Page 70 of Craving Sin

“No. I want you to find out who the fuck wants him dead, though.” I turn to the others. “Clean this mess up for me. Get rid of the bodies.”

“You got it, man.” Finan’s looking back and forth between me and Conan like he’s trying to put the pieces together on what’s going on.

“I’m bringing him home,” I tell Conan. “He’s under my protection now.”

Without another word, I run for the door.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Abbott

“Abbott! Get up!”

I jolt up in bed at the sound of Rian’s voice in the dark. I was in a deep sleep, my head now foggy as I try to squint to see in the dark and sort through whether I imagined Rian’s voice or not.

The room brightens with the glow of the light, making my eyes burn, and there he is, coming through my bedroom doorway—hair messy, looking ragged, splatters of red on his white, button-up shirt.

“Are you hurt? What happened? You’re bleeding.” I scramble out of bed, head clear now. Once my brain clicks into emergency mode, I’m no longer tired and sluggish. I’ve needed to be able to do that in my career, and my body knows how to flip that switch by now.

He stills, looks down at himself—at the blood on his shirt, his bruised and swollen hands…and the dried blood there too. When our eyes meet again, I know what his are telling me.

That’s not his blood.

Rian isn’t hurt.

Rian hurt someone else.

“Oh, Rian. What did you do?” I ask, not moving close to him but not walking away either. He’s not here to hurt me. I don’t believe he will ever hurt me, if I’m being honest. Not unless I threatened Cillian’s safety. I don’t even believe he would hurt me for himself anymore.

Because he cares. Because in some way, even if it’s not the same way I feel, Rian does care about me.

“I did what I do. Pack some shit. You’re coming with me.” He moves toward my closet as if he owns the place, but then, he sneaks in freely too, so I don’t know why I act surprised.

“I’m fairly certain you don’t control me. You don’t get to break into my house in the middle of the night—bloody, I might add—and demand I leave with you.” Jesus, what the fuck is wrong with him?

He groans, changes directions, and walks into my en suite, turning on the faucets and scrubbing his hands.

Did he kill someone tonight or just hurt them? Whoever it was, I know they aren’t someone completely innocent. They live in the same violent world that Rian does, but two wrongs don’t make a right. If we all walked around doing whatever we wanted just because other people did, this world would be even more fucked up than it is.

“I can’t go with you like this,” I say. “You need to talk to me.” I’ve never seen him like this, but then, there are a million situations I’ve never seen Rian in. Somehow, I still know him though…know that whatever this is, it’s important. More than that, I know he’s scared.

Is he on the run? Is someone else after him? There are too many possibilities.

He turns off the water and dries his hands.

I’m not sure he’s going to answer me, but then he’s stepping closer, not stopping until I can feel his breath when he speaks. “I did what I do,” he says again. “We found the men we thought put a hit out on me. We strung them up. I beat them, tortured them. I made them bleed, and every time they passed out from the pain, I started over again. Is that what you want to hear?”

I flinch, because it really isn’t. “No, but I needed to hear it.” Pretending Rian is someone other than who he is won’t change anything. If I’m going to love this man, I should at least be able to not hide from who he is. “Why are you here?”

He draws back, just the slightest bit, so little that I’m not even sure if I saw it at first, but the way his eyes blank over, it’s impossible not to see the mask fall into place—the one that says he’s hurt and trying to hide it.

Still, my question is important. He can’t just come into my house making demands of me, certainly not after he just killed people.

“Toward the end, when we finally let them speak, they told me that word on the street is the hit wasn’t for me at all.”

“Then who…” My words trail off as it clicks into place that there had only been the two of us there that day. If they hadn’t been there for Rian, then… I laugh. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. Who would want me killed?”

I walk over and sit on the edge of my bed. It’s not until then that I remember I’m naked. That I’m so fucked in the head over this man that I’ve been sleeping naked in hopes he would come to me again and fuck me. How pathetic is that?