Page 46 of The Shadow Sanctum

A sound skitters from his mouth. A breath… A grunt…

A laugh.

My head turns as his laugh grows bold, a light chuckle vibrating his chest. He runs his hand through his hair and squeezes water onto the rock.

“What?” My voice is harsher than I mean it to be.

A faint tan line on his third finger catches my eye as he rolls his wrist. I’m surprised Luna didn’t notice it. “Do you not see the irony of this?” He waits a few beats. “You don’t, do you? God, you’re a fucking sociopath.”

Something tightens in my chest.

Sociopath.

Even the newly initiated women on the island weren’t so careless with that word. Thirty years passed without a single person throwing it around, and yet for a year it’s all I’ve heard. Until now, it’s been easy to dismiss as ignorance—how could a stranger know anything?

But Angel and I have known plenty of sociopaths. In the business world, and in a place like the island, they’re hard to miss.

He knows what a sociopath is.

I clear my throat and go back to warming my hands.

“You use me for years to help build your fucked-up empire. You send a contract killer after my wife. You kidnap her eighteen-year-old niece. You tie me up, set my house on fire, and leave me to die. You have my wife kidnapped again. Again… And you have the goddamn nerve to save my life.”

I stare at the fire, watching it whip the air as it crackles. “I never meant to hurt you.”

“I know, Sawyer,” Angel says without a second of hesitation. “That’s what makes you terrifying.”

I drag my feet from under me and flex my numb toes toward the fire.

“They told you to keep me alive, didn’t they?” Angel asks with a tone just shy of desperate. As if he needs the reason.

“Aurelius would like it if you came back alive. Luna wants me to extract your bank account information and kill you.”

“And you’re listening to Aurelius…”

My jaw tightens as I snap my gaze at him. “No, Angel, Jesus fucking Christ, can I not just save your life because I want to? Could it be that I’m not lying my ass off when I say you’re family? My only family? Do you even consider that a possibility?”

“Yes,” he says with a calm voice and a straight face. So matter-of-fact, it’s sobering. My shoulders shrink an inch.

“But I have more family than just you now.” For a man who almost froze, he hardly looks cold as he leans forward over his knees. His lips are blue, but the arms crossed over his thighs never tremble. “And I have to protect them. It terrifies me to think it’s you I’m protecting them from. I know what you’re capable of. I know how manipulative you can be.” He flicks his eyes over my face. “Do you think I want to be afraid of you?”

I look away.

Afraid of me.

For a moment, I let the idea fester. Let the heat spread up the slopes of my neck and rest behind my ears. But it’s hard to question his logic when I know what he means. He’s smarter than me, taller, stronger, ruthless, and…

Malleable.

I wish I could stop myself from shaping him.

“I love you like a brother, Sawyer… I just don’t trust you.”

“Then how can I prove to you that you can? Tell me what to do to earn your trust.”

Angel doesn’t notice when I cringe at my own words—lines I’ve used a hundred times. Lines that, miraculously, work to unveil a person’s weakest walls nine times out of ten. Vulnerability commands vulnerability.

But I mean them this time.