The Ultimate Sin
Sins of the Past, #2
Jillian Quinn
Contents
Also by Jillian Quinn
The Ultimate Sin
Copyright
Part I
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Part II
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Epilogue
The Next Sin Blurb
The Next Sin Excerpt
Also by Jillian Quinn
About the Author
Also by Jillian Quinn
SINS OF THE PAST SERIES
The First Sin
The Ultimate Sin
The Next Sin
The Final Sin
FACE-OFF SERIES
Parker
Kane
Donovan
Jameson
MORE THAN SERIES
More Than Friends
More Than Roommates
More than Enemies
LOVE IN THE END ZONE SERIES
Roughing
Holding
STANDALONE NOVELS
The Match
For more information, visit JillianQuinnBooks.com.
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The Ultimate Sin
Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. That was how it all started. With my father. Her father. Their sins. Our sins. The sins of our past.
Our love could break us. Their power could destroy us. But I would die trying. She would die fighting.
The men who took her would pay. Blood would be spilled. Lives would be shattered. I vowed to end them.
All of them.
Copyright © 2018 by Jillian Quinn
All rights reserved.
Visit my website at JillianQuinnBooks.com
Editor: Kaylene Osborn, Swish Design & Editing
Proofreader: Nicki Kuhn, Swish Design & Editing
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, both living or deceased, establishments, businesses, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Part One
“Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.”
- Confucius
Chapter One
Angelo
Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.
That was how it all started.
With my father. Her father.
Their sins. Our sins.
The sins of our past.
We couldn’t escape them as much as we could avoid falling for each other, crashing and burning at love.
Our love could break us.
Their power could destroy us.
But I would die trying.
She would die fighting.
My jaw clenched in anger, the pain of losing Gia almost unbearable. I fought the tears, kept them at bay. I wouldn’t allow them to win.
The men who took her would pay.
Blood would be spilled.
Lives would be shattered.
I vowed to end them. All of them.
Gia was mine. No one took what belonged to me and lived to tell about it. I would end her suffering and take their lives as payment for their sins.
Revenge was a long, dark road paved in the blood of others. There were no winners in this dangerous game—only survivors.
Chapter Two
Gia
I was two seconds away from losing my mind. The walls were stark white, so bright they reminded me of freshly laid snow, covered with padding about three inches thick. Fluorescent lights were hung overhead, the bulbs so intense they made my eyes burn. I clawed at the material on the wall with my nails, unable to tear through the hard coating that encased me in my prison.
When I awoke in this room, I thought I was in a mental hospital. Sometimes, I thought I was dead and in purgatory, waiting for the devil to take me to hell. My place was already reserved next to Angelo, right at the devil’s table. I wished for death. I hoped someone would end my imprisonment. But I wanted my revenge more.
It was hard to keep track of the days. I had hoped for my sake my kidnapping was all a dream, something I’d made up. I wasn’t crazy. Maybe I was crazy in love with my blue-eyed boy, but still sane enough to know I didn’t belong in an institution.
I felt around the room with my hands, searching for a door or a window, any form of an outline which could lead to the outside.
Hell, I would have settled for a motherfucking crack.
Anything.
Desperate to escape, I dropped to my knees and patted at the edges of the perimeter. I made it halfway around the room, on hands and knees which were now dirty, when I heard a robotic movement coming from behind me. Confused, I glanced over my shoulder. Was I losing my mind? I’d been in that room for far too long.
Convinced I was insane, I got back to work, scooting along the cold floor. Looking for a loose linoleum title or something to pick at, I stopped moving when I’d heard it again. In the far corner of the room was a tiny black circle I hadn’t noticed. I was too busy looking for a way out to consider I was being watched.
I slid the plastic chair in the corner of the room from one side to the other. Using the wall for support, I gripped the chair back with my other hand and pushed myself onto it. I wasn’t sure when I’d last eaten, but my stomach rumbled with hunger pains.
Waves of nausea swept over me as I tried to find my balance. If I was going to find a way out of this place, I needed my strength. They dumped my lifeless body on the bed and left me like a sack of garbage. I had no clue how many days I’d been out cold. No concept of time. All I knew was I needed to speak to the person who was holding me as their prisoner.
With my hand on the wall, I looked up at the small camera. “Let me out of here, you sick piece of shit,” I yelled so loud it hurt my ears, my anger shaking right through me. “He will come for you. If you as much as touch a hair on my head, he will kill you.”
My mouth was dry, my tongue rough like sandpaper. I created as much as spit as I could and hocked a loogie at the camera, some of it splashing on the lens, the rest hitting the wall.
Fuck them.
And fuck this place.
No one could cage me but Angelo, and even with him, that was debatable.
I waited for a sign that someone was watching behind the camera. They had the sense to move it to see what I was doing. Someone had to be hauled up in a room, shoving cannoli down their throat and laughing at my failed attempts. Motherfuckers.
I hopped down from the chair, my body so weak I almost tr
ipped over my own feet. My eyelids were heavy, still fighting sleep. I crashed on the twin-sized bed pushed up against the wall and sighed.
This was my life now. I was supposed to start my new life with Angelo. Instead, I was locked inside my own circle of hell.
Sonny was the last person I saw before I was taken from my father’s house. He was supposed to protect me. I trusted him as much as Angelo.
Was Sonny responsible?
I had no idea what to think or who to trust.
Sonny was my best friend, as he was Angelo’s. My heart bled for Sonny. We shared everything. All of us. I was willing to bet if Angelo had been down with it, the three of us would have shared a lot more of ourselves.
So, what went wrong? How did this happen?
Curled up in a ball, with my back to the room, I closed my eyes. At least the pillows and sheets were soft. I was expecting them to be hard and scratchy.
Everything in the room was too bright, too clean, too sterile, too there on purpose. It made me uncomfortable. For that reason, I counted my blessings the bedding didn’t suck and was surprisingly soft. So was the mattress.
As I drifted off to sleep, I stirred at a sound coming from the opposite end of the room. I rolled onto my side with the pillow between my hands as a door was opening inward. The padded walls disappeared for a second to reveal a dark hallway. My body was useless, tired from not being fed and barely functional. I forced myself up from the bed, the pillow in hand when I made my move.
A man appeared in a suit that fit snug to his muscular body. He had a gun at his waist, one I needed if I was going to escape. I lunged at him as the door shut behind him. I didn’t miss the few clicks that had locked us inside. He caught me before I crashed into him, and gripped me by my hair. Dragging me across the floor by my curls, he made it a point to tug harder, making it hurt more.
He underestimated my pain tolerance. Angelo did worse when he fucked me.
“Get the fuck off me!” I kicked and screamed, sinking my nails into his skin.
Nothing fazed this man. No matter how much I fought, he never spoke a word. In response, he tightened his hold on me and laughed. There was no sense in fighting him. But it made me feel better. Made me feel less weak and pathetic.
He moved the plastic chair from the corner of the room and kicked it with his foot to the center. Then, he set me on the chair, with his hand still on my head. I peeked at up him, my jaw clenched in anger, my hands balled into fists at my sides.
My captor was a moderately attractive middle-aged man. Tall, with broad shoulders, but not as muscular as Angelo. Dark hair swept over his forehead and curled at the ends.
I took in every scar on his face, from the one on his left cheek to the one that ran down the length of his neck. Nothing about him was familiar. Everything new. I didn’t recognize him. But he knew me.
“Why are you doing this to me?”
“Save your breath,” the man said with a wicked smirk touching his lips.
I didn’t know his face, but his voice was a different story. He was the same man with the heavy New York accent who’d thrown me into the trunk of his car. After all the years I’d spent with Angelo, I knew almost everyone who worked for his father. My suspicions were wrong. Maybe Sonny hadn’t taken me. But I had no idea where his allegiance lied. Sonny was always a mystery to me, even up until the day I was taken.
He tilted my head up, holding it in a vise with both hands, so I was forced to look up and into the camera. A few seconds passed before a red light illuminated from the dark lens. His woodsy cologne burrowed into my nostrils as he bent over me. The smell of cigarettes and stale coffee permeated the air.
“You don’t know how good you’ve got it,” he growled against the shell of my ear, his breath making my skin crawl. “If you want the boss to keep you, then you’d better shut your mouth and do what you’re told. Otherwise, you’ll end up in a much worse place than this one.”
My body went rigid from his threat.
What could be worse than this?
Chapter Three
Angelo
I learned how to swing a baseball bat when I was five years old. The old man took me down to the park with my older brothers under the pretense I had a shot at being something other than a Wiseguy. Back then, I’d wanted to be so many things—a baseball player, a Marine, a cowboy, and even a cop.
I thought I had a choice.
I thought I had a future.
But mine was chosen for me.
Not until I was older did I realize why Pop took us down to the park. It wasn’t to learn how to hit a home run. It was to show us how to inflict pain. How to be a Morelli. Every life lesson had a purpose. Pop didn’t do anything half-assed.
I took a step back, with the bat clutched between my fingers, my grip so tight my bones hurt. Then, I swung like my father had shown me, sending Carlo to the ground with one hit. I stood over him and slammed the metal into his back.
“Where the fuck is she?” I couldn’t stop myself from hitting him again, the pain and anger taking hold of me.
“I don’t know,” Carlo choked out, blood seeping from his mouth. “I never saw her.” He rolled onto his side and covered his head with his hands.
Without Gia, I had become someone unrecognizable. Whatever was left of my black heart was taken along with her. She was my heart, my world, and my entire fucking life. Without Gia, my heart didn’t beat. I was no longer the man she once knew.
Darkness. Black. All I could see was Gia’s face when the tip of the bat landed between Carlo’s eyes. Rage burned inside me, fueled me to become the man my father had always wanted me to be. I was a Morelli. A soldier. A man who couldn’t see past his pain.
Gia was the only thing keeping me from turning into a cold-hearted killer. I fucking missed her. I couldn’t live without her. Blood and revenge were all I could see anymore. It was all I understood.
Crack—there went his ribs.
Another crack—split open his head.
I couldn’t stop myself. Carlo’s blood splashed on my face and in my hair, some of it staining my brand new suit. When I wasn’t hitting Carlo with the bat, I kicked him with the tip of my dress shoe. He was one of the men who I’d expected to find chained to a urinal at Vitale’s for the fire that never happened. He was in on the setup with Enzo’s men. So, fuck him, and fuck his stupid face.
I whacked him again, this time harder than the last. His skin was covered in blood, his face swollen and bloody beyond recognition.
Sonny was still nowhere to be found. Another missing link in the puzzle I couldn’t solve.
How could my best friend do this to me? He was one of the most loyal men I’d ever met. I trusted him with my life. With Gia’s life. And he betrayed me.
My oldest brother, Pete, of all people, that sick and twisted fuck, had to pull me back from Carlo’s limp body. He was long past dead, and I didn’t feel any better. In fact, I felt nothing.
Gia was the only person who could evoke emotion from me. She was the only person on earth who could cure me of this madness.
“That’s enough, baby bro,” Pete yelled in my ear, with his arms tight around me. “He’s gone.”
“Let me go. Let me fucking go, Pete!” I elbowed him in the stomach and broke free from his grasp. I spun around to face him, the bat at my side and my teeth clenched in anger. “You don’t understand.”
He closed the gap between us, his mouth twisted in disgust. “I told you to cut ties with that girl a long time ago. If you had the fucking sense to listen, you wouldn’t be in this mess right now.”
“Fuck you! I don’t need another lecture from you about weaknesses. I don’t have any weaknesses anymore.” I threw the bat on the ground next to me, making sure to hit Carlo with it one last time.
Fucking traitor.
He deserved every broken bone. That piece of shit had earned a bloody death at my hand. Carlo turned his back on the family. Whether Gia had gone missing or not, he wouldn’t have been brea
thing much longer, anyway.
“Yes, you do,” Pete shot back. “Look at yourself, Angelo. When was the last time you shaved? When was the last time you slept? You look like fucking shit. Keep this shit up, and I’m gonna find your sorry ass at the bottom of a ditch.”
I stepped forward to face-off with him. “Is that a threat, Pete? You gonna carve me up and dump my body?”
He smirked. “Nah. Someone else will be doing the carving if you don’t slow your roll. You can’t go taking out Made men just because you think they had something to do with kidnapping your girl. Shit like this has repercussions.” Pete moved closer and pointed his finger at his chest. “I’m the one who will have to answer for you. This is my crew. You answer to me.” He pressed the same finger to my head and dug it into my temple. “And you best remember that. Play your part. Know your place. Don’t fuck with our business over your broken heart.”
I moved my head to the side to dodge him, my hands still balled into fists. In his own way, Pete was looking out for me. But I was beyond saving. No one but Gia could pull me out of this dark hole I’d climbed into.
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