Page 31 of Craving Sin

His questions are valid. I don’t always love the things I do, but that doesn’t mean I won’t do them. It’s who I was raised to be, who I will always be. That doesn’t mean I revel in it. That doesn’t mean there aren’t times I wish things were different, that I don’t have regrets. That I don’t know Moira deserved better, and Cillian deserved better. It’s why I gave him the chance to get out, why he will always have that chance, and nothing and no one will stand in the way of me giving it to him.

“I don’t have any illusions about who I am. There’s no choice but to live with it.” I step away. “I’ll be setting the alarm on the house; a door opens, I’ll immediately be alerted. You’ll stay in the same room as me. If I leave the room, you’re cuffed.” I hold his gaze with mine, making sure he sees how serious I am when I add, “Don’t get any wild ideas about trying to fight back…and if you do, you better hope like hell you kill me, because if you don’t, there is no describing the way you will suffer.”

Abbott clears his throat. “I hate you.”

His words land sharply, like a kick to the chest, but I don’t flinch, don’t move, don’t feel really. How can I? “I would expect nothing less,” I say. “Now, come on. I need to eat.”

I turn away from him, heading back toward the door. A moment passes, then another and another, before I hear Abbott following behind me—the ache I have no business feeling still lingering in my sternum.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Abbott

This man is evil.

What I don’t understand is why I keep being surprised by it.

From the moment we met, there has been no denying who he is—what he is—so why do I keep expecting something more? Something better?

I follow Rian into the kitchen, but when we arrive, he points to one of the kitchen chairs and says, “Sit.”

“Despite the collar on my ankle, I’m not a dog, and I thought you weren’t cuffing me again?”

“I’m not. I’m making breakfast.” He ignores my comment about the collar he has me in—though I’m grateful it’s not around my neck—and points to one of the chairs again.

“You can only use one arm, and you’re still healing from being shot. Maybe I should be the one to cook.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t be so stubborn and should just sit the fuck down.”

“I’m the stubborn one?” What in the hell is wrong with this man? I’m not the one insisting on doing things I have no business doing.

“Would you be satisfied sitting around and not doing anything for yourself if the situation were reversed?”

I open my mouth to reply, but don’t because, no. I absolutely wouldn’t. I’d be going stir-crazy too. It’s one of the reasons I work so much, but that’s beside the point.

“That’s what I thought,” Rian continues, as though he knows me well enough to understand this about me. Somehow, he does know it, though.

“We’re not alike.” Maybe that’s not what I should be focusing on, but I feel the need to say it. I can’t be anything like this man, even if it’s in the smallest of ways.

“Oh, hit a nerve, did I?” he asks, a smirk on his lips. It’s almost…playful, which doesn’t make sense at all. That hasn’t been who he’s shown me he is, and there is nothing to be playful about right now.

“Fuck you.”

“Language, Doc. Now sit down before I tie you to the fucking chair.”

I growl in response, but do as he says.

“Do you like scrambled eggs?” His question reminds me of how he’d also asked about my food allergies before.

“Yes. Sometimes you don’t make any sense.”

He shrugs as if he has no thoughts about it, one way or the other. Does he get off on sometimes being nice to someone he plans to kill?

I watch as he uses one hand to get a bowl from the cabinet, sets it down, then grabs the eggs from the fridge. He pulls one out, then looks at it and his hand, an unexpected chuckle falling from my lips. “It might be a little hard to crack the eggs with one hand.”

“Fuck off,” Rian replies.

“Or, you know, I can crack the eggs for you before you go back to being a macho man who doesn’t need any help.”