Page 118 of Heartless Sinner

“Do you think I’d lie about that?”

I don’t know.

The frantic hammering of my pulse finally steadied.

My dad is alive.

I wanted to hug him—which was fucked up since he’d just made me kiss his cock through his pants and spat in my hair—but knew I couldn’t.

The cameras were watching, and Brooks had already broken character by telling me the truth.

The Sons wanted me to believe everything in this room was real. That was how they pushed their Fawns to the edge, and Brooks had just handed me one tiny piece of sanity to hold onto.

Sinclair was still dead, yes. That hadn’t magically become okay.

I hated Brooks for what he’d done to him, but killing Sinclair and killing my father belonged in two different places inside me.

Brooks stepped away, and the monster slipped right back into place. “Welcome to my world, my Fawn. This is as sane as it’ll ever be.”

The door opened, and another Son wheeled in a yellow commercial mop bucket.

I looked at the bucket. Then at the bloody floor. Then at Sinclair’s body.

You’ve got to be kidding me.

“Clean up this bloody mess for me,” Brooks ordered. “You can’t leave until there’s not one speck of blood on this floor.”

Both men disappeared through the door, leaving me alone with a mop, a bucket, and a dead professor.

You’re strong, Daphne.

You’re fucking strong.

I rolled the bucket over and started scrubbing without looking at Sinclair. It seemed I sucked at cleaning because instead of disappearing, his blood mixed with the water made nothing but a pale pink mess that only got bigger with every pass.

Great … I’m only making it worse.

The real problem was the dark pool still trapped under his body. There was no way to reach it without moving him, and unless Sinclair suddenly became a zombie—which would create an entirely new list of problems—I was going to have to do it myself.

“Fuck,” I whispered.

I held my breath to stop from retching, crouched, and grabbed Sinclair’s arm.

His skin was still warm.

I almost dropped him.

Don’t think about it.

Grunting, I rolled him onto his side, but his dead weight nearly took me down with him. I caught myself against the bloody floor, and because this night hadn’t humiliated me enough, the ends of my hair landed straight in the mess.

Ugh, of course.

Brooks’s spit wouldn’t be the worst thing I had to wash out of my hair.

I shoved the mop under Sinclair and scrubbed as far as I could reach. If Brooks complained about me missing a spot, I’d put this mop up his ass.

The TV came back on.