The Angel (The Original Sinners 2)

“I, and anyone else in the church at the time, could hear the litany of profanities.”

Michael had laughed then. “I can’t wait to meet her.”

“You don’t have to wait anymore. Are you ready?”

Michael’s hands had gone numb then for the first time since regaining all feeling a month after leaving the hospital. Her—Nora Sutherlin—the woman who’d stolen his deepest dreams and put them on paper. Michael took a scared, shallow breath and started putting his homework away.

Michael had nodded. “I’m ready.”

He’d followed Father S out of the church and into a gray Rolls Royce that waited on the street. The car had pulled away from the curb and Father Stearns had stared out the window.

“What do I do when I meet her?” Michael asked.

“You will call her ma’am or mistress. And you will do anything she tells you to do.”

Michael had shivered then like a house in a thunderstorm.

“Will we… I mean, what will—”

“She’ll take your virginity, Michael. If that’s what you want.”

Michael nodded and stared out the window. It seemed as though the car was staying still and only the streets were moving.

“Yeah, that’s what I want.”

And now here he was in a freaking mansion in upstate New York with Nora Sutherlin herself. God, it was surreal. What the  hell am I doing here? Michael asked himself as he put the book into the bedside-table drawer. This house reeked of wealth and power and old money. He was just a seventeen-year-old nobody with nothing going for him.

“If I ordered you to smile, would you?” came a voice from his doorway.

Michael looked up and found Nora watching him with her arms crossed and her usual little grin on her face.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, trying to smile for her. She entered his room and came to him. Taking both of his hands in hers, she lifted his wrists to her lips and gently kissed his scars.

The real smile finally came.

“He saved my life, you know?” Michael said. “Father S did.”

Nora pulled away and sat on the bench in the big bay window.

“Did he?”

Michael nodded. “Not just that night when he found me. Telling me about himself, about you…that helped more than anything.”

“Did he ever tell you how he saved my ass?” Nora asked, crossing her lithe legs.

“No.”

“Well, he does try to keep my reputation as sterling as possible. One of the labors of Hercules obviously. Right after I met Søren, I got into some trouble. Almost went to juvie.”

Michael boggled at this news. “For what?”

“My mom thought she’d married a mechanic.” Nora leaned back against the wall. “Nice blue-collar husband for a girl from a big, poor German Catholic family. Not really a mechanic it turned out. More like he ran a chop shop with mob connections.”

“Holy shit. Your dad was in the mob?”

Nora shrugged. “Not in it really. Just of it. He was in and out of jail. Always owed some dangerous somebody money. Mom tried to keep me away from him but it’s hard for a Daddy’s girl to tell her father no when he calls and says he needs her help. Let’s just say I was a little too good at the family business.”

“You got arrested stealing a car?”

Nora held up one hand and spread out her fingers.

“Five cars?” Michael asked, aghast.

“They caught me on the fifth one. I was on quite a roll that night. Nobody suspected the fifteen-year-old girl skulking around Manhattan in her Catholic school uniform was out for their Porsche. I looked so innocent. It was the perfect disguise.”

“Innocent? You?”

Nora stared at him a moment before composing her face into a blank expression. She widened her eyes, fluttered her eyelashes and bit her bottom lip like a nervous child. She suddenly looked fifteen, sweet and scared.

“Damn,” Michael breathed.

“Oh, yeah,” she said, her face returning to normal. “I can do innocent. That look worked on everybody—Mom, Dad, cops…everybody except Søren. He saw right through it. He sees right through everything.”

“I’ve noticed.”

“I was sitting in the police station in an interrogation room. Fifteen years old, and the priest I’ve met all of twice before comes in and unlocks my handcuffs…with his own personal handcuff key, I found out later. He sat down across from me and waited, not saying a word, until I met his eyes. He said he could get me out of this but I would have to do everything he told me to do.”

“For how long?”

“That’s what I asked him. He said, ‘Forever.’”

“What did you say?” Michael asked, fascinated by the image of a fifteen-year-old Nora trying to save herself from juvie by making a desperate deal with the mysterious priest.

“You’ve met him. What do you think I said?” she asked and winked at him. “But enough about me and ancient history. How are you?”

“I’m okay. Griffin’s nice,” he said and immediately regretted it. Where the hell had that come from?

“He is. Very,” Nora said, staring at him long and hard. Michael looked at the floor and studied the scuff marks on the white tips of his Chuck Taylors. “I’m glad you like him. He and Søren do not get along.”

“How come?”

“Neither of them will tell me. If you can find out from either of them, I’ll give you anything you want.”