Page 1 of Cherished by the Sinners (Sinners Never Die #4)

Darlene

T hey were watching her again.

It should have been creepy, two very large men staring at her, yet there wasn’t any threat in their body language.

Darlene Tallman knew all about men who issued threats with just a look.

Their angry eyes, cold sneers, and jittery hands—excited by the prospect of hurting someone who couldn’t possibly fight back.

These two didn’t look like that. The expression on their faces was... concerned. Oh, they tried to hide it, but she knew the difference between worry and menace.

She wished she knew why they were concerned about her.

Was it personal or professional?

They didn’t talk much, seemed to communicate mostly with heavy stares, frowns, and a whole lot of hovering.

She wanted to ask if they... liked her or if they thought she might leave, go back to her life on the streets.

Ha ! She was never going back to her old life.

She’d been hurt so many times. Betrayed so many times. Nearly died this last time. Now... she was trying something new: caution. She was tired of men telling her what to do, using her however they wanted, and ending up with nothing and no one.

She was done with being a doormat.

Done.

If they didn’t want to talk to her, to tell her their concerns, well... she wasn’t going to ask.

Darlene finished checking her housekeeping cart to ensure she had everything she needed for her shift at one of the most exclusive hotels in New York City.

After one last glance at the two men, who stood silently near the exit of the housekeeping supply section of the hotel maintenance floor, she pushed her cart past them.

“Good morning, Mason, Magnus,” she said in a quiet voice in their general direction.

“Good morning, Darlene,” they replied in unison, their deep, dark voices in sync.

A shiver of pleasure ran up her spine.

Don’t be stupid. They’re polite to everyone .

They wouldn’t be interested in her anyway, not with her sexual history. Three years of sex work on the streets of New York left her with a lot of scars, some visible, some not.

The two men knew about it all.

They followed her to the elevators, as usual, and watched as she got into a car to go up to her assigned floor. They didn’t say anything more, they just... watched. Watched with an intensity that was as physical as a touch.

It took a few seconds after the elevator doors closed and she began to go up before she could fully relax her shoulders and fan her face. Mason and Magnus Breznik were the hottest men she’d ever seen in her life.

The identical twins stood well over six feet and had shoulders to match their height.

They kept their hair shaved on the sides, but longer on top.

Their dark hair had a natural wave to it that made her hands itch to touch and stroke.

They had the lightest blue eyes she’d ever seen.

The first time she’d seen Mason’s eyes she’d been so surprised and fascinated she’d stopped talking in the middle of a sentence and hadn’t been able to start speaking again until he was out of sight.

If sex appeal was a power source, they’d be a nuclear power plant.

Despite their size, they didn’t frighten her, not much anyway. But she had been scared for them. She’d come across them in the lobby a couple of weeks ago covered in blood. Mason had been shot. He said he wore a vest, but still, shot .

They’d been so kind to her, and it wasn’t the two-faced kindness she got from most men.

The kindness that went away the second you said, no .

During one scary moment, they didn’t ask her for anything, they didn’t take anything either, they just held her between them until she calmed down, then stashed her in their suite.

Once the confrontation—the sheer stupidity in the lobby—was over, they’d come back and escorted her to her own room.

She’d been grateful, relieved, and mystified by their behavior.

One moment, they acted like two men who wanted her, touching her with desire on their faces, and carrying her off to safety.

Then they backed off so hard, she wondered if they finally remembered she’d been a prostitute for three years.

Or maybe they liked a different type of woman?

Someone taller with self-confidence and an education?

She loved to read, but hadn’t finished high school.

Whatever the reason, they just watched her. They didn’t talk to her or come too close to her. They watched.

It was pissing her off.

And there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it.

The elevator arrived at her assigned floor, dinged, and the doors opened. Before she could start pushing her cart out, a human tornado whirled into the space.

“Darlene, good,” the tiny woman who was her boss said. “I need you to go up to the larger suites today.”

Louise Marabell, the head of Housekeeping, determined where each of her staff worked in the hotel. But the larger suites on the upper floors of the hotel were reserved for staff with more seniority than she had.

The tips were amazing.

She was the newest member of the Housekeeping staff. She should be the last person on the list.

“Why doesn’t anyone want to work those rooms?” Darlene asked, in a hesitant tone.

Louise stared at her, then sighed and pushed the button for one of the higher floors. “The guests in those rooms are a little... odd.”

“Odd, how?”

“They follow the cleaning personnel around the suite.” She waved Darlene’s next question away.

“No, they don’t touch anyone, they just follow them around.

And one of the Japanese guests tries to make conversation, but it’s not.

.. normal conversation. It’s a little weird.

Could you give it a try? If it bothers you, you don’t have to stay. ”

Darlene had met and dealt with the worst humanity had to offer.

She could handle weird.

“No problem,” she said with a shrug. “I actually prefer to know where a guest is if they’re in the room.” Getting blindsided by some asshole too many times did that to a person.

“Thank you,” Louise said with a huge smile. “Please see me before the end of your shift, I’d like to know how things go for you.”

“Sure,” Darlene replied with a small smile.

The elevator dinged and the door slid open.

“Call my cell if you need anything ,” Louise said as Darlene pushed her cart out of the elevator car.

Darlene nodded and smiled, but no matter how strange the people were, she wouldn’t call. She needed this job. Only a few weeks ago, she’d been halfway to dead and living on borrowed time.

Then a miracle happened. Her friend Samantha had shown up on the street with her boss—who was also her boyfriend—and they’d thrown her a lifeline.

A respectable job in one of the fanciest hotels in New York.

They had employee housing and freaking medical benefits.

Every other employee she’d met said the same things to her.

The Brezniks were the best people to work for in the whole city.

The Brezniks took care of their employees in ways no other employer did.

The Brezniks didn’t allow the abuse of their employees.

All she had to do was tell the cops about the man who had tried to kill her. A man who had cut a fucking map into her back with a knife.

In the hall in front of her, the nearest door opened and two people stepped out. This was the first room she was assigned to clean, so it was nice that she didn’t have to knock and interrupt their morning.

She’d seen both of them before in the lobby, and again in one of the hotel’s large conference rooms. They were part of a group of Japanese tourists. Important people given the personal attention Anna Breznik had given them.

Darlene stopped her cart and bowed to them. “Good morning.” She didn’t come out of the bow until after they’d returned her good morning with one of their own.

She’d lived in Japan for two years when her dad had been stationed there. Join the Navy, see the world didn’t just apply to the sailor, but the sailor’s family as well. Her Japanese was rusty though.

“I must clean your rooms,” she said, speaking more slowly than she normally would. “May I go inside?”

When her first pimp realized she spoke a little bit of several languages, she’d ended up with a lot of out-of-town Johns. Who knew being a sex worker would provide lessons on how to get along with people whose first language wasn’t English?

The man and woman stepped back.

“Of course,” the man said. He extended an open hand toward the door.

“Thank you,” Darlene said with another quick bow.

She pushed her cart into the room.

It was a large suite, so she was standing in a living room with a couple of couches, chairs, and one loveseat.

There was a large TV mounted on the far wall between the doorways to two of the bedrooms. Two more bedrooms faced them from the other side of the room.

Each pair of bedrooms shared a bathroom.

There was also a small kitchen area immediately to the left of the door to the suite.

She left her cart with a pocket full of garbage bags, and went around to pull and replace each garbage bag in the suite, all six of them. The male followed four paces behind her the entire time. The other eight people in the room watched her silently from their seats on the furniture.

She could see why other people found their silence and attention strange, but she liked the quiet.

No one was calling her names, yelling at her, or swearing at her.

Their attention was curious in nature. Their heads were tilted slightly to one side or the other, as if she were doing something interesting and mysterious.

She’d been confused so often in her life, she knew just how they felt, trying to adjust to another culture whose behavior and expectations were so different from your own.

She relaxed more and more as she finished with the garbage and moved on to cleaning the bathrooms.

She didn’t even notice that she’d begun humming under her breath and bopping her head in time with the song until the man following her said, “You are... singing and dancing?”

She stopped wiping out the sink to look at him. “Yes. I’m sorry if I offended you. I’ll stop.” She gave him a small bow.

“Oh,” he said, also bowing. “No offense taken. Your voice is... good. I was surprised.”

“Surprised?”

“Yes,” he glanced over his shoulder at the rest of the suite, probably checking with one of the other guests. “The other cleaning people were... uncomfortable. You are...” He glanced away, mentally searching for the right words, “Light, your spirit is light and happy.”

“I am happy,” she said, then caught her breath, because she was happy . For the first time since she ran away from her horrible family, she was truly happy.

He studied her for a few more moments. “You are not... afraid?”

She snorted, then covered her face with her hands as heat crept up her cheeks. “I’m sorry, it’s just that...” How was she going to explain this? “Your curiosity is understandable. I’m a stranger in your space, your safe place. Your interest in what I’m doing is natural.”

The man considered that for a few seconds. Then he stepped closer to her. Only one step, but she could tell he was doing it to see how she would respond. His face was alight with inquisitiveness and nothing else.

“Now?” he asked.

He wanted to know how she responded if she perceived a threat.

She almost laughed, but managed to keep it to a smile. This was the most polite threat she’d ever encountered. “There is another reason why I’m not afraid.”

His eyes widened slightly and he almost seemed to quiver in anticipation. “What is it?”

“I work for the Breznik family,” she said, surprised at the level of pride she heard in her own voice. “They do not tolerate... harm to their people. If a guest hurt me, they would be punished.”

She didn’t know how, but she knew it right down to the marrow of her bones that it was true.

“Ah.” The man smiled and nodded. “And so you are safe.”

“Yes.”

Someone in the living area said something in rapid Japanese. Darlene only understood one word. Samurai .

“Samurai?” she asked.

It was the man’s turn to blush. “My companion thinks that the Breznik family has a responsibility to their people and their people to them. Like in the time of the Samurai. It is an honorable relationship.”

She thought about that for a second, reviewing the interactions she’d had and witnessed between hotel employees and the Brezniks. There was respect there on all sides.

“Yes,” she said.

The man nodded again, then backed away a few steps. She went back to her cleaning.

She finished that side of the suite, tidying the bedrooms and making sure everything was stocked.

Then moved to the other side of the suite and began with that bathroom.

She was halfway through it when there was three very loud knocks at the door.

They were so forceful, she could feel the vibration in the sink counter.