The Sins that Ruin (Obsidian Knights Secret Society #3)

25. Malone

TWENTY-FIVE

I’m not sure why I stay.

She’s already asleep; she was passing out as she said the words.

I hold her. I’m on top of the covers, she’s beneath them, so sweet and peaceful in sleep. I’d love to fucking say it was because she stroked my ego with the "Sir,” and this is a kind of aftercare.

I guess maybe it is, holding her like this, making her feel safe and protected.

But that’s not why I’m doing it.

Shit, I’ve slept in the same bed with women. Had relationships, I guess, if that’s what you want to call them. I don’t, but women do. I call it a mutual exchange of needs and desires until it’s over and done with.

With my fucking career, there isn’t time or space for someone else. I’m not like Orion. If I’m being honest, it doesn’t shock me he found someone. Mercer… maybe that was a little more surprising, but when I see him and Ivy, it’s so obvious they belong together. And someone like him, he likes everything meticulous. To him, the relationship is that.

To me, relationships are too confining, controlling, too neat at the edges even when they get messy inside. But this isn’t that. This isn’t anything like a relationship. For starters, this is full of so many lies I don’t know where to begin to unpack, even if I wanted to.

And for fuck’s sake, Scarlett’s father’s my focus, my goal. After I get the list for the client and the Knights, this—whatever the fuck this is—is done.

What the hell am I even doing, thinking any of this? I should be working out where to make my next move instead of indulging in the delights of Scarlett Hanlon.

But she’s soft and warm, and I don’t want to move.

I like holding her.

I could fall asleep with her in my arms. Easily.

Dangerously so.

I’m fucking holding her because she asked, and I like it. Her words twisted in me, around me, dragged me into her world. She wanted and I gave.

Who the fuck am I?

I stroke her hair and she murmurs something I don’t catch, turning toward me, fingers shifting on my bare chest. Awake, she isn’t sure if she trusts me, but in her dreams… yeah, she does. Implicitly.

Shit, I stay because I like being with her. I like her. I thought I hated her for who she was, or at least didn’t give a fuck about her, but I think I do.

Not because of that insane, intense, phenomenal session. It was more than sex; it was transcendent with me casting ropes, rigging them tight around her using my own style of Shibari.

Her orgasms, her reactions to the little bit of rope play I’ve done are so insane that I can see exactly how it’ll go when we do it properly.

The intricate knots and twisting and tying her into all sorts of positions… to do that properly can take hours. I want to do that for her.

Yes, I want to fuck her suspended in midair. But I also want to just bind her up in knots in the most exquisitely literal sense. The power dynamic of that, to have her absolute trust in letting me do that to her, is an aphrodisiac moving through my soul.

I take in a sharp breath. I can’t stay here. With her.

Slowly, I extract myself from her arms, slip out of the room, and walk down the hall. I unlock my study, about to step in when I think twice. I need to work, yes. But I also need to wipe her taste and feel from me. Because right now, she’s fucking everywhere. So I change and go for a long run.

When I return from the quiet streets of SoHo, I’m not tired, but the burn of the run makes me feel better, and it helped clear my mind. I shower quickly and head into my office.

The not tired thing’s a real bitch. Because after I finish with my work, I know I should sleep, but it feels a million miles away. So I grab the bottle of scotch and some cupcakes, intending to go into the living room. And yet my feet take me back to the master bedroom, where I peer in at her.

I stand there, lift the bottle to my lips, and take a pull, watching. She’s curled in on herself, the covers half-off, the pillow in her arms, and her hair a cloud of black around her.

Fuck me, it’d be so damn easy to put the bottle down, peel off my clothes, and crawl back onto the bed, maybe under the covers this time.

Skin on skin.

Not doing a thing but holding her against me, our bodies exchanging heat and?—

I shake my head and move away from the door. “Jesus fucking Christ, Malone. Get your shit together.”

My phone pings, and I pull it from my pocket.

It’s late, but no Knight keeps regular hours. Things happen in the dark depths of night, and whether they’re pleasure or work, it’s our time.

Present for you. It’s from Mercer. Had business out in Queens. Hooked up camera feeds on that dock.

“Yes,” I grumble.

I stab my screen.

Thanks.

I’m sure Smith called in that favor for me. We’ve set up other ones, but there must have been a lull, or… knowing Mercer, he made this happen right under the dock worker’s noses and they didn’t notice.

I really don’t care. I go into the study and pull up the feed, setting up my computer to show all the different ones.

While we don’t need a camera on Grant Hanlon’s place—too many people come and go, including delivery people, maintenance workers, and residents—we do. Just in case.

But the one on Dale Hanlon’s Sugar Hill residence is dark.

I roll back through the feed.

That fuckwit turned up in the middle of the night two nights ago, headed out in the early hours and then… nothing.

Did he go somewhere on business? I grab my iPad and check flights and the tracker on his car, but it’s parked at their main office where Grant comes and goes, as does their receptionist and various visitors, but not Dale.

I make a note to question Grant. Question fucking Scarlett, too.

I shoot off a text to Smith.

Eyes on Dale?

That’s your job, he texts back. But no. We’re still trying to get into the office on the dock. Got the feed?

Yep.

Grant isn’t happy having someone in his home, Smith texts back.

Grant can suck the big one.

I’ll speak to him. I click send.

Been checking into the foreman, he’s clean.

“Well,” I mutter. “I didn’t think he’d be a criminal.”

Not in that way, at least, but the book’s on my mind, because I can see him scribbling something down. It’s not every time. That goes on the iPad. The book only comes out on certain shipments, and I really, really want to get a look at it. Might be nothing. Could be something. And it’s the could be something that has my attention.

Thanks, I text.

Will keep digging. Anything new on your end?

Tonight, at the poker game, the guy who came in and watched for a while, then looked at Scarlett… eyed her. Not in a sexual way. It was weird, and I had to focus on the game and conversation around me, but I have no idea if she knew him, as in had seen him before or what. I make a note to ask her.

But I keep that to myself for now, until I get more information that might be useful.

It’s the problem with fucking a mark. Or fucking her. Dammit, she’s so in my blood, I let that slip. I should have pushed harder in the car after undoing her with the threat of giving her up as a party favor.

Not sure, I text. Some things to check into.

I tap my pen against the notebook I have out. I need to speak to Grant, give him a push. If his brother’s MIA for now, it stops me from sitting him down. I don’t want to pull that card yet.

My anger is not usually so out of control, but when something unexpected, like the person who ripped apart your family unexpectedly drops in your lap, someone you vowed to make suffer, anger becomes a raging fucking brushfire. But it’s coming. A talk with him is coming.

After I push Grant.

Because he’s the most desperate. He roped Scarlett into reaching out to me when his attempt failed.

And now someone’s threatening his daughter.

I think back to Smith’s text about Grant. Interesting that he doesn’t like the fact that we have security at his place. Maybe he doesn’t want criminals or shady people around his kid. Could be that. Or it could be he’s also been up to no good like his brother.

Someone has been up to no good. And it stands to reason it’s Dale. He doesn’t want help. Neither will give up the client list. I do understand that, it’s not helpful, but I understand. They work on the edge of crime; they move illegal shit. Illegal shit where they practice plausible deniability by not using names, but codes and numbers that I still need to crack.

I need to get the list, and I know it’s in one of their houses or at the docks.

Shit, maybe it’s even with the foreman.

But the plausible deniability thing also protects clients. Allows them to take on competing businesses.

My client wants the list to check out what the competition is up to. See what dirt they can get. And that’s their goddamn right.

I want that fucking list so I can kill Scarlett’s fuck of a father.

And kill whatever’s brewing between us, too.

A casualty of war.

She’ll get over it.

Of course, if there’s a whole lot of dirt, then she might get shunned, but she’s a rich little girl, and that means she’ll survive. Scarred and bitter in the aftermath, but I won’t be around to see it.

I take a big gulp of my booze.

On the feed, the dock looks busy. There must be a big shipment tonight because it looks busier than usual.

When I finish making notes and trying to make connections between the small pieces we have, I stretch my arms overhead. It’s heading toward five a.m. and I’m still not ready to sleep.

So I leave the feeds running, pull open a drawer in the desk, and take out a black velvet pouch and leather case of tools. I swing the light around to the top of my desk and spread open the velvet.

In it is a vintage Rolex. I’m not a Rolex guy, but the ones from the sixties are sexy things, and this one, I think is from 1962. A 6238 chronograph that isn’t working, and it’s scratched as fuck. I’ve replaced the band, and I can replace the glass, but I’m having trouble getting it working.

When I was fifteen, I started fixing them, an old watch guy I did odd jobs for showed me how, and he introduced me to the world of scamming a watch, of building a fake so well, I could make a shit ton selling the fakes. I did Piguets to Breguets and everything in between.

When I have time, I find old ones, vintage watches being sold for cheap because they’re no longer worth anything, and I fix them up.

It’s a weird hobby for someone like me, but it soothes my soul, and I like the craft of it, the time taken to get things working perfectly.

Shit, it’s probably why I like ropework so much. And the grift. It’s the chaos and pinpoint precision coming together in a glorious moment.

I get lost in my work, and it takes me a second to process what the noise is.

My phone’s buzzing, screen lighting up.

Orion.

I pick it up. “Something up?”

He doesn’t usually grace me with good morning calls.

“Yeah, man,” he says, voice grim. “You’re needed. Now.”

I stand up from the chair. “Where?”

“Grant Hanlon’s apartment. See you in twenty.”

I grab my phone and call for my car.

Then I get my Kimber and an extra round because I have no fucking idea what the hell I’m about to walk into.