The Mistress (The Original Sinners 4)

“Almost nothing scares Søren,” Nora continued. “Only the people he loves being in danger, which is why he let Kingsley go. Being with Kingsley scared even Søren. The last thing he wants is for anything bad to happen to me or King.”

“How convenient, then. I hope he’s terrified right now.”

“I can guarantee he’s never been this scared in his life.”

“Good,” Marie-Laure said, laughing. Kingsley closed his eyes tight. His sister’s laugh...it hadn’t changed at all.

“And he loves Kingsley. Deeply. More than even Kingsley realizes, more than Søren will ever tell him.”

Kingsley’s eyes shot wide open.

“My husband has an interesting way of showing it.”

“It’s the only way he can show it. After our night together, I curled up in Søren’s lap in the back of Kingsley’s Rolls Royce. I asked Søren if he still loved Kingsley. He said yes.”

You still love him, don’t you?

Yes. But you must know it takes nothing away from us, away from my love for you, any more than my love for you takes anything away from what I feel for him. Not that he understands that.

I get it. I do. Does Kingsley know how you still feel?

No. It’s for the best.

You don’t want him to know, do you?

Telling him that I still love him and then refusing to be with him? That’s a sort of sadism even I won’t touch. Please don’t tell him. Even tonight...I went too far.

I won’t tell. I’ll never tell.

It’s better he and I...we should be friends only. It hurts him but it would hurt worse to tell him I love him and still keep myself from him. At least this way perhaps he’ll feel free to find another.

So that was it. The truth. The dark and beautiful truth. Søren still loved him, had always loved him, would always love him. But he’d feared inflicting irreparable harm and so had kept Kingsley at arm’s length all this time. It hurt to know the truth and yet it was the sort of pain he most relished—pain inflicted by love. Now he had the truth in his heart, he’d never felt so free.

“You can’t imagine how hard it is to be a sadist with a conscience,” Nora continued. “Søren worries if he’s with Kingsley he’ll hurt Kingsley. He worries that if he’s with Kingsley he’ll hurt me.”

“He should worry. I’m living proof of that.” Marie-Laure laughed, a cold mocking laugh. He hoped she laughed like that when he put a bullet in her heart. And he would put a bullet in her. All this time he’d known Søren still desired him, still longed to use him as he had during their days in school. He thought the priest held back out of love and loyalty to his Little One. Kingsley never considered Søren didn’t touch him out of love for him, out of fear of harming him beyond what even he could take.

He couldn’t quite believe it and yet he knew Nora didn’t lie. She had no reason to lie and every reason to tell the truth.

Søren loved him. Still loved him. And had loved him all this time. His heart reeled, his head spun. Dreams he thought dead and long-buried came back to life again. Hope resurrected itself. He knew he had to do something, anything, to honor this knowledge.

He’d get Søren’s property back to him. That’s what he would do.

Marie-Laure had chosen her room well. No door from the servants’ passageway led into it.

He retreated down the servants’ hallway and entered the kitchen through the pantry. Upon reaching the hallway, he peered down it, waiting for the right moment to proceed. He pulled his gun from his shoulder holster and checked the clip one last time. Søren had said to do nothing that would put himself into mortal danger, do nothing that would put her into mortal danger. A nice thought but being born gave everyone a death sentence. Why fear the inevitable?

From the end of the hallway he heard a commotion. One man and then another disappeared into the room. Quickly and silently he sprinted down the hall and hid himself outside the door in the shadows. There she was, his sister standing with her back to him. After all this time, she still had the same graceful neck, the same thin dancer’s build. On the floor lay someone, a body. A man stood next to Marie-Laure, his back also to the door, blocking Kingsley’s view.

“Feisty bitch,” the man said. “She’s stronger than she looks.”

Another man knelt on the floor at Nora’s head and checked her neck for a pulse. She apparently still had one.

“It took you two long enough to get in here,” Marie-Laure said, her voice raspy and strained. She held a gun in her hand. So did the man. A Taser lay on the bed. Both of them had their weapons pointed at an unconscious Nora on the floor.

“You wanted to be alone with her.”

“I thought she was tied up. How did she cut through the ropes?”

“No idea. We checked her for everything.”

Kingsley glanced down and saw a glint of silver on the floor—a simple razor blade. So that’s what Nora had used to cut through the ropes. It must have gotten knocked from her hand during the struggle and landed by the door. He crouched down and picked it up, slipping it into his back pocket. From his low post on the floor he watched and listened.

“When will she wake up?”

“Soon.”

“Tie her up. And do it right this time.”

Three shots would be all Kingsley needed. The back of the guards’ heads. The back of Marie-Laure’s head. The men, whoever they were, had the look of mercenaries about them—hired killers, completely disposable. But there...there she was, his sister, only ten feet away from him, and she had no idea he stood looking at her back.