The Angel (The Original Sinners 2)

“Me?” Griffin laughed bitterly. “Me? I use people up and discard them? Are you blind? Are you deaf? Your precious Eleanor uses men like f**king tissues. One good hard blow and she tosses them out. Her editor? Her intern? Her thousand ex-lovers? Jesus Christ, Søren, even—”

Whatever name Griffin Fiske started to name went unuttered. And it all happened so quickly Suzanne couldn’t even reconstruct in her mind the series of motions she’d witnessed. She knew it began with Griffin pointing his finger at Father Stearns’s chest and ended with Griffin on the floor of the church with his arm pinned behind his back. Father Stearns had moved with such brutal force and efficiency Suzanne could only cover her mouth in shock.

“Griffin…” Father Stearns spoke the name with cold, calculating, utterly terrifying calm. “You are in God’s House. And Eleanor is His Child. And when you dare speak of her in my presence or in His, you will do so with the utmost respect. Are we understood?”

Suzanne could only stare at the scene. It appeared that if Father Stearns pulled on Griffin’s arm any harder, he would dislocate the shoulder. Griffin grimaced and took a pained breath.

“Yes, sir,” he finally said.

“Good.” Father Stearns released Griffin’s arm and stood up. Griffin quickly came to his feet. “Now shall we continue brawling like schoolboys? Or should we discuss this somewhere like gentleman?”

Griffin nodded. “The Circle?”

Father Stearns sighed heavily.

“If you insist.”

“I do. This ends tonight. You know what I want and who I want.”

“I do, in fact. Are you prepared to earn what you want?”

Griffin’s back straightened.

“I’ll do whatever it takes. Last thing I want is to cause that kid any more pain. Not the bad kind of pain, anyway.”

The kid? Suzanne thought that was an odd way to refer to Nora Sutherlin. From what little she knew of the infamous Griffin Fiske, he was slightly younger than Nora. And what the hell did he mean by the bad kind of pain? Was there a good kind of pain?

“Nor I. Which is why I set the conditions I do.”

“Fine. Let’s get this over with. I’m not going to waste another night sleeping alone if I don’t have to.”

Suzanne saw Father Stearns’s eyes narrow as Griffin stormed out of the church. However pure his feelings for Nora Sutherlin were, surely he didn’t want to hear about her in bed with some other guy. Obviously Father Stearns had considerable sway over her if Griffin Fiske had to come fighting her priest to be with her. That night at the rectory when he’d dropped his guard and talked about how he’d had to rescue Eleanor Schreiber from herself as a teenager, how he’d practically had to raise her after her home life imploded…maybe Father Stearns was to her exactly what he’d said he was—a father.

Father Stearns left the church and Suzanne collapsed into a pew, her heart still racing from the strange scene she’d witnessed. Father Stearns had nearly gotten into a fistfight with New York’s biggest trust fund baby over Nora Sutherlin. Bizarre… Suzanne had so many questions, but she apparently wouldn’t get to ask them that night. Why didn’t Father Stearns want Griffin Fiske and Nora Sutherlin together? Why did Griffin call her “the kid”?

And what the hell was The Circle?

* * *

Nora took Michael up to his bedroom and sat him down in the window seat. She ordered him to stay while she went to her room to retrieve something. When she came back, she found him up and pacing.

“So you’ve just given up following any of my orders, I see,” she teased as she sat on the bench in the window. “Hopefully Griffin will be able to train you better than I have.”

Michael blushed and collapsed miserably onto the bench across from Nora.

“Oh, God, I’m in love with a guy…” he groaned. “This sucks.”

“It also blows.”

Michael groaned again and Nora could only laugh at him.

“Aah…teenagers,” she said, reaching out for Michael and dragging him to her. He curled up in her lap with his head on her thigh. “Everything is life-and-death when you’re seventeen. Especially love.”

“It isn’t life-and-death?”

Nora closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the wall.

“No, it is actually. Life and death are less life-and-death than love is. When I fell in love with your priest, I felt as though I had this open wound. I was so raw, so tender. And it hurt. But I didn’t care. Love is the open wound that you hope never heals.”

“Love will hurt a shit metric ton if my dad finds out about this.”

“Your father is an ass**le, Angel,” Nora reminded him. “Why do you care what he thinks?”

Michael shook his head.

“He makes Mom miserable about me. Anything I do, he turns on her. He dumped us, divorced her, and he still comes around and gives her shit for every single thing he hates about me. And that’s a lot of shit.”

“Your father has terrible taste in sons.” Nora ran her hands through Michael’s long hair and brushed it off his forehead. “I’d be thrilled if I’d ended up with a kid like you.”

Nora gazed out at the manicured lawn and the empty driveway. Griffin probably wouldn’t be home until morning. God only knew what Søren would put him through tonight. Nothing truly terrible, of course. Nothing he hadn’t done to Nora a time or two. Just some mind-fucking and probably a hefty dose of pain. It would do Griffin good, actually. There was something to be said for fighting for the one you loved. Especially if the one you loved was a seventeen-year-old boy who didn’t think he deserved that love.