Page 136

Eden

Sometimes a gun can solve your problems.

“Well, how are you doin’, Sullivan?” Sawyer calls out expansively beside us. “You have no idea how happy we were to get your call.”

“Oh, please,” Jasper mutters.

Dom grimaces at Sawyer’s back, then toward the Sinners, the satellite phone pressed tight to his ear as he listens to her. To Heather . Maybe she can stop this. We just need to...

“Stall,” I breathe, and I turn urgently to my brutes. “I need to get down there. Can someone come...?”

“Two should go,” Beau says worriedly, eyeing the deep circle of Sinners behind Alastair and Mateo’s gagged, kneeling figures.

I’m not entirely sure what difference having two of my brutes there instead of one will make if they do decide to attack, but now’s not the time to quibble.

“I’ll go,” Jayk says, straightening as he looks over at Dom, whose golden eyes are sharp and focused on a distant problem.

Of course he will.

He steps up every time Dom needs to step back now.

“Me too,” Lucky offers. His hair is tied back, and his face is lethally focused.

I nod my thanks and glance between Beau and Jasper. “Handle things here?”

I drop a significant glance down to Cole and Akira, who are still loitering at the base of our sentry post, and my brutes nod once.

Turning back over the edge of the wall, I interrupt Sawyer’s effusive explanation of the feast they’ve prepared.

“We’re coming down now, so we can talk more easily,” I call out as lightly as I can. The last thing we need is them shooting us. “Just give us two moments.”

Sawyer grins at me. “Now, that will save us some shouting. Let’s welcome them in.”

As I turn to the ladder, Sawyer claps me on the back like we’re the best of friends, and Lucky shoves between us a moment later, forcing him to drop his hand.

“Oops, sorry,” he says, not sounding sorry at all.

Lucky reaches out to help me onto the ladder. We reach the bottom quickly, and Jayk bluntly tells Akira and Cole to “stay the fuck there,” as we hurry over to unlatch the gate.

“Piss-poor fucking security,” Jayk mutters as it swings open.

With the sun glaring in our eyes, we walk out to meet the Sinners. Jayk and Lucky are a step behind me, and Sawyer shuffles along beside us with almost lascivious eagerness.

We stop a short distance away from Sullivan, but my eyes find the kneeling figures first. Alastair and Mateo don’t exactly look untouched, but I’m not seeing any bloody wounds or obviously cruel treatment.

Alastair is sitting back casually on his heels, looking as though the thick gag was his idea and he’s bored by the whole affair, while Mateo’s eyes shout a demand at us to free them.

I don’t know what to make of the lawyerly-looking Sinner standing over them, but whatever else Sullivan might be, it doesn’t seem as though he’s the type to mistreat his prisoners.

Eyeing my brutes behind me, Sullivan adjusts his glasses, and I drop my hands when I find myself doing the same.

“Hello, Sullivan. It’s good to see you again, even under such... well, such interesting circumstances.” My eyes drift over the men behind him—because he’s brought a lot more than two.

Please, God, don’t let this turn into a fight.

Sullivan grimaces as he glances back over his shoulder, like the armed men make him uncomfortable, too.

He spreads his hands nervously as he works up a smile for me. “I am sorry about that. I wasn’t... completely sure how we’d be received.”

I nod quietly, running through options about how to approach this.

Sullivan looks at Jayk and Lucky in tentative question. “And, forgive me, you are?”

Jayk just glowers at him, and I shoot him a quick scowl.

“This is Jayk,” I say, “and this is?—”

Lucky steps up beside me, nodding to Sullivan with a cautious but friendly smile. “Lucien, Lucky, Brat, Circus Rat, depending who you talk to. My preference is Steel Rain, though, if you really want to get on my good side. We’re with Team Bristlebrook.”

Team . . .

I slide Lucky a sideways look, which he ignores.

Sullivan’s brows flick up like he doesn’t quite know what to make of that, but he gives them a polite smile back.

The new winter wind is brisk and fresh, and I let it fill me. The bite calms me as much as Jayk and Lucky’s presence behind me. Jasper, Beau, and Dom watching over me.

Sullivan is a thinker. A planner.

Sullivan is like me.

I can do this.

I glance down at Alastair and Mateo again, but before I can talk, Sawyer breaks in with a too-loud laugh.

Sullivan can’t quite hide the derisive crinkle of his nose as he glances at the Reaper.

“As friends!” Sawyer tells Sullivan. “We’re receiving you as friends , of course. Why don’t you?—”

“We came because we want to make you an offer—or rather, to accept yours, if it still stands.” Sullivan interrupts Sawyer, but he’s only looking at me and my brutes, and he’s hesitant as he shifts forward.

I sigh. “Sullivan, there are some things we should discuss before we?—”

Sullivan is already nodding before I finish, and he gently breaks in. “You have reservations. I have a few of my own, I’ll admit.” His glance at Sawyer is almost too quick to see, but I find it oddly reassuring as he frowns back at me. “I know this is a lot, but please let me explain.”

He’s somber, quietly serious, and I stifle another sigh, nodding for him to continue.

Sawyer eyes me, impatient irritation sparking behind his eyes, but I pretend not to see it as Sullivan gestures toward his bound, kneeling prisoners.

“Alastair’s methods. Sam’s methods. Men like Bane.

I’m... I’m so tired of them. Many of us were tired of them.

When we joined the Sinners, so many of us just wanted a safe place.

Regular meals, if we were lucky.” Sullivan’s smile becomes bitterly self-deprecating.

“Some company. It wasn’t until after that we saw what Sam really was. ..”

He shakes his head, his lip curling in disgust.

Mateo jerks against his ropes. Sullivan doesn’t look at him, but another Sinner presses a rifle against the back of his head, and I shoot him a quelling look.

He falls still against the gravel, his head tipping back impatiently.

Sullivan continues without pausing, “I saw people working against Sam, and most of them died as soon as they were discovered. I saw Alastair gathering influence, but he was just as cruel and terrible a leader in his own way, capricious and following the whims of his followers. Engaging in this useless, senseless war when we had so many more reasonable options. So I...”

Trailing off, Sullivan takes his glasses off, ducking my gaze. As he cleans them, I see his cheeks are turning bright pink, almost glowing beside his white hair.

He looks up at me ruefully as he replaces his glasses.

“Forgive me, it sounds so ridiculous when I say it out loud like this, but I decided to try my hand at some politics. I’ve been working in the background for, well.

.. for quite a long time. This absurd war between us was the catalyst, in the end.

There’s no benefit to it. And I was finally able to gather enough men on my side who don’t want anything to do with Alastair’s way of ruling.

No brutality. No war.” Sullivan meets my eyes across the road, and his shoulders firm.

“And no more captives. Under my rule, the Sinners won’t deal in humans, in women , as livestock.

Never again. Every man supporting me voted and agreed. ”

The sun pierces between the trees, not enough to warm the frigid air, but it’s oddly beautiful, and I look up, blinking the rays from my eyes.

Never again.

Slow, slippery relief slides through me.

I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to completely trust the Sinners, but Sullivan’s quiet, earnest sincerity feels real. This is something he fought hard for. Something he believes in enough that he’s willing to bring us the heads of those he thinks fought differently.

Sawyer shifts uncomfortably, and he glances at me, then back at Sullivan with a disarming smile. “Well, of course. You know we have plenty of food to trade, and we’d be real interested in your medic?—”

But Sullivan makes a small gesture, and suddenly the Sinners shift their weapons around in a swift, uniform move.

Mateo’s head falls back in defeat.

Lucky and Jayk’s weapons snap up in the next instant, and Sawyer staggers a fast step back. My pulse leaps in my throat, but I don’t move.

Sullivan is still looking at me and my brutes, but his nervousness seems to have faded, and his expression is hard. That pretty sun shines over every Sinners’ weapon behind him.

“Any agreement we make is contingent on one thing,” Sullivan tells us.

“We refuse to trade with any group who participates in any action relating to the capture, confinement, or trade of another human. It’s a matter of principle.

We intend for the Sinners to be at the forefront of a new rule of law, one that centers justice.

We would like to start working toward a world that improves upon the mistakes of the past. We have no interest in repeating them. ”

Despite the rifles pointing at us, despite the coldness of his expression, I smile at Sullivan, my throat tight. Softly, I touch Jayk’s tense arm, and he only glances at me once before lowering his gun.

I lift my chin and speak clearly enough that all the Sinners can hear me. “We have no interest in becoming, or associating with, anyone who would do those things. Your world is the one Bristlebrook wants as well. What we’ve been working towards.”

Sullivan’s head tilts, and he looks at me sharply.

But beside me, Sawyer seems to have had enough.