The Rebirth of Sin (Wicked Trinity Book 2) (30 page)

I made it a quarter of the way across the street before Sonja called me back. The panic in her voice pulled me to turn around.

“I know who that guy was.” Her body shook, her eyes welled up with moisture.

“Sonja?” I stepped back onto the sidewalk, closest to the pub, and touched her arm. “What’s wrong?”

“We have to get you out of here…now. Where’s your security? We—”

 A car came barreling down the street, drawing our attention. I glanced down the road at Braedan; he immediately ejected from his position and began to walk swiftly toward me. I looked the other way at the security team on my detail. For the first time, they had their guns drawn. When I saw a man exit the bar with his own gun drawn, I was too stunned to enact my fight or flight defenses.

Sonja stood in front of me protecting me, yelling at Adam. “Leave her alone!” 

A crazed look was in Adam’s eyes as he lifted up his hand, holding tightly to a gun. When he pointed it at my friend, I grabbed her shoulders in attempt to push her away and stand in front of her.

I saw the glint of fire. Heard five pops as if firecrackers were being set off in front of me. My vision was suddenly blinded, and I was dotted in warm liquid. Sonja slipped from my grip, falling to the ground. Instinct told me to help her, concerned about the way she fell on the ground, face down, on her stomach—possibly hurting her baby. A bulb of fluid flooded the sidewalk beneath her. As I turned her over, what faced me shocked me. Her eyes were glazed over and part of her skull was missing, showing bits of her brain. 

Amidst various screams behind me, a soft cloth was placed over my nose and mouth. 

The car once screeching down the road came to a halt directly in front of me. The passenger side door swung open. Nadine shook her head at me. “Stupid, Keaton. What did you think would happen?”

I struggled to no end, the cloth was obviously soaked in ether, threatening my consciousness. 

Whoever was holding me began to stiffen and Nadine’s eyes widened. She struggled to reach for something under the seat. I was forced backward as Adam was tugged. I dropped down to the sidewalk, feeling the drowsy effects of whatever was given to me. The world began to blur, draped in a grey smoke. The gravel was at my fingertips, and I tried to feel around. 

I heard a hard boom as a black mass fell to the ground. It scattered, turning increasingly out of focus as it ran and disappeared from view. The squealing of tires pounded in my head. Varied toned voices resounded.

The smell of peppered citron whirled around my senses. A warm hand gingerly grabbed mine and tried to help me to stand. The body pressed up against me. Before I could protest, a voice that stopped my heart and froze my body whispered in my ear. “Keaton, are you all right?”

“Braedan?” I squinted against the darkened and cloudy light consuming my vision. 

“Can you see me, Keaton?” He paused for a moment, and a hand lovingly clasped the side of my face.

The world spun and made it hard to decipher my actions from those of the world around me. I tried to speak but wasn’t sure if I actually said anything. I stopped talking or bothering to make my words audible. 

He tightened his embrace and I tried to wrap myself around him. No longer able to fight the effects, I relented to the drug and slipped away.

“WE HAVE TO GET her tighter security. This is unacceptable. What did I pay them for? At this rate, I might run through all the private security firms in D.C.” My mother arguing outside my cracked-open bedroom door startled me out of my sleep. 

I looked at the time blaring on my clock. It was nearly four in the morning. 

I slid out of bed, still clad in the schoolgirl outfit splattered in bits of dark hues. In the moonlight, they shone burgundy. I immediately took them off and threw them into a trash liner.

After showering and washing my hair, I put on a pair of jogging pants and a torn Georgetown T-shirt. 

After descending the stairs, I found my mother inside the study and she wasn’t alone. Nathan was with her. 

He immediately stood to greet me, hugging me. “She’s gone, Keaton. She’s…gone.”

Somehow, I knew before he told me. Monsters took my friend away from me. I remained strong…for Nathan. Contrary to the strength I exemplified to support my friend, I could feel it deep inside me. Every part of me ached. 

“Where’s Brandy?” I asked. “We have to keep her safe.”

My mother slammed down her cell phone and stood from the desk. She straightened her pantsuit and approached me. “I didn’t mean to wake you, baby-girl.” She embraced me, smoothing my messy bun, still wet from my shower. “The police have asked to speak with you, but they can wait.”

“No.” I shook my head, folding my arms over my sour stomach. “The longer we wait, the more chance
they
will have to get away with what they did.” As I thought about Noah and the lengths he’d gone to, to teach me a lesson, my fist balled in anger. “All of them.”

“After my interview,” Nathan said, “I’m pretty sure they know who to look for. Your say on things is just a precaution. It can wait until tomorrow.” Nathan grabbed one of my hands and squeezed it firmly. “Brandy…couldn’t hang around. I think she’s currently in the process of booking a trip to somewhere exotic. You know how she is. She can’t deal with things like this and it was…too much for her.”

“Until they are caught, you should probably stay away from me, too.” I glanced at my mother. “All of you should.”

“Nonsense,” my mother stated, waving me off. “It was partially my fault. I thought we were impeding on your ability to be free—with my security team and his. I told Braedan’s team to take the night off so you could enjoy the time with your friends. I will
never
do that again. Braedan has assured me that his team is clean, and I have no reason to believe that they aren’t. They are going to take over for the inept people I hired to watch us, and the police have promised to watch over your friends. If Braedan wasn’t such a busy man, I’d hire him to protect you from now on.”

“Braedan? Is he still here?” I asked my mother.

“I made him leave to get his hand looked at by a doctor.”

Nathan nodded as he looked off into the distance. “He sure knew how to throw a few punches. I thought he was going to kill that man—Adam. I don’t feel guilty for wanting him to.” 

Giving Nathan’s hand a firm shake, I reached up and touched his face. “You should go home and get some rest.” I looked at the time again. “I’ll call Sonja’s fiancé and Brandy in the morning.”

Any minuscule hint of sympathy I held toward my former housemates was no more. They took the life of an innocent woman and her unborn child. I should’ve expected no less. I should’ve truly paid attention when Nadine admitted that everyone who stayed in The House of Rebirth was a criminal in some way. It left me to think about Braedan and what he said about why he was there. There couldn’t have been any way a man with a heart as pure and big as his could’ve hurt someone. 

“Noah’s…people were probably trying to take me back to him. I think he might have seen the interview. What he did tells me that he’s so upset he’s being careless.”

“Do you think he wanted to take you and do what he did to you in Rebirth?” Nathan asked.

“Maybe.” I sighed, sitting on the couch. “He’s unpredictably volatile.”

My mother sat on the arm of the couch and brushed her hands over my hair. “I know you feel guilty, but you were brave to do what you did. Don’t ever feel guilty for leaving him and place the blame with him and his followers for the horrible tragedy that took Sonja’s life.”

 I fingered my phone on my lap and scrolled over my incoming calls, wanting to dial Braedan. 

“I should go,” Nathan announced. “I’ll call you when I have an idea of the arrangements Craig plans to make. This is my unsolicited advice, but it might be best to leave him alone. He’s in the angry stage of his grief. You don’t need to be the brunt of it.”

“Did he say something to you?” I lifted my gaze to study him.

“At the hospital—”

My mother cleared her throat and halted Nathan from speaking any further.

“Your mother is right. It doesn’t matter.” He gave me a brief goodbye hug.

I followed him to the door. “Please call me the moment you get home.” 

“Will do,” he promised me.

“Nathan,” I called, my voice breaking.

With his hand on the gold-brushed doorknob, he turned slightly toward me. “Keaton?”

“I feel awful for asking this. It might be misconstrued as me distrusting him, but…” I folded my arms, suddenly feeling more weight added to the guilt I already carried. “Can you do a deeper background search on Sander?”

He cast a puzzled look my way. “Is there something I should specifically look for?”

“He said he came from a criminal family, and I’m worried Noah could find the information, if he doesn’t already have it. After Nadine and Adam saw him tonight they might be able to put some things together. They will connect Sander to Braedan and contact the people he is trying to stay away from. I…just want to make sure he’ll be safe.”

“He seems pretty capable of handling himself.” Turning from the door, he crossed his arms in front of his chest and scrutinized me. “If I find anything, what are you hoping to do with it?”

“I don’t know.” I sighed and dropped my hands to my sides. “Anything I can do.”

He gave me a parting nod and left.

I returned to my mother who stood in the hall.

“Get back in bed,” she ordered me, giving me a rueful smile. “We’ll sort through the mess in the morning.”

THE MOMENT MY HEAD hit the pillow, the sense of loss hit me strongly. I clutched my ailing stomach and cried for the friend I lost. “I’m so sorry, Sonja,” I whispered into the dark room. My phone buzzed on my night table. I picked it up immediately without checking the name on the screen, hoping it was Nathan, checking in like I’d asked.

“Hello?” I answered through a sob.

“I couldn’t sleep until I knew how you were,” Braedan said on the other line. “Seems a silly notion given the circumstances. I can hear it in your voice. Is there anything I can do?”

“Can you talk to me…until I fall asleep? I want to hear your voice—maybe it will quiet all the noise in my head and get me to sleep.”

“Would you like me to read to you?”

“That would be nice.”

“All I have is the Bible in front of me.” As he began to read Exodus, my mind wandered. No longer focusing on the story, my pain became all that filled my head.

“Braedan? Thank you for saving me again.”

“I wish I could’ve saved your friend as well. It was my carelessness. I should’ve seen…”

“You saved three people tonight. I don’t know what would’ve happened to me or Brandy and Nathan if you weren’t there. Adam and Nadine could’ve taken everything from me.”

“You never have to thank me for keeping you safe, Keaton. It was what I was meant to do.”

“I…need to see you.”

“Believe me, I want that, too. But it wouldn’t be best with Noah circling you.”

“Oh,” I said, completely deflated. “You’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

I heard him mutter something inaudible. With a loud sigh, he added, “Give me thirty minutes.”