Sinner's Revenge (Sinner's Creed MC #2)(74)

“I’ll keep your secret, baby. As long as you keep your promise.”

I give him a wicked smile. “I always keep my word.” Just not this time.


*

We’ve been here two hours and I can’t put his invitation to go back to his place off any longer. The room is now filled with people thanks to a shitty hostess, and Shady has yet to show. Already my plan is turning to shit. And I’ve worked this motherf*cker up so much I’m afraid his dick might explode.

With no other option, we leave and he keeps me pressed possessively into his side. The small .38 I carry in my purse is enough to do the trick. I’ll just have to wait until we get back to his place to use it. I won’t have the time to attach the silencer, so it will have to be a fast kill and an even faster getaway.

My heart sinks with every step I take toward his hotel. I can’t blow this. I can’t shoot him now, because the streets are crawling with witnesses. I can’t just turn and run either. Then he’d know something was wrong. If he did, the past two years of my life will have been for nothing. He is a job. I have to see it through.

If I’d just stuck to my original plan to kill him here, I wouldn’t be in this predicament. But I’d put my own selfish needs before my family. I wanted to prove to Dorian that Shady was the man I needed at my side. If he showed tonight and saved me, then both of my goals would be accomplished. But if I didn’t succeed in killing Fin and escaping, then I’d be putting the whole Underground at risk. And I’d be losing Shady too.

As we pull away, a deep sadness comes over me. Zeke didn’t come. Shady had left me alone. I loved both sides of him equally, and they were both gone. Either he was too stupid to figure out my plan, dead, or didn’t really care. If I was a betting woman, I’d put my money on the latter.





27


SHADY

SOMETHING’S UP WITH Diem. The more I think about it, the more I think she’s playing me. I don’t know what she’s really up to, but taking out Clark is just a distraction—I can feel it.

She knew Rookie wasn’t in that room. But she wanted it to look like I forced her to add me into the conversation. As much as she wants respect, she would do everything in her power to get it. So to get inside her head, I think about what I would have done.

First, I’d have pulled the trigger on my right-hand man myself. I’d prove that no man was safe from my wrath. But she didn’t. Instead she put it in the hands of Rookie—a man she doesn’t trust near as much as she trusts me.

Second, Dorian wouldn’t have sent her away with Clark if he felt like he was a threat. Diem wouldn’t have allowed herself to fall asleep in the company of a man she couldn’t trust either. Clark wasn’t guilty of anything, he was just collateral damage.

Third, if he really wanted to kill me, he would have known I was smart enough to carry a weapon. A man in his position doesn’t get where he is by underestimating guys like me. Plus, how could he get me in a vehicle without a gun? He knew I was packing, but just to be sure, I made it a point to show him.

We’d discussed guns. We’d compared holsters. He admitted to hearing a rumor that I was one of the best shots ever seen. He didn’t want to kill me. He hadn’t betrayed Diem either. And when I fake a call from her and inform him that she wants me to stay and let him and Rookie handle the problem, he doesn’t question me. That’s because he knows Dorian trusts me. So Diem’s story wasn’t a complete lie.

I fill Rookie in on what’s happening, and he agrees to distract Clark by actually visiting a couple of Death Mob chapters in the area. Come to find out, that’s what Clark was instructed by Diem to do all along. Now I just have to find her before she does something stupid or gets herself killed.

My only lead is Fin, who becomes my main suspect when I find that he booked a room in Allentown under his legal name. Fucking amateurs. I start there, but find his room empty. I could wait, but if Diem was going to meet him, she damn sure wouldn’t do it here.

I drive around, my anxiety building. Fin is a big guy. She couldn’t take him on by herself. If she shot him, she’d have to do it somewhere discreet, but somewhere she could make a quick getaway from. Pulling up a satellite image of Allentown on my phone, I notice a site just outside of downtown that looks like an old warehouse. I match it with the lists of Death Mob clubhouses in the area, and find that the address isn’t exactly the same, but similar.

My emotions are everywhere, but fear takes precedence. I’m not used to the feeling. But where she is concerned, fear is all I feel.

Fear of losing her.

Fear of her hurting.

Fear of not being able to protect her.

But most of all, I fear that Sinner’s Creed isn’t my greatest love anymore.





28


DIEM

I’VE NEVER REALLY been scared in my entire life. Even when I was a little girl, I was fearless. I often pretended to be afraid because I got attention from it, but it was just an act. In this moment though, I’m terrified.

It’s not my only life I’m scared for, it’s everyone else who will be affected if I don’t succeed. Dorian is a dick, but he is my father and he believes in the Underground. Hell, he lives for it. His life is absorbed by it. My grandparents, uncles, cousins . . . my entire family is at stake. If I fail, Dorian fails. And if Dorian fails, the Mafia will never forgive him. They will turn on him, and any who choose to stand beside him will be guilty of treason.