Sinful Hearts: Chapter 16

She’s so white that for a moment, I worry that the piece of shit cut her. That the paleness in her face and the blue of the veins across her neck are because she’s bleeding out from a wound I can’t see.

But that’s not it, thank God.

It’s just that she’s more terrified than I’m guessing she’s ever been in her life.

It’s “just” that.

I have no words for that.

She’s immobile, barely even flinching as I close her blouse and pull her to her feet. Her eyes have a lost, faraway look in them as she stares past me at Pascha’s body.

Wordlessly, I drag her into the bathroom and away from the grisly scene spread across her rug. That seems to help, because suddenly, she’s focusing again—blinking, looking confused, unsure how she got from there to here as I sit her down on the closed toilet seat.

Then her eyes lock onto mine.

“Hades…”

“Stay here.”

Her hand grabs my wrist in a death grip as I turn to walk out of the bathroom.

“I’ll be right back,” I growl quietly, lowering to look her in the eye. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Elsa has a bar cart in her office, like any self-respecting high-powered lawyer who never sleeps and runs on pure ambition and drive. Ignoring the searing pain in my shoulder from where the fucker sliced me, I pour a heavy splash into a tumbler and then bring it back to the bathroom.

“Drink.”

She blinks, shaking her head as she looks up at me.

“I—I don’t want a—”

“It wasn’t a request.”

She nods, trembling as her hands wrap around the glass and bring it to her lips.

“The whole thing,” I growl quietly. “And then I need you to stay right here.”

She nods again.

Back in the office, I work quickly, rolling up the rug with Pascha’s body in it, and doing a cursory sweep for any blood. This will never be a crime scene, so it’s not like I need to go out and buy bleach and a black light. Once I’m confident there’s no obvious blood or any other signs of what just happened here, I pull out my phone.

Kratos answers on the second ring.

“Hey, what’s up—”

“The ninety-ninth street development that Ezio Adamos’ crew is working on. They’re pouring the foundation tomorrow, yeah?”

The line is silent.

“Kratos, I need you to answer the fucking—”

“Do I even want to know who?”

“Probably not.”

He sighs heavily, slowly. “Yeah, first thing tomorrow at eight. I’m guessing you want me to tell the foreman not to look too hard in the pit before pouring?”

“Bingo.”

“

. Okay, yeah, consider it done.”

“Thanks.”

“Hades…you good, man?”

I glance first at the gash on my shoulder soaking my T-shirt with blood, then at the body rolled up in Elsa’s rug.

“I’m fine. Thanks, brother.”

Back in the bathroom, Elsa’s glass is almost empty, and Elsa herself is looking a lot better, with more color to her cheeks. She frowns, stiffening when she sees the blood on my shoulder.

“Is that from…?”

I shake my head. “That’s all me.”

Her frown deepens as she suddenly stands. “Let me see it.”

“Sit. You’re in shock.”

“And you’re bleeding, a ,” she throws back. “Let me see it.”

I lean against the sink, watching Elsa as she stands next to me and delicately pulls back the sliced-open T-shirt sleeve. She winces and makes a face as her eyes drag up to mine.

“Hades, you need stitches.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t really have time for stitches right now.”

“I can take care of it.”

My brow arches as I eye her incredulously. “Excuse me?”

Her lips purse. “I can do it, trust me.”

“

can sew up a knife wound.”

Elsa nods, turning and opening one of the vanity drawers. She pulls out one of those little sewing kits for putting buttons back on dress shirts. My jaw tightens, and she glances at me.

“You don’t believe me?”

“It’s more that, one you’re not a doctor, and two you just drank a triple shot of whiskey. But yeah, aside from that, no issues here. All golden.”

She smiles.

Good. If she’s smiling, it means the shock is wearing off.

“Sit,” she nods at the toilet seat. After I do, she clears her throat, her cheeks flushing. “Can you, uh…”

I peel my t-shirt off, smirking at the way she looks away from me.

“The patient’s ready, doc.”

She nods, swallowing nervously. It doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. But I wasn’t trying to be tough before: I genuinely have time to go get stitches right now—definitely not at a hospital, not even from the doctor that I know Cillian uses for circumstance like this.

Elsa washes her hands, threads the needle, and then dips it in the dregs of her whiskey to sterilize it. She leans down to my shoulder, takes a deep breath, and then gets to work.

I grimace, but watch as she deftly pushes the needle through the clean edges of the knife cut. She works slowly, but she clearly know what she’s doing. Which is…a little curious.

“How do you know how to do this?”

“My mother.”

“She was a nurse?”

Her eyes darken as she inhales deeply.

“My father used to…” Elsa grimaces. “He hit her a lot. Sometimes badly, and often something. She never wanted to go to the police or the hospital, because he was a dangerous man. That, and he always threatened to make sure she’d lose me if he ever got put away.”

Rage boils inside of me.

“I’m sorry.”

She shrugs. “It was a whole other lifetime ago.” She swallows, pushing the needle through once again. “So is the whole ‘show no pain’ routine like a macho thing you do?”

I smirk. “I’m just used to it. I box a lot.”

Elsa nods.

“That, and my oldest brother used to beat the ever-living fuck out of me when we were young.”

She frowns, glancing sharply up at me. “Atlas?”

“Yeah. I think you met him once, when you were still in England?”

She nods.

“He was an asshole, and I’m glad he’s gone, even if he was my brother.”

I have no idea how or why any of that pops out. I don’t tell anyone about how Atlas used to pummel me. And I’ve never put how I feel about his death into actual, out-loud words, even to my siblings.

Elsa finishes the last two stitches wordlessly. Then, with a nod, she uses a pair of nail clippers to cut the remaining thread away with a satisfied nod.

“There. All done.”

“Just like sewing a button back on.”

She smiles briefly, but it quickly fades as worry crosses her face and she turns to stare at the door to her office.

“So… Now what?” she says in a small voice that makes me want to stand between her and the world.

I sigh. “Now, we move a rug.”

There’s a zero percent chance that we can walk out the front doors of this building and onto Madison Avenue with a fucking body rolled up in a rug without getting arrested. Further complicating matters is the fact that most of the office has cameras set up—trust me, I know. I’ve broken into this place four times before.

In the end, I manage to jump from Elsa’s balcony to the one attached to the office next to hers, and then to the one next to . From there, I can reach the window-washers’ platform, where I snag a spare coil of rope, and then jump back to Elsa’s.

I use the rope to hoist the rolled-up rug from her balcony up to the roof of the building. From there, we take the maintenance elevator down to the garage beneath the building and deposit Pascha in his carpet casket into the trunk of my waiting car.

Yes, we.

Elsa’s silent as we drive uptown to the project on ninety-ninth street that the Adamos family—one of the Drakos family’s several vassal families—is overseeing. The one that is slated to have its foundation poured tomorrow, which will now and forever be this piece of shit’s final resting place.

“Stay here,” I murmur when I stop the car just inside the construction gates.

I half expect her to fight me on that, because why break with tradition. But Elsa does indeed stay put as I close the gates, pop my trunk, and then drag Pascha’s dead ass to the edge of the foundation pit. In he goes, carpet and all, followed by a generous scoop of dirt from one of the earth-movers nearby.

It’s done.

When I get back to the car, I shut the door, but don’t turn the engine on quite yet. Instead, we both just sit there in the dark, staring out into the city night.

Slowly, I turn to her. She’s still looking straight ahead. The glow of the dashboard illuminates her soft face and tight jaw.

She looks so vulnerable. So desperately in need of protection.

“That night, at Venom…”

I don’t to bring this up right now. But I can’t bring it up anymore, either.

Elsa swallows, chewing on her lower lip as she turns to face me with guarded eyes.

“Why did you jump me like that?”

She blushes deeply.

“I didn’t ”

“Potayto, potahto. Why’d you kiss me? Why’d you pick me?”

She swallows again uncomfortably. “I needed an outlet. You know, to blow off steam.”

“But why ,” I growl quietly.

She shivers, still chewing on her bottom lip as she looks away. “I… I don’t know.”

“I think you do.”

“I guess because your reputation told me you’d at least know what you were doing.”

I smirk. “I feel like I should be insulted.”

“But you’re not.”

She grins a little as she hazards a glance back at me.

“So, do you do that a lot?”

The smile drops from her lips.

“Do what?”

“Go to Club Venom, or any club for that matter, and fuck some random guy to blow off steam?”

Elsa’s face heats as her throat bobs up and down. “I…do what I need to—”

“I know I was your first, Elsa.”

The car goes silent, and she goes stock still, apart from the pulsing vein in her delicate neck and at her temple.

She doesn’t have to say a word for me to know I’m fucking right. Her sharp inhalation and the way her eyes bulge a little give her away.

I was the man to take her virginity and sink a hard cock into her for the very first time.

And, again, I can’t tell if that pisses me right the fuck off, or fills me with a savage, primal sense of .

Possessiveness.

Covetousness.

“Hades, please,” she laughs nervously. “I’m twenty-six years—”

“Stop.”

Her mouth snaps shut. Her eyes dart to mine, widening when she sees the raw hunger in mine, tinged with anger.

“I don’t like being used, Elsa.”

She laughs coldly. “Oh yes, I’m sure you positively being ‘used’ like that.”

“You knew who the fuck I was, and I was, and you let me fall right into that bed with you, without telling me you were a virgin.”

She bristles. “Would it have changed a single fucking thing if I had?!”

“Yes!

“

We both got what we wanted—”

“Not quite.”

It just happens. I don’t think, it’s not planned, and I have no idea where to go from here. All I know is, one second she’s talking and I can’t stop staring into her eyes, and the next second I’m grabbing her face in my hands possessively and kissing her like she belongs to me.

Because she .

Elsa moans into my lips, whimpering before she suddenly pulls back with a gasp. Her hand comes up, her fingertips running softly over her puffy lips as her eyes lock on mine.

“What are you doing?” she breathes, whimpering once more when I cup her jaw again.

“Taking what’s mine.”

Her eyed widen and her cheeks heat.

“I—Hades, I’m not yours—”

“Yeah, you keep telling yourself that.”

My mouth crushes to hers again.

Fiercely. Violently. Unapologetically.

And this time, I won’t be stopping anytime soon.