Splinters of You (Retired Sinners MC #1) - Anne Malcom Page 0,80

somehow made it romantic. Sure, there are clubs out there that aren’t gangs. But that wasn’t what mine was. It was a gang. Lost boys looking for a family turned into ugly men with rotten hearts, scarred with the sins they’d committed in the name of brotherhood.” His dark eyes found mine. “And don’t you go thinking anything different with your romantic writer’s brain. I was one of those men. I am. Men like that don’t change. I’m not in the gang, but I’m still a dangerous man with sins against his soul. Nothin’ changes that, okay?”

I nodded obediently because I figured that was the smartest thing to do at this juncture. Plus, his story was finally coming out, after weeks of me imagining it. No way was I ruining it with my big mouth.

“But men, even bad men, even the worst of men, they have a limit. A hard limit. Something they won’t do. Won’t witness. Won’t live amongst. I found my hard limit.”

“What was it?” I blurted before I remembered I was supposed to be keeping quiet.

He narrowed his eyes at me in that ever-present default of anger and a little bit of shock, like he didn’t know quite what he was doing here, with this talkative woman who disturbed his peace.

“Not important,” he clipped.

I bit my lip to silence myself. It was important. Oh so very important. I needed to know his hard limit. It would help me know him. For if I learned anything studying the lives of others, it wasn’t what people would do, it’s what they wouldn’t that defined them. But I also knew that pushing at this time might just make him storm out of the cabin and never come back.

“What’s important is that it gave me the push to leave. And, of course, you can’t leave a gang you pledged your life in, not unless you plan on doin’ that in a coffin. So, I left, doin’ more things that demanded a price. And that’s why I’m here, because I don’t wanna be anywhere I can hurt anyone.”

“So, you’re a reformed sinner?” I asked, my tone bordering on joking, but only hitting weakly. There wasn’t a way to lighten this moment.

“Reformed?” he scoffed. “No, contrary to popular religion, there is no way back from sin. No redemption for men like me. I’m going to hell, whatever version of it waits for me. I’m merely retired.”

Chapter 16

“He didn’t watch what happened after he left them. He couldn’t. The police with their bright lights, cameras, tapes, covering her up. It made him angry. He couldn’t be angry. It made him lose focus. Focus was most important.”

I slept pretty well, considering everything. Though I would never admit it out loud, a lot of that was to do with the man sleeping beside me, who had hauled my back to his front, all but caged me in his embrace, and ordered me to sleep.

I was not a cuddler.

This should not have come as a surprise to anyone who even knew me a little bit. I would not have pegged Saint for a cuddler either. But both of us slept the entire night like that.

I woke before him. He was a surprisingly deep sleeper. I half-expected him to have a knife at my throat when I started extracting myself from his grasp, but that didn’t happen. He kept on sleeping.

So, I yanked on some of his clothes, made myself a coffee, damn near moaning at the first sip, and walked out onto his patio. If there was a way to steal this without him noticing, I’d be doing it.

The air was brutal, the freeze of the night not yet receding. Ice and snow were beginning to cover everything with this lazy, unhurried snowfall that had been coming and going these past few weeks.

I wasn’t wearing enough clothes for it, but I liked the cold waking me up. It was good for you, I think. Or at least I’d watched some documentary about a crazy Danish guy who was convinced ice baths were the cure to everything.

I doubted that, but it worked well on staving off some of my demons.

There was probably going to be a lot to do today. Although I hadn’t been involved in any murder investigations, I’d done my research on many. Unlike a lot of other authors who could afford it, I didn’t employ researchers. I kept a skeleton crew, and wouldn’t have anyone in my business if I could help it. But that