Page 14 of Sinner's Malice

If she didn’t want me around anymore, fine.

She was nothing to me, anyway.

Just a pain in the ass I couldn’t shake.

She was trouble with a capital T.

If she wanted to experience the world without protection, then she would get exactly what she wanted.

I was done.

Riding into the night, I ignored everything as I weaved in and out of traffic while images of her face flashed into my head like a blinking strobe light. Nothing I did could get the look of her anger, disappointment, and hurt out of my head. The look I put there. From the moment I found her in the desert, Arianwen plagued me. She disturbed my quiet, uncomplicated life. There was something about the woman that rubbed me the wrong way. Like a sore tooth I couldn’t shake. The only relief I had was watching her behind the bar, knowing she was safe.

No one understood.

No one knew the torment I had been dealing with. She was everywhere. The very air I breathed. From the first moment I laid eyes on her, I fucking knew.

She scared me. I knew I couldn’t be what she needed. I refused to change. I didn’t know any other way, and I was too damn old to learn to be something else. That’s why I left her in Vegas.

Not because I didn’t care. Because it was safer that way.

I stupidly thought when I left Vegas, I would never see her again.

I was wrong.

For the last ten years, she was everywhere I turned. There was no escaping her. In the beginning, it was so bad, I spent most of my time with Father Dominic. He would sit for hours listening to me, giving me advice, praying with me to find thestrength to overcome my deepest desire. Mainly, he stopped me from becoming the very person I hated most in the world.

My genetic material.

During those dark days, it took everything in me not to succumb to my depraved tendencies. All I cared about was making her mine. Bending her to my will. To demand that she see only me. To want only me.

It was Father Dominic who came up with my crutch, so to speak.

My apples.

Like in the bible, where Eve tempted Adam with an apple from the tree of life, Father Dominic suggested that every time I found myself tempted, I should eat an apple.

To quell the urge to give into my desires.

For the longest time, they helped.

Now, not so much, and if I was being honest with myself, if I had to eat another fucking apple, I was going to kill someone.

I knew it was wrong. I knew if I went down that path, I would lose everything and become someone even I didn’t recognize. And to make matters worse, I didn’t have anyone to help me.

Father Dominic was dead because my genetic material killed him.

I had no escape. There was no one to listen to me, to give me advice.

I was alone.

And now she was free to do whatever she wanted.

I didn’t know what I was going to do.

I was the club’s enforcer. Montana needed me at the clubhouse. But I couldn’t be around her anymore, not when all I wanted was to claim her and make her mine.

Payne was good, but I was better.