Page 22 of Sinner's Sacrifice

Sam left the clinic and got back into the limo.

“You said there was another woman?” Yvgeny asked.

“Yes, Darlene gave me the name of the hotel she’s staying in.” She told Magnus and the car pulled out into traffic.

“That’s a very run-down property,” Yvgeny said. “You’re not going to like what you find there.”

“Worse than homeless people in the street?”

“In a way. It’s as close to a brothel as you’re going to find in New York City. The bastard who owns it is a disgusting leech.”

Interesting description, given the rumors about Yvgeny Breznik. Lots of people thought he was a crime boss, controlling drugs and prostitutes. Others said that his hotels were a front for assassinations and intelligence gathering.

She’d thought they were more than half right until tonight. He’d offered Darlene a job and a place to stay, if she wanted to get off the street and was willing to work for a life, a future.

He’d done the same thing for her, albeit in a heavier handed manner. He hadn’t given her a choice, just told her she worked for him now. She didn’t understand why he’d stepped in and stopped the terrifying man who she found drinking blood directly from a wound in a homeless man’s wrist.

The weirdo had been completely out of his mind on something, probably acid, because he’d been extremely strong and had been in the process of choking Sam to death when Yvgeny arrived and stopped him.

But Sam wasn’t done with the weirdo. He’d been killing for a while, and one of the people he killed had been her sister.

Maisy had left home at sixteen, been living on the streets for a long time, hooked on drugs and supporting herself with sex work. Sam had found her almost by chance, gotten her off the street, gotten her clean.

But addiction is a complicated knot in a person’s psyche, and Maisy had slipped out one evening, and by the time Sam found her, the weirdo had already killed her.

It had taken her weeks to track him down, and Yvgeny was only going to let him go with a warning after beating on him a bit.

A fucking warning.

Before the weirdo could take off, she’d tried to slit his throat from behind with a scalpel.

Yvgeny had disarmed her in a second, then scared the shit out of her, by asking her why she was trying to commit murder. So, she told him about Maisy and all the other people the weirdo had killed, how the street people all knew there was a serial killer prowling. A killer who liked to drink blood.

She’d stared into Yvgeny’s scary eyes and told him she wouldn’t stop until the weirdo was dead.

So, he broke the piece of shit’s neck. Right there in front of her.

Then he told her he owned her now. She worked for him. When she refused, he told her he’d go to the police. She was covered in the blood of the dead man and she had a good reason to kill him.

She said she was a paramedic, not a prostitute. To which he agreed that’s what he wanted her to do—on-site medical support at his downtown office building and the attached hotel.

She’d watched him for the next six months. Watched as he helped complete strangers, intimidated some very bad people from South America, cleaned up after some kind of turf war between organized crime families, and helped break up a human trafficking ring.

He was frightening.

He was also kind.

He was a contradiction.

If he thought someone was a disgusting leech, the leech probably deserved to get dead.

“I should have brought my scalpel,” she muttered.

“Do I have to keep you separated from sharp things again?” he asked, his tone hard. “You can’t start fights with or slit the throats of every bad man you meet.”

“I haven’t tried to slit yours, have I?” she asked sweetly.

“I’ve never done anything remotely bad to you.”