his tongue before Kai imbeds the blade into the side of his neck.

Just one cut. Then blood pours; the man clutches at his neck, choking as crimson spills onto the concrete.

I flinch, only to press harder into Kaleb’s body. That’s when I feel it. His erection pressing into my lower back. This excites him.

Kai kneels in front of the dying man, wrapping one blood-soaked glove around his ruined throat. Blood spills between his fingers, and his eyes track the movement.

When he finally speaks, his voice is barely louder than the waves crashing into the dock.

“His blood excites me.”

He stands and turns toward me, his eyes impossibly dark now, as if his pupils consumed any light left hiding there.

“Am I evil now?”

I try to swallow, but my throat is dry. In those impossible eyes, I see everything. Blood and violence. Pain. But I don’t see evil.

Slowly, I shake my head.