Page 68 of I am Dressed in Sin (Death by Daybreak MC 2)
We both stop talking, but still, he keeps me pinned. He keeps me, for the moment, as his. It’s what he really wants, even if he won’t quite admit it to himself.
“There were no guards that day because you said no?” I ask, not with the intention of being angry, but for the understanding I’ll finally, finally, finally fucking get. After all these years, all this wondering, these twisted daydreams that read more like nightmares.
“I said no to being the head of security for your family,” Sin clarifies, adjusting himself. It’s impossible to ignore the bulge in the front of his tight jeans. They’re tailored just perfectly for his body, sculpted over his ass, his strong thighs, his muscular calves, before diving into his riding boots. “There were guards posted that day—even if you don’t remember them.”
“Were there?” I snap back, straining against his hold on me. But it’s impossible. Much as I hate, hate, hate to admit it, there are distinct biological differences between men and women. Sin is undeniably stronger than I am right now. Particularly because I’m not too acquainted with the concept of working out. “I don’t remember them. Don’t you think that I would? That maybe I would’ve heard or seen something before the mafia shot my pregnant sister in the head?”
“You were fifteen,” Sin growls right back at me. His pupils are dilated. With all the blood on his face, he looks like a monster. “I was twenty-three; I remember. You are not the only person that lost someone that day.” He releases one of my hands, as if to see what I might do with it. “There were six Daybreakers outside of that house. And only then because Crown demanded it. Your father didn’t think we needed anyone at all. The mafia had left town. We’d destroyed one of their warehouses outside the city limits. We were testing every limit they had, Gidge. They should’ve had better things to do that day.”
I reach up and rub my thumb across his mouth, swiping away the majority of the remaining blood. He shudders in a way that’s impossible to fake. He wants me, always has. It makes me wonder if, that first day that I noticed him as more than another random Daybreaker, if that’s when he noticed me as well. It freaked him out. It’s still freaking him out.
“Those men were somebody’s husbands, their fathers, their sons, my brothers.” Sin keeps watching me to gauge my reaction to the news. I’m shook. For years, I bitched and railed at anyone who would listen. I cried and I screamed and I demanded answers. They all let me do it, and they said nothing. Because I was too young to understand. Because I was Cat’s daughter, a doll to be kept on a shelf. “More of them are going to die today. This week. For months to come, probably.”
“Not if we go to Reba’s house,” I insist, wondering what, exactly, might’ve happened to good ol’ preacher Wesley and his closet-alcoholic wife. Nothing good, I imagine. “You don’t understand what happened between me and Grey—”
Sin releases my other wrist, but only so he can clamp a hand over my mouth.
“Don’t,” he breathes out, and now he’s shaking, too. “Don’t say it. I don’t want to hear it.”
He thinks … that I’m in love with Grey? That’s what they all thought. It makes sense. They just don’t … they don’t understand. Our siblings loved one another so deeply that it’s left a ripple in the world, this little tear inside of me that matches up to Grey. Kian and Queenie gave up their one and only chance at this life for the slimmest possibility of being together. We owe them the gift of a life fully lived.
So I need to do this.
I need to save Reba.
I need to punish the mafia.
I need to punish Cat.
You son of a bitch, I think, hating him at the same time that I love him. It’s always been there for me and my father, a kind of love-hate that you don’t often read about. He cares about me like a father. I love him like a daughter. And yet, he’s a bad man who does horrible things, and I’m an untamable hellion that he can’t stand to be around. This is your fault. Why did you kill Kian? Why couldn’t you have just let Queenie have one, nice thing that didn’t also match up with your wants and needs?
Sin’s bloody fingers slide down my lips, leaving the copper taste of him on my mouth.
“Grey and I have the same shape hole inside of us.” I point at my chest as Sin watches. “He lost his brother; I lost my sister. His family let him be born ruined. Mine did the same. We grew up in blood and pain and politicking. We’re the same person, Sin. But all that time I was there, I never felt about him the way I feel about you.”
