The Sinners - Ruby Vincent Page 0,5
and dabbed my temple. He cared for my wound and then pulled away when I tried to do the same, jaw stiff and eyes blank as he firmly closed the lid.
Clay had been the one to take care of everyone since he was seven. Protector. Fighter. Weathering the cost without protest.
I settled between the boys and laced my fingers through theirs.
“Interesting.” Rio zeroed in on the hands clasped on my lap. “I suspected Cassius and Clay’s lapse in judgment had to do with this.”
“It was about nothing more than Camila,” I snapped. “You’d think someone who loves his mommy as much as you would appreciate where they were coming from. They paid you with money they earned, and you threatened a grieving, harmless teenage girl. We can spread the poor judgment around.”
Jay bore down on me and the triplets surged forward, snarls leaking through their teeth.
Rio stopped it with a wave of his hand. “Calm down. I agree unfortunate circumstances brought us here, young Bancroft. My son intends to put it right, I’ll allow him to do so while we wait in silence.”
Rio leaned back, crossing his feet at the ankles, and closed his eyes. He was the serene father of Adonis—relaxed in the face of the acts he committed that day and those still to come.
I decided not to test Rio’s demand for silence. The triplets and I were glowering ornaments on the couch—radiating resentment for the leader of the Horsemen and the hulking masses of brutality ready to do his bidding.
The office was windowless and a scan revealed there wasn’t a clock. All the same, I felt the hours passing in the stiffness of my joints and the ache in my stomach.
My phone sat unused in my pocket. The knowledge that they didn’t bother to take it from me burned. From the outset Rio didn’t fear I’d use it to call for help. He knew he’d kill me before I touched the screen.
The need to text Eli pulsed a rising yearning in my heart. I’d be dumped in the trash somewhere. Far from Horsemen territory, but with the mark of savagery that revealed my killers. Rio’s gang sought to own the entire OB and they killed the other gang members that dared to oppose them. Somehow, I had ended up on that side. The lone girl to deny Rio what he deluded himself into thinking was his. And he’d repay by throwing me out like trash.
“Jay.” Rio spoke without opening his eyes. I thought he was sleeping. “Go out and get dinner. What would you like, Ember?”
I licked dry, cracked lips. “Serving up my last meal?”
“Why would it be your last?” The statuesque mold of power and man neither stirred nor raised his voice. “Is it my son you lack faith in or your family?”
My throat closed. I hated to say it was my family. That once more they’d push me onto the ledge and Royal would be my sole hope of coming down. I hated to say it because this time he would fail.
“How are you Royal’s father?” I asked instead.
“I’m certain you’re well-versed in human reproduction.”
His men snort-laughed. Rio was quicker, smooth, and unburdened by conscience or the range of human emotions. I was not about to trip him up.
“Did you make him what he is? A knife-wielding car thief chained to a ruthless gang when he could be anyone and go anywhere.” I should probably shut my mouth, but with my death incoming, what was there left to be afraid of. “I’d be an idiot to dismiss you as a mindless thug. You’re a smart man and you must see he deserves more than this life.”
Rio finally moved a muscle and it was the one that served his smirk. “I thank you for the compliment, but it reveals you are woman in body and child in mind. We deserve nothing. We are owed nothing. My son will build his life on what he’s fought for. Bled for. And ripped away from those too weak to hang on. I would have it no other way.”
“Do you love him?”
Slowly, his eyes opened. “What a question.”
“My parents didn’t love me. That’s obvious to the world by now but I’ve known long before they abandoned me. I was broken by my sister’s death and reformed in their hatred. I can’t deny their actions shaped my life as inevitably as my own. You’re wrong that children don’t deserve anything. Royal is building his life on the cards you’re dealing him.