Sinners Condemned : Chapter 25

cruel as it is cold, carrying my most painful memories from the coastline, over the Pacific, and slapping me in the face with them.

The nastiest memories are always the ones that are the most visceral. The ones you don’t just see but feel, too. The crash of whiskey bottles smashing and the noxious stench of liquor rising up from the grubby kitchen tiles. My mother’s blood, crimson and searing hot, coating the backs of my thighs. My father’s cries, so fucking as he called out to a God that turned a blind eye. The hiss of a gun chamber spinning, steel against my temple, and the absence of the third that never came.

When I left the sky lounge, panic chased me down the side deck and my walk morphed into a run. I ran until the deck tapered off to water. Now, with nowhere else to go, I’m gripping the handrail of the swim platform, wondering if the current is as dangerous as it looks. My lungs tighten with every breath I can’t catch, and the black spots in my vision dance underneath the gray clouds like low-soaring birds.

Warmth brushes my back, and hands land on either side of mine, caging me in.

“Breathe.”

My stare falls from the sky to the hands. I look from left to right, right to left, wondering which one of them pulled the trigger.

“I—”

Soft lips on the nape of my neck cut me off. “That’s talking, not breathing.”

I inhale ice-cold air through my nose, wincing as it burns against the walls of my lungs. When I release it, it smears the gloomy sky like a shaky stroke of a paintbrush.

“Good girl,” Raphael says gently. “Again.”

The calmness in his voice is unnerving. A stark contrast to the heat of his chest, and to the act of violence he committed less than three minutes ago. A body lies dead on the deck above, and all he can do is tell me to breathe?

As I choke on my next breath, his hand slips off the railing and lies flat against my stomach. It’s warm and stupidly reassuring, and when he swipes his thumb up and down, caressing the same inch of fabric over and over, I breathe in and out to the same rhythm.

“You told me your gun was fake,” I rasp bitterly.

“I lied.”

“I thought you were a gentleman. Lie about that, too?”

He moves closer, taking my body with his, until my bottom rib presses against the railing. Without a word, he scoops up all of my hair flailing about in the wind, and winds it into a bun at the base of my neck. He uses it like a joystick, gently tugging on it until my head rests against his chest.

“Just because I’m a gentleman, Penelope, doesn’t always mean I’m a gentle man.”

My grip tightens on the railing, my heart stuttering to an off-kilter beat. “Was that the first time you’ve…”

His stomach flexes against my spine. “No.”

“And will you…”

“I’d assume so, yes.”

I can’t keep a strangled gasp from escaping. “You’re a psychopath; you know that?”

His humorless laugh touches the pulse in my throat. “What makes you think that?”

I close my eyes, honing in on the sound of his heartbeat. “Your heart isn’t even beating fast.”

“I’m a made man, Penelope. We’re just built this way.” His hand comes off the railing and wraps around me, drawing me deeper into his warmth. I must really be traumatized to not push him away. “It’s always horrible the first time you hear a gunshot.”

My sardonic breath is bitter and tinged with disbelief. “Yeah, but it’s not the first time. Not even the second.”

“Paintballing in your teens doesn’t count.”

I know he’s trying to distract me from the ringing in my ears, but his patronizing tone stokes a spark of annoyance. Maybe that’s why I let him into my memories, or maybe the panic blurring my vision also blurs my judgment, too.

I glare at my knuckles on the railing, blue from the cold and white from the strength of my grip. I take a deep breath and let the wind carry my story.

“I was there when my parents were killed.” I say it in a rushed, mumbled voice. “Two men in balaclavas. They could have been anyone. My parents were alcoholics and alcoholics have a tendency of pissing people off. They slid through the open window in the living room and shot both of them dead. Mom got off lightly. She was already asleep, passed out on the kitchen table after a long night of sobbing to Whitney Houston power ballads, so I doubt she felt a thing. But my father; he met a nasty end. Woke up from his whiskey-induced coma just long enough to see the barrel of a gun and make a run for it out the garden door.”

I swallow the thick knot in my throat and slide my eyes up to the sky. “I’d heard the gunshot that killed my mother but I thought it was part of a dream. I didn’t wake up properly until I heard my father’s cries floating up the stairs.” A sour laugh escapes my lips. “Wish I’d stayed in my room, because the men in balaclavas didn’t even know I existed until I appeared in the kitchen doorway and started screaming. One dragged my father out into the garden and shot him like a rabid dog, and the other pinned me between the refrigerator and the washing machine and told me they’d been instructed not to leave any witnesses behind.”

A lone tear carves a hot trail down my cheek. I don’t move to wipe it away, because then Raphael would realize it was there. Instead, I blink, and pray another doesn’t fall. “He put his gun to my temple and told me to close my eyes and count down from ten. When I was younger I had a doctor that’d use the same trick to administer vaccines, so I knew what his plan was. He’d probably let me get to, like, four or five, and pull the trigger so I wouldn’t see it coming.” My fingers slide to my necklace, and I run it up and down the chain, just like I did that night, too. “He only let me get to eight.” I squeeze my eyes shut, remembering the that followed the number leaving my lips. “The gun jammed. And you know what he told me? That I didn’t know how lucky I was, that I was—”

“One in a million,” Raphael murmurs into my hair, body growing stiff behind me. “That’s why you don’t like lightning, because getting struck is another one-in-a-million possibility.”

I run my tongue over my teeth, giving a small shake of my head. “I know it’s irrational and self-absorbed, but if it can happen once, it can happen again.”

Despite the silence swirling with the wind, my breath comes out steady for the first time since I heard the shot. I guess talking about things really does help. Even if you’re talking to a velvet-clad murderer. The feeling of his warm chest expanding and contracting against my back lures mine into a false sense of security: I’m not expecting it when his hand slides up from my stomach, over my breasts, and touches my necklace. “That’s why you think you’re so lucky.”

My heart does a double-thump under his touch. “One of the reasons,” I whisper back.

“Tell me the others.”

I open my mouth but clamp it shut just as quickly. While the ghost of hands pulling up my dress grab me, I decide to stay silent. Instead, I attempt to wriggle out of his grasp and opt for a reply that’ll put the world to rights again.

“Well, I beat you at absolutely every game, for one.”

His hand slides off my necklace first, then his other hand gently unwinds my hair. Feeling it cascade down my back, I swallow and dare myself to turn and look up at him. His gaze searches mine, flickering with dry amusement. Relief tinges my skin; if I’d turned around and seen sympathy in his gaze, I might have had to claw my eyes out.

He stares at me for a beat too long, before the growl of an engine turns our attention out to the Pacific. Underneath pregnant clouds, a sleek black speedboat slices through the water at a ridiculous pace. There’s a lone sharp figure behind the wheel, all broad lines, big muscles, and mirrored sunglasses. Just before the bow touches the swim platform, he steers sharply, pulling the craft up beside the yacht at the last second.

Raphael scowls. “Watch the paintwork, dickhead.”

Gabriel Visconti pulls off his sunglasses, revealing a stony glare and a scar so angry it makes my throat tighten.

He tethers the rope to the platform post in heavy silence. My gaze falls down to his fitted black T-shirt—

and all of the ink that seeps out from underneath it.

He hops onto the platform and comes to a stop next to his brother. He turns to stare at me, then glares at my necklace for what feels so long my fingers twitch to rip it off and hand it to him.

“Paintwork is the least of your worries, my brother.”

The yacht rocks more than usual as he takes the stairs two at a time and disappears from view. A shiver plays down my spine. If Angelo is the rough outline and Raphael is the clean, final portrait, Gabriel is the demon that lives in the artist’s nightmares.

Letting out a huff, Raphael turns his attention back to me. His eyes soften to something warmer as they search my features. I shake off a shiver for a different reason when his hand cups my jaw, and his thumb trails the curve of my cheekbone.

“No crying.”

My next breath grazes the back of his hand, shallower than the last. This is the same hand that just pulled a trigger and ended a life. So why does it feel so good against my skin?

My jaw flexes against his palm in an attempt to regain some footing. “Why do you care if I cry?”

He tracks his thumb as it trails further down, across my bottom lip and along  my chin. He grips me there for a moment, regret coating his features.

“Because last night, I saw you laugh.”