Monster: A Seven Sinners Novel

by A G Henderson

  A huge hand wrapped around my arm, jerking me to a stop.

  “Get off me.” I tried to pull away and made negligible progress. Unless almost pulling my arm out of the socket counted. “Are you deaf?” I stared down the hill into the night, refusing to look at him for fear that the dam at the backs of my eyelids would fail. This was his fault anyway. “I told you to let me go!”

  Monster sounded more curious than angry when he said, “Not until you tell me where you’re going. Did you miss the part where I said your buddies were gunning for your ass?”

  “Of course not,” I spat, hoping the vitriol in my voice would distract him from the elbow I threw in the direction I figured his face would be. Seeing as how he caught my elbow in the palm of his hand, my plan was a failure.

  Just like me at being a good daughter.

  He hummed and let me go. I didn’t question it. I just started walking again, retrieving my phone so I could find a cab or something to get where I needed to be.

  Monster raised his voice, and despite myself, I found my feet rooted to the ground. “Why won’t you ask me to take you? You’re obviously in a fucking hurry.”

  He was right, of course. But that was a risk I wasn’t sure I was ready to take.

  Monster was domineering, overbearing, a man used to getting his way without being told no.

  What were the odds I would be able to get him to drop me off around the corner and then go away?

  Zero. Might even be in the negatives if such a thing is possible.

  I chewed my lip, heart galloping against my ribs. No one knew about this part of my life.

  No one.

  I had gone to sometimes detestable lengths to make sure that remained true. Giving that information to Monster would be like giving him the key to my soul and hoping he wouldn’t hand it to the devil if the opportunity presented itself.

  For all I knew, he might do just that. I would never know until it happened. And the longer I debated, the longer something could be really, really wrong and I wouldn’t know about it because I was too damn busy being selfish.

  “Fine.” I turned around, sparing the slightest glance for his shirtless chest and bare feet.

  My breaths were turning to mist in the air it was so cold. There were already goosebumps making themselves known across his acres of visible muscle, but he kept standing there. A silent statue that waited for me to pass him so he could follow on my heels as he stomped towards the garage I’d seen earlier.

  Monster keyed in a long sequence on another keypad and the garage opened without a sound. I barely had a chance to notice the sleek, luxury vehicles tucked farther inside because the sporty-looking, cherry-red crotch rocket stole my focus.

  The paint job made the entire thing look glossy and wet, and the fat tires on each end added a bit of menace. It was a spectacle. Definitely more of one than I expected from a man who otherwise seemed pretty low-key.

  While I was distracted, Monster went into the trunk of the Range Rover and grabbed a t-shirt that he slipped over his head along with a pair of brown boots. He should’ve looked ridiculous. But when you were more than six and a half feet of carved, potent male, it was honestly hard to go wrong. Task done, he stalked towards me.

  I didn’t know what I expected him to do, and I took a step back in preparation.

  A demand, a kiss, an insult?

  The answer?

  None of the above.

  Monster threw his leg over the dangerous machine and cocked a brow at me.

  “You coming?” he asked, bringing the engine to life with a roar that rattled my bones.

  I looked him up and down, hardly noticing that my panic had receded. “Don’t you want a jacket or something?” Even as I asked, I slipped in behind him, wrapping my arms around his front. This close, I could breathe in his scent, and hormones went to war with everything else I was feeling.

  Namely, that this man was crazy, hot, and so much more than I could handle.

  “You didn’t even grab your wallet,” I added. “What if you get—”

  Monster chuckled, revving the engine so that the bike rumbled between my legs. “Don’t forget who runs this town, pussycat. But in case you need me to jog your memory, it certainly isn’t the cops. Where are we going?”

  My mouth dried out, but I managed to whisper my destination in his ear. His body tensed for a moment. I braced again, waiting for the questions to start pouring out. Except he only grabbed my hands with one of his and adjusted them so that they sat lower around his hips.

  “Hold on tight,” he said. “If I have to scrape your ass off the street, I’ll be...displeased.”

  Is that supposed to make me feel better?

  Before I could ask, he lifted his foot and took off.

  I’d compared his bike to a rocket, and that wasn’t far off. Monster raced down the hill and away from his sprawling home fast enough to make my hair whip behind me. Yet that was nothing compared to how he let loose once we hit the main roads.

  I held on for dear life, tucking the side of my face against his shoulder to avoid the wind lashing around us in cold gusts. Keeping my eyes open was impossible anyway. Not only were the pitch-black surroundings passing by too quickly for me to see anything, but the sting of the cold was like hundreds of tiny needles stabbing me even through my lashes.

  How Monster managed without so much as a helmet was a mystery, but he navigated as if this breakneck pace meant nothing to him. I’d been on bikes a few times before, but that didn’t stop me from nearly screaming the first time we banked around a sharp corner. I was sure what he’d said about scraping me from the pavement was going to come true.

  Then we were upright again, zipping along. I got a chance to remember that my lungs needed actual oxygen and not just the tiny sips of air I was taking.

  He didn’t try to talk over the roar of the wind, and I was grateful for it. As each minute passed, the pressure on my chest grew and grew. If I started screaming to be heard, I wouldn’t stop screaming at all.

  My emotions were a pressure cooker that had been left on too long without anyone there to lift the lid and let some of the steam escape.

  The darkness faded by increments as we approached the city proper and started cutting through. Monster didn’t slow down at all. I held onto him tighter as I waited for an eighteen-wheeler or some other vehicle to take both our lives. Yet there wasn’t so much as a horn that blew, even though I knew he had to be running lights.

  His abs tightened beneath my fingers, and I almost thought it was in response to me. Even with most of my brain consumed by panic, warmth suffused me, staining my cheeks. At least until the movement came again and I recognized it for what it was.

  Monster wasn’t flexing for my benefit. He was freezing cold and shivering because the dumbass had followed me without a second thought to what he was wearing. All because I was in a hurry.

  Why?

  Wouldn’t it have been just as easy for him to tell me to sit on my hands while he went back inside and grabbed something appropriate for winter?

  Idiot, I said in my head.

  But when I shifted closer to him, I imagined the heat in my body dancing out of my skin and finding his.

  Before I realized it, we were pulling up outside our destination. Monster stopped right in front of the entrance and kicked his stand, propping the bike up so I could climb off.

  After I slapped my thighs a couple of times to remind them that they weren’t jelly, I stomped ahead. A moment later, booted footfalls followed behind me.

  I turned with a hand on my hip and an order perched on my tongue. Monster grunted and kept on walking, blowing right by me. He didn’t bother holding the door as he swaggered into the lobby, leaving me to run to after him.

  “Stay here,” I said once I caught up and stopped in front of him.

  Again, he weaved around me, headed towards the front desk.

  I matched his pace this time, glancing at him from the corner of my eye. His cheeks, along wi
th the tip of his nose, were red from the cold. His hair was all over the place. I imagined mine was too. But he was the one holding his fists so tight I thought the skin around his pale knuckles would split.

  “Here.” Ignoring the funny looks the woman at the front desk was giving us, I tugged my hoodie over my head and handed it to him. This place was the cheapest thing I could find, but at least they had heat. I could survive for a bit.

  Monster looked like he wasn’t going to take it for a moment. I didn’t get a chance to analyze what made him change his mind and ball it up in one hand.

  “Ms. Hamilton,” the receptionist said, recognizing me and rising from her seat.

  The strained, fake smile on her face made me forget all about the man beside me who was about to find out my most coveted secret.

  “We tried to reach you earlier,” she continued. Without any of the drama it deserved, she said, “There was a bit of an...incident.”

  Fear and panic wrapped my body in a straitjacket, crushing my ribs and stealing the breath I needed to speak.

  She stared at me with forced sympathy and I wanted to scream at her to explain.

  To tell me everything was fine.

  To tell me my second heart wasn’t beyond my reach forever.

  Then Monster’s fingers trailed along my spine. They were freezing, and I jolted upright, but I didn’t step away. With each second of contact, my shoulders relaxed until I could swallow and form words.

  “Tell me,” I demanded.

  And it didn’t escape my attention that the same man who had infused me with his strength was smiling another of those rare smiles when I cut my eyes in his direction.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Josie

  Finding out Mom was alive released me from the worst of my burden. That bit of good news was the only thing that kept me from throwing a fucking fit while we waited in the lobby to be shown to her room.

  Monster had no choice but to walk behind me while we trailed slowly behind the elderly nurse. The hallways weren’t big enough to support his bulk walking side by side with anyone, even me. Still, I was very aware of his presence. Doubly so when he leaned down, nose brushing against my hair.

  “Give the woman a break,” he whispered. “She can’t go much faster.”

  I blinked, forcing myself to stop staring a hole in the nurse’s back. “Am I that obvious?”

  “Yes.”

  “I know the way. This escort is pointless.”

  “Then what are we waiting for?”

  I almost answered and bit my tongue instead. He could think what he wanted about my trailer and lack of material possessions, but admitting I was too poor to risk stepping on this establishment's toes wasn’t going to happen.

  He left me to my silence without prodding. I swallowed a groan when I found myself wondering why.

  It doesn’t matter. Stop hanging on his every action like a piece of tape and get it together.

  Doing my best to put the walking, talking wall of muscle out of mind, I followed the nurse without complaint. She was doing better than people her age who couldn’t walk, after all.

  When we reached the closed door to Mom’s room, the older woman turned and looked us both up and down. She paused on Monster for a moment, eyes chest level. I glanced to see what she was looking at, but it was obvious.

  His white shirt was stretched tight, leaving the tattoo that screamed his allegiance easily visible through the material.

  To her credit, she didn't run screaming. Her lips thinned, flashing her disapproval like a neon sign.

  “Be careful about the volume of your voices,” she said quietly. “She’s still a bit frazzled from what happened. Any unnecessary stress only makes things worse. You understand?”

  I nodded to keep from snapping that I’d heard this spiel a hundred times.

  She’s just doing her job. Be calm. Have patience.

  “If I may, sir,” she said to Monster. “It might be best for you to wait outside. We have coffee in the lounge. I can bring you a—”

  “No.” He folded his arms over his chest. “I go where she goes. No exceptions.”

  My head knew he was just being cautious.

  It was my heart that was getting confused, smudging lines that needed to be bright and obvious.

  Her lips became a slash so thin they nearly disappeared. I was so over this entire interaction. I pushed past her and opened the door gently so I could step inside. Monster’s silent presence shadowed me, making the already small room seem downright pathetic.

  Antiseptic stung my nose, the smell twice as potent as usual. There was a whisper of fabric behind me as Monster’s shoulders brushed against the walls. Tightness coiled around the base of my neck.

  Having him here made me look around the room with new eyes. I hated everything I saw.

  Because I was barely scraping by, I couldn’t do any better than this pitiful room with its cramped space and a TV that didn’t work when it was cloudy. This, for the woman who had given me everything I had ever wanted in life before a stupid disease poked holes in her mind.

  And what really burned was being unable to do any better.

  I knew she wouldn’t approve of the fighting or the stealing or any of the other things I had done to get us this far. And as I crept into the room, careful not to disturb her sleeping form on the bed, I wondered—not for the first time—how much of the woman I knew was still in there.

  If, somewhere in the recesses of her mind, she remembered the times I had admitted to my lifestyle and was disappointed in me.

  When I reached the bed, I dropped down to my knees on the faded carpet. Trembling fingers ghosted just over the bandage above her brow. The nurse had explained how Mom woke up startled and scared, so unaware of what was happening that she’d tripped in her haste to get away from the orderlies.

  The cut was a minor one. She barely stirred when I lightly touched the bandage.

  Knowing the injury was small didn’t lessen the urge to rip my heart out and offer it to her as an apology.

  “This is my fault,” I whispered to the mostly empty room.

  “How so?” Monster asked, and the careful neutrality in his voice almost made me flinch.

  I wet my lips and sat back, staring at Mom’s peaceful face. How long had it been just the two of us? Telling another person should’ve felt like an intrusion. A crack in the bond we shared that kept us safe from the rest of the world.

  Yet as the words started to fall from my mouth, there was only relief at the end of each one. A weight shifted and lessened for the first time I could remember. The beginning of a new bond that might bite me in the ass after this. But what else was I supposed to do?

  Give him the silent treatment after he brought me here in the cold without asking for anything in return?

  Maybe I wasn’t the perfect daughter I could’ve been had my role model not been taken from me.

  I wasn’t an ungrateful ass, either.

  Releasing a shuddering breath, I said, “She needs more help than they can offer here. Having a private nurse she could at least feel familiar with, along with a bigger, safer room, would go a long way to making sure things like this didn’t happen.”

  He didn’t ask why she wasn’t in a better facility already, and I was glad he didn’t. Any answer I might have would just make me feel worse than I already did.

  I was doing my best. Well-paying job opportunities weren’t looking for young women who had dropped out of high school and possessed no real skills other than beating peoples’ faces in.

  What he did ask was, “Who is she to you?”

  And I wasn’t surprised.

  It wasn’t like I was her spitting image or anywhere close to it. Her hair was dark where mine was honey-blonde. Her features were dainty and small, where mine were more in your face. Had her eyes been open, they would’ve been melted chocolate to my forest green.

  Not that those things changed my answer in the least.

  “She’s my mo
m,” I whispered, softly stroking her cheek. “She raised me, taught me, looked out for me in ways I never would’ve known to look out for myself. And just when we were going about our lives without a care in this whole, miserable fucking world, she started forgetting things.”

  Monster cursed. He moved deeper into the room until I could feel him lingering behind me. After a moment of hesitation—I felt safe in calling it that because I could see him shifting on his feet like he didn’t have all the answers for a change—he sat down on the floor beside me.

  His legs were too long to sit between the wall and the bed. The way he curled them to try and make room sent a grimace across his features. Then he saw me watching him and wiped it away. Monster spread my hoodie in his lap and leaned back against the wall. He stared up at the ceiling, not looking at me.

  Again, I was grateful.

  The sting behind my eyes I thought I’d gotten rid of had returned with a vengeance at his gesture.

  Sure, he had some motivation to keep me breathing that I wasn’t aware of. But keeping me alive didn’t have to involve this show of support. He could’ve leaned against the wall outside and ignored me until I came out again.

  My biggest secret was now in the palm of his hands and he didn’t seem to give a damn.

  I blinked rapidly, trying my hardest to keep the tears blurring my vision at bay. Crying in front of people was off-limits.

  That wasn’t me.

  I was stronger than that.

  I was—

  Monster shifted closer, shoulder bumping against mine.

  Did he know I would fall apart if he'd done any more than that, and he was trying to spare me? Or did he just not know how to deal with the emotional girl he'd fucked like an animal not long ago?

  “Sure you want to sit that close?” I prodded, unable to stop myself. My emotions were going haywire, and my inner bitch was coming out to play as a result. Anything to keep the hurt from reaching me. “I figured Sinners would be allergic to this kind of thing.”

  He scoffed. “You think wearing leather and packing heat makes us immune to going through painful shit?”

  “Certainly seems like it. I haven’t even been in this town that long, but I’ve heard about the uninterrupted string of victories that follow in the club’s path”