Page 30 of Sin (Salvation #1)
Cassidy
When Sin announces we have to be on a private tarmac in forty-five minutes, I don’t have time to question this sudden turnabout. Or try to make sense of the Jekyll-and-Hyde transformation that had just taken place.
He’d excused himself to go out on the balcony to make a phone call, but had winked at me and promised to come back and show me a few more firsts .
Fifteen minutes later, when he walked back into the hotel suite, he was suddenly the distant, slightly cold Sin, who’d pushed me away so many times before.
I should be used to his mercurial mood shifts by now, but I can’t reconcile the cold, distant man with the one whom I just spent the last day and a half making love with.
Especially since the cold mask he’s wearing keeps slipping.
Before we left the hotel, he made sure I had my asthma medication.
On the ride to the airport, his hand unconsciously rode possessively on my knee the entire time, and now, when I see the small airplane we are flying into Nashville, my heart starts fluttering.
I’ve never ridden in a smaller plane before.
Sin glances over at me and catalogues my sudden paleness and panicked eyes, and immediately diagnoses my problem.
He puts his arm around me and leans in. “It’s okay, sweetheart.
I’ll never let anything bad happen to you,” he promises me.
Rationally, I know Sin has no control over aviation mishaps, but at his touch and reassurance, and his heartbeat-revving use of the word sweetheart , my panic instantly recedes.
The stony-faced Sin is back as the pilot and attendant greet us.
He leads me to a spacious leather seat toward the back of the plane, and once we’re seated and he makes sure my seatbelt is securely fastened, he hands me his phone.
“You need to know about the shitshow that’s greeting us when we get back home. ”
I look down at the screen and am immediately caught by the headline of the news article he’s showing me from a respected news source.
Well-known Evangelist Caught in Fighting Ring Scandal .
Below the headline is a picture of Gideon with a friendly arm around Digger Mcree, the head of the Reivers Motorcycle Club, who over the last several years had become a grassroots celebrity for alt-right political causes.
My eyes go wide, and I open my mouth to speak when he gives a terse shake of his head and nods to the staff.
I nod my head in understanding and read the article, which outlines a completely shocking account of the events of the last two days, which include Digger taking several people hostage and then streaming a pay-to-see fight intended to be a death match on the dark web that somehow was broadcast live on several news channels.
The article then goes to the strong association Gideon and Digger had formed in recent years, including Gideon using the Reivers for security at the Citadel and the Take Back the Power men’s rights rallies they held all last summer and had planned to continue this summer.
Most damning in the article is that an anonymous source is cited as saying there is a list of names of people who logged on to the illegal match, and Gideon Brandt’s name is on that list.
I pick up my phone and send a text to Sin. What does this mean?
He reads my message and quickly sends a text back. I’m still figuring that out.
We come home to anarchy. Media is camped around the house. Sin, used to dealing with the press, offers several “no comments” and bundles me in through the security gate that now has three security guards manning it.
Before we walk through the front doors, Sin stops me, his hand gripping my arm almost painfully, and leans into my ear. “In this house, we are strictly stepbrothers,” he harshly whispers. “No look, no word, and definitely no touch that hints otherwise.”
The last thing I want is for our new relationship to be exposed, especially to Gideon and my mother, so I nod, but as he opens the front door for me and I go inside, a part of me feels like Sin’s strong warning is a rejection. That what we shared this weekend is just our dirty little secret.
We find Gideon and my mother in the great room with a crisis management team circled around them, strategizing how to best combat the negative news coverage. Gideon looks up from a proposed press statement he’s reading and sees us standing there. His eyes lock on Sin.
“It’s about fucking time you got here,” Gideon yells. I look to see if any of the people in the living room are shocked to see the famous evangelical cursing, but they seem unfazed. “Jericho is falling, and you and your brother are nowhere to be found when I need you.”
“We were actually at Freedom Fest,” Sin replies. “We were celebrating my brother’s birthday.” He looks over at my mother, who doesn’t even blink at the pointed reminder that she missed my birthday.
Then he turns his attention toward Gideon. “Kind of a coincidence both me and your good buddy, Digger, were both in Lexington at the same time. We could have reconnected. I hadn’t seen him since I was a kid, and you used to make me go with you to?—”
“I don’t have time for your ramblings,” Gideon cuts Sin off, who gives him a victorious smile in response. “I have to defend myself from the allegations that have been fabricated against me.”
“Well, let me know how I can help you with that, Dad,” Sin says in a total change of personality. Gideon almost does a classic double take at Sin’s seemingly genuine offer.
“You’re volunteering to help me?” Gideon asks Sin, his brows practically in his hairline.
“Gotta protect the Brandt family name from disgrace.” He winks at his father. “And who better to help you with this than someone who has had more scandals than birthdays?”
His father looks skeptical, but the lead crisis specialist jumps on Sin’s offer of help, and together they make a tentative plan for Sin to help steer his father out of this crisis. Every time my participation is brought up, Sin redirects the focus of the conversation, for which I’m grateful.
I remember the night we were having dinner and how Gideon used my mother to get me to do that interview for him.
I think he may be a dangerous man, and the last thing I want is to defend him from serious charges that he may very well be guilty of.
The fact that Sin is willing to help his father astonishes me.
None of it makes any sense. As long as I’ve known him, Sin has made no secret of how much he dislikes his father, but now that it looks like Gideon is involved in some pretty heinous activities, Sin is willing to help him escape the consequences.
As soon as we manage to break out of the meeting and head upstairs, I confront him about it. “What was that all about?” I demand as we’re standing at the top of the stairs.
“Not here,” he hisses, swiftly grabbing my elbow and pushing me inside the library and hurriedly shutting the door. “There are ears everywhere.”
I ignore the paranoia of his statement and again ask him what he’s doing.
“Not sure yet,” he shrugs his shoulders. “It’s a little bit like improv jazz. I’m making it up as I go.”
“I don’t understand any of this,” I tell him truthfully. “I don’t understand why you went so cold on me earlier after—" I break off, not wanting to sound so insecure. “And I don’t understand why you agreed to help your father when most days you act like you hate his guts.”
He nods. “I do hate his guts and every other part of him as well.”
“Then why?”
He looks at me, and the hard shell he’s worn with me since he took the phone call out on the balcony seems to shatter and fall away from him.
Suddenly, I’m looking at the man I spent the best day and a half of my life with.
Placing his hands on both sides of my head, he tilts my head up so I’m looking directly into his gray eyes.
“I know it’s all a mess, and I’m like a fucking weather vane spinning in every direction, but don’t doubt this.
” He leans in toward me. “Don’t ever doubt this,” he says, and he kisses me.
It’s reminiscent of that first kiss he gave me in this room months ago. It’s gentle and sweet, but unlike that chaste kiss, there’s an undercurrent of controlled passion with each brush of his lips. “I thought you told me we weren’t supposed to do this,” I murmur weakly against his lips.
“I end up breaking all my rules for you,” he says before slipping his tongue past my lips and deepening the kiss until my head is dizzy from wanting him.
With his lips still locked to mine, he starts walking me backward, then pushes me down on the couch when his phone starts going off.
The ringtone is set to sound like a fire alarm, and it blasts through the room.
Hearing it, Sin releases me and grabs his phone from his back pocket to answer it.
I can see the name on the screen—Oliver.
“It’s about fucking time,” he says, not wasting time on a hello. “I’ve been trying to get a hold of you all goddamned day.”
So that’s who Sin kept furiously calling and texting all day.
He listens to the response and then looks at his watch. “I can meet you at our normal spot in thirty,” he tells Oliver on the other end and hangs up.
They have a normal spot?
“Look,” he says. “Something has come up and I have to leave.”
“Can I come?” I ask, hating the needy sound of my voice.
“That’s not gonna work,” he dismisses me.
“But do me a favor,” he says in a way that sounds more like an order, “go to your room and stay there.” He does a check for his wallet and keys as he prepares to leave.
“I don’t want you to be any part of that mess downstairs.
If Gideon or your mom knocks on your door, just tell them you’re sick. ”
“When will you be back?” I ask, but I doubt he hears my question because he’s already out the door, the sound of his footfalls on the stairs signaling his haste to meet Oliver.