Sin (Vegas Nights 1)

I forgave them.

Both of them. I forgave them both for making the decisions they did.

With it all laid out, with my entire life condensed into an hour’s worth of conversation, the reasoning for why they could have reached the point they did make sense.

They simply couldn’t live the way they were anymore.

Was it selfish? Yes. They hurt the rest of us beyond belief. They’d escaped the pain, yet the rest of us were left to pick up the pieces and live with it.

I was hurt, but I was no longer angry.

I understood.

I kissed my fingers and pressed them against Penelope’s name. The stone was chilly beneath my touch, shaded from the already-harsh heat of the sun. It didn’t warm at all, staying just as cold when I pushed off the stone.

I’d lost my sisters. One was uncontrollable—but the other wasn’t.

I couldn’t bring Penelope back, but I hadn’t done enough for Perrie.

And that had to change.

Twenty-Nine

Dahlia

I dropped the note back onto the kitchen island. Damien’s blocky handwriting stared up at me, and a hint of worry tickled the pit of my stomach.

Was he okay?

I had no idea. The silence of the house offered me no clues. If he hadn’t left me the note, I would have sworn he’d disappeared into thin air. Eerily still and overly clean, a shiver danced its way down my spine.

The coffee machine was my first spot. The combination of the noise and the fact I knew I’d splatter coffee on the countertop would be enough to eliminate the two things that were slightly chilling right now.

I relaxed the second the hum of the machine filled the air. At least, my body did. My mind was another story.

Where was he running?

Was he okay?

How long had he been gone?

How long would he be?

Did he sleep last night?

Did he have his phone in case I had to leave?

What would I do if he left?

How was I?

How were we?

What were we?

What was this?

Where was Perrie?

How did I find her?

The coffee machine stopped. The silence came back with a biting harshness, so I hummed to myself to break it.

Why was it so daunting, the quiet? My gut whispered it was because I didn’t know how Damien was—it was taunting me. For all I knew, he was perfectly okay. He could have been buying breakfast at that moment.

The run was his routine. Totally normal. Perfectly fine. Yet last night had been none of those things. It’d been so far from routine or normal or fine.

Hell, if I felt the dull ache of sadness, he sure as hell had to, too. Right?

Unless he really wasn’t human with a heart of stone and a black soul. Something I knew for a fact wasn’t true. Okay, so maybe I’d expected a little more emotion last night as he’d told me everything, but just because I was a blubbering, hysterical mess when I talked about my mom dying didn’t mean he had to be.

He was composed, but not heartless.

Restrained, was probably the best word to describe him.

I smacked my lips together and touched the top of my mug to my chin. Steam from the hot coffee wafted up right in front of my face, and for a moment, I stood there, doing nothing but stare straight ahead.

How was I supposed to handle this? Was I supposed to be proactive, or was the best idea to follow his lead?

I knew nothing about it. Nobody in my life had ever dealt with as much shit as he had. He even sounded like he was trapped in the family business. Maybe he’d grown to love it, but from what he’d said, it’d been thrust upon him without any care.

And what about his relationship with his dad? Was it a happy one? I knew he’d been forced into the attempts to buy Scarlet. Was everything I’d ever assumed about Damien because of his father’s influence?

I’d thought that by finding out about his childhood and his family I’d have all my questions answered.

How wrong I was. How very, very wrong.

I had more questions than ever.

And I had no idea if I would ever get those answers, either.

***

I set my purse on my desk and sighed. My phone, tightly grasped in my hand, was still silent. There were no messages or missed calls, which I could only take to mean that Damien hadn’t returned home since I’d left an hour before. Or, if he had, he’d not seen my note.

Or he was ignoring it.

Whatever.

The invoice from this morning’s delivery was sitting on top of my keyboard, signed off by Abby. I hadn’t seen her on my way in here, either, so as I finally put down my phone and picked up the invoice to file it away, I assumed she was likely sorting the order, far away from the drama queen behind the bar.