Page 176 of Heartless Sinner

We stepped through it, and I recognized the corridor on the other side.

The Fawn Quarters.

“Your room is beside Blair’s,” Brooks explained as we passed doors.

Last time I had been here, he hadn’t exactly given me a tour. He’d shoved my ass into a suitcase.

He stopped outside one of the doors and scanned his ID again. I needed to figure out how to score me one of those cards with the same access he had.

The lock clicked, and he stepped aside, motioning for me to go inside.

My Fawn room was exactly how we’d left it.

A series of yawns left me as Brooks shut the door and opened the nightstand drawer.

He pulled out another ID badge and handed it to me. “This is yours.”

I ran my finger over the saint’s halo printed on it. “Does it have access to everything yours does?”

He plucked the badge from my hand and tapped it against my nose. “You wish, Princess.”

“You wish, Princess,” I tiredly mimicked.

He shook his head, deciding not to argue, and stripped out of his sweatshirt.

I studied the dark circles under his bloodshot eyes. Dried blood still speckled his skin from the man he’d killed on the road. He looked like he could collapse any second.

I went to the opposite corner of the room and changed into my pajamas.

“Come here,” Brooks said.

I wrinkled my nose. “Why?”

“Your fucking face.”

I touched my cheek, having nearly forgotten about the cut from the shattered glass.

He took my hand and led me into the bathroom. Quietly, he wet a cloth and cleaned the dried blood from my cheek. His touch was so gentle for a man who’d blown someone’s head off only hours ago.

When he finished with me, he wiped the blood from his own skin before stripping out of the rest of his clothes.

It wasn’t until we both slipped into bed that everything caught up with me.

I was truly living a series of unfortunate events.

I’d somehow survived my Initiation, being smuggled into the White House, sneaking into a club unrecognized, and then a freaking shootout.

This was way too much chaos for one person in such a short amount of time.

All because Brooks wanted me as his Fawn.

Brooks took the spot closest to the door, another quiet way of protecting me.

My body relaxed when he wrapped an arm around me and pulled me against his warmth.

For the first time in hours, I stopped thinking about gunshots, dead bodies, Initiations, or what might come next.

I shut my eyes but didn’t fall asleep until I felt Brooks’s breathing turn slow and steady against my back.