Unleashing Sin - A. M. Wilson Page 0,31
and she hasn’t moved a muscle since. Except for her eyes. They haven’t stopped taking me in. If she doesn’t stop, she’s going to see me tenting my pants like a hormonal teenager.
I cross my arms over my chest and paste a cocky grin on my face. “You all right?”
At my voice, she nearly jumps off the couch. Her eyes snap back to mine. The pinkness looks nice on her cheeks. A sign of life. “Yes,” she replies, a little breathless. “Want to join me? I was going to watch a movie, but I don’t know how to work this thing.” She holds up the controller to my PlayStation.
I cross the living space and plant my ass on the couch near the center. She scoots off to one side and cuddles the arm of the couch.
“I don’t bite.” My words sound darker than I intend them.
“I know. I’m just comfortable over here.” She sends a smile my way, but it doesn’t reach her eyes.
She’s still afraid of me, and I only have myself to blame for that. Every time she’s warmed up to me, I’ve chased her away.
“Let’s fire up Netflix and find a movie. No girly shit, though. I only watch action films. If someone falls in love along the way, whatever, but it can’t be the entire plot, or I’m turning it off.”
“Do you not believe in love?”
I snort. “Two people can enjoy fucking and the other’s company enough to coexist and tolerate each other for the rest of their lives. It’s basic human nature to care about another person. But the concept of love like little girls are taught basically from the womb is nothing but a marketing gimmick.”
“How unromantic.”
“How realistic.”
“I find that sad. Haven’t you ever loved somebody?”
The question strikes a nerve. Deep. I loved Molly more than my own life and look where that got me? Her? “There’s a difference between romantic love and loving someone who was a piece of yourself.”
“You mean Molly?”
My head whips around so fast I get a pain in my neck. “What do you know?”
“I don’t know anything.” Her voice drops lower, softer. “Only what you said the day I woke up. I only know she was something to you. I’m sorry for bringing her up.”
“She was my sister.” My voice cracks on that word. She wasn’t just my sister. She was my everything. A lump sticks in my throat, and I struggle to breathe. “She was taken. She was taken like you.”
I fixate on the TV, but I’m not seeing the screen. My mind drifts once again to the day she left, and the memory swirls like a fog.
“Did you find her …?” Shelby asks delicately. She knows. More than anyone, she understands what it’s like to lose your entire life. Fuck, I’m being selfish. She knows more than me what it’s like. She’s just like Molly, except she’s still breathing.
“No. They took my sister, killed my father. We went after them,” I tell her, looking over my shoulder at her. Shelby sits turned toward me with her back resting against the arm of the chair. I never even felt her move. “My father, his friend, Elias, and I. We’ve searched this entire fuckin’ city for her. Got as far as getting inside their headquarters before the bastard Gutierrez shot and killed my father.”
Shelby visibly shudders. “I’m so sorry, Alex. I don’t recognize her name, but we all had different names when we got there. It was their way of owning us. But maybe if you have a picture, I might recognize her.”
I clench my jaw. “No.”
Her face pales. “You don’t have to share her with me. I understand.”
“No, I meant I don’t have a picture.” I blow out a harsh breath and run a hand through my hair. “I don’t even have a picture. How fucked up is that?”
I’m forced out of my thoughts by a tiny, warm hand wrapping around the back of my neck. I can’t even look at her, but I know she’s looking at me. She’s looking at me and comforting me for my dead sister when she’s gone through the same. I want to buck her off at the same time I want to drag her into my lap and hold on.
“I don’t know what I’m doing, but it seemed like you needed a person.”
“All my people end up dead,” I croak.
Her fingers twist into my nape. “Is your mother dead?”
She’s your responsibility now, Alex. Take care of your sister for me.
“She left