Sinful (The Sin Duet Book 3)

by M. Malone

  But if I was going to tell this story, I was only going to tell it once. And everyone needed to hear it.

  “Before everything went down, I should have come clean with you guys about my history. My past with the Family was always there, and I knew it would find me again someday. But I never meant for it to involve all of you.”

  Noah shrugged. “You’re one of us, kid. If they come for you, they come for all of us.”

  There was a chorus of agreement, and I swallowed back an uncharacteristic lump in my throat.

  “I never doubted that for a second. But I want to tell everyone the whole story now. You deserve that.”

  Noah paused and then nodded, sending me a knowing look. The story I would tell was partially his, too. It was important to me that I had his support before I put it out there in the world.

  “So, I can’t remember a time before I lived with the Family. My mother was one of the working girls, so I was born there and grew up in a warehouse where all the girls lived together.”

  JJ’s soft inhalation was the only indication that my words had shocked her. Lucia’s eyes were bright, and I had to look away from her gaze. It was hard enough telling this story without seeing their pity.

  “For years, I didn’t really understand what was going on around me. I went to school, played with the other children, and came home to do my homework. I never knew my father, but my mum loved me so much that it didn’t matter.”

  I paused, caught off guard by the rush of emotion brought on by thinking of my mum. A normal man wouldn’t want to admit it, but I actively tried not to think of her. It was easier to keep all those emotions as part of a past I rarely revisited. But sitting here, talking about her, brought it all back. The rose scent of her perfume, the warmth of her hand on my forehead as she’d push my hair back. Her voice in my ear telling me that she loved me. The knowledge that she was gone, and I would never hear that again.

  It was too much.

  When the pause stretched a bit too long, Gemma squeezed my hand. “And then I showed up.”

  Grateful for it, I squeezed her hand back. “And then you showed up. A tiny little girl with huge, scared eyes and the brightest red hair I’d ever seen.”

  Gemma groaned playfully. “I used to hate it. Everyone would call me ginger and tug on my braids. Except for you. You took care of me. Kept me safe.”

  She was making me out to be some kind of hero. But really, she was the one who saved me. Because if I hadn’t learned to care for someone else, the Family might have succeeded in turning me into the monster they wanted me to be.

  “Not safe enough. After I overheard one of the guards talking about their plans for Gemma, I knew I had to get her out. I had a plan for us to run up north to my grandmother’s house. It seems so stupid now, that I actually thought we would get away.”

  Lucia spoke up then, her voice wobbly. “You were just a little boy, Matthias. You did the best you could.”

  “She’s right,” Gemma insisted. “We were so young. I was only eleven, so you must have been… what?”

  “Thirteen. Anyway, after we were caught and I saw them throw Gemma in the river, I gave up hope. She was dead, and it was my fault. By the time I was sold to ORUS, I didn’t care if I lived or died. But I lived. And then I met Noah.”

  Noah looked up then, his eyes suspiciously bright. “He was this scrawny kid with a brain like a computer. I’d never met anyone so smart in my life. I started to request him on any missions possible. Then one day, when I really needed him, he was unavailable.”

  I pick up the story again. “When I knocked on his door that night, I must have looked like hell.”

  “You did,” Noah confirmed gravely.

  “All I knew that was that I had woken up shaking and sick, with a wound in my side that had been surgically stitched.”

  “He had no memory of what had happened to him. All he could remember was the name of the hospital. It was obvious that he’d had some sort of surgery, but we couldn’t figure out for what. He’d always been healthy as a horse.”

  “Luckily, one of the nurses in the hospital owed Noah a favor and was able to get her hands on my chart. The details had been changed, such as name, address, and race but it was the only chart that matched up with the time I was there.”

  “And that was when I started digging. Someone went through a lot of trouble to make it seem like Matthias was never there.” Noah looked grave and his eyes bored into mine.

  I knew what he was asking. Did I really want to reveal it all?

  “A liver transplant took place the same day on a man in his fifties. AB negative blood type. Same as mine.”

  “An extremely rare blood type,” Noah interjected.

  “Based on the chart, it was obvious that I was the donor. What wasn’t clear was why I was taken or how it had happened without me having any knowledge of it.”

  “Until I realized that someone else I knew had surgery around the same time,” Noah continued. “Orion.”

  Rafe’s head snapped up. “What? Did you just say…”

  “I did. The old man had no idea how many spies I had at that point. Plenty of other agents he’d fucked over were happy to feed me intel on his whereabouts. About two days after Matthias ended up on my doorstep, I got a tip that Orion was laid up after some type of emergency surgery. That’s when I put it all together.”

  Lucia looked between us, a frown crinkling her forehead. “Put it together? You mean why Matthias was kidnapped?”

  “Yes, exactly. Why he was kidnapped and why he had the exact same rare blood type as Orion. Hell, it answered why Matthias was sold to ORUS in the first place. It made sense that the old man wanted to keep his only son close.”

  Oskar whistled. “Holy shit.”

  I laughed softly. “That’s how I felt when Noah told me what he suspected. At first I wasn’t sure what to believe, and I honestly didn’t care if he was my old man. I just wanted to find a way to get us out from under his control. So I hacked the ORUS server for the first time. Found the roster of all active and former agents, info that only Orion had access to. Then I found a video from Orion’s private server of his first kill, a senator’s son.”

  Rafe chuckled. “I would have paid money to see that old bastard’s face when he realized what you’d done.”

  “I wasn’t there,” I admitted.

  “He was still recovering from the unexpected surgery. There was no way I was letting Orion anywhere near the kid, so I took the information and went to see him alone. By the time I left, he understood exactly what was at stake if he didn’t let Matthias and I both walk free.”

  “With those files, we could have brought down the whole organization.” I still got a chill of satisfaction thinking about it. “If I’d released the roster of all active agents, it would have rendered ORUS effectively useless. Every single open mission would have to be aborted. As much as Orion hated to lose, he couldn’t risk that. Not to mention risking his own neck if the world at large saw the video of him murdering the son of a well-beloved senator.”

  All at once, I was exhausted. Telling the story had been cathartic but draining.

  “Blake Security was born on that day. I wasn’t sure about anything other than that Noah saved my life and I owed him for it. I’ve tried to be the best asset I could be.”

  “Bullshit,” Noah roared.

  I cringed a little at that. Then he stood, releasing Lucia to come stand next to me. At his motion, I rose awkwardly, still clinging to Gemma’s hand.

  “You don’t owe me shit, and you’re not a fucking asset. You’re like a brother to me. Get over here.”

  Before I could process his words, I was enveloped in a hug complete with a pound on the back hard enough to stop my heart. The old Matthias would have frozen in the face of such open emotion, but for once, I allowed myself to feel it.

  And to embrace him back.

  Gemma

  After Noah’s uncharacteristically open show of affection, every one of t
he guys made a point to come over and embrace Matthias.

  He was uncomfortable. I could see it clearly in his body language and the slightly panicked look in his eyes, but he accepted the love and support patiently.

  But I knew all too well that his patience had limits and that it would be best to get him out of there before he hit his quota of human interaction for the day.

  “Okay, I think we’re going to take a little break after such a heavy conversation. We’ll be in our room if anyone needs us.”

  Lucia opened her arms and pulled me close enough to whisper in my ear. “Thank you for being so good for him. He needs you.”

  Her approval meant a lot. It was clear this woman was the glue holding this ragtag family together. Matthias loved her like a sister and her opinion meant a lot to him.

  Matthias took my arm and allowed me to lead him down the hall to our room. As soon as the door closed, he sat on the bed and let out a heavy sigh.

  “That was harder than I thought it would be. But also easier in some ways. I’m glad they know now. My father was a bad man who ruined a lot of lives. For so many years, I was alone with that secret.”

  I sat on the bed next to him and pulled him into my arms. He came willingly, allowing me to cradle him and stroke his hair. That moment, that quiet moment, was worth every single ounce of suffering I’d gone through to get there. All those years of feeling alone and wondering what my future held, all of it led me to Matthias. To our new family.

  To peace.

  “You’re okay now. And you’ll never be alone again.” My eyes landed on the Tigger toy sitting on the shelf behind the bed. I tapped him on the shoulder until he sat up.

  “Hold on. I want to show you something.”

  The toy was heavy in my hand. After all these years, it still felt the same. Comforting. Sturdy. My fingers felt along the back for the seam I knew was there. It took a bit of maneuvering, but I got my fingernail underneath the stitch and gently tugged until I could pull the back panel open. When my finger hit metal, I paused. Then I held up the treasure I knew would be inside.

  Matthias was watching me curiously. But when he saw what I was holding, his face paled slightly. “Is that—”

  “Your grandmother’s locket? Yes, it is.”

  His hands came up to cover his mouth, and he blinked. Then blinked again. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen it. I thought it was lost forever.”

  Hearing his voice tremble slightly moved me almost to tears. “I thought you were lost forever, too but here we are. That day that we ran, you gave this to me and asked me to keep it safe. I think you were just trying to keep me calm. You’d told me about your grandmother so many times, and you knew it would comfort me.”

  He reached out and touched the metal, sending the locket spinning on its chain, light bouncing off it in every direction. “After we moved to London the visits to Gran slowed down and then stopped completely. She gave me this the last time I saw her. I wish I’d known then that it would be the last time. But I don’t think anyone could have predicted the path my life would take.”

  “She loved you. I’m sure she was hoping this would tie you to her in some way. Even if she couldn’t keep you with her.”

  He sighed. “I wonder sometimes, how different my life would be if she’d been able to convince my mom to leave me in the countryside with her. I’d have grown up there, maybe herded some sheep. A simple life.”

  “We can have that now. Let’s go to the country and buy some sheep.” As expected, that got a laugh from him.

  “I think that ship has sailed. I wish I could find her though. The last time I saw her, I was so young. We were already members of the Family by then, so my mother had very limited opportunities to visit her. Over the years, as the organization tightened its control on all of us, there was no more leaving. No more outside world. I only knew her as Gran. I don’t know her name or even exactly what part of the country she was from. My memories from that age have faded so much. She told me that the locket would always lead me back home.”

  Because I could hear the anguish in his voice, I held up the locket again. “It worked, you know. It brought us back to each other. Home.”

  As I held him in my arms, I sent up one last wish that it would be enough.

  21

  Gemma

  A few weeks later …

  A horn honked as I stepped off the curb and narrowly missed being hit by a lorry. It was so strange being back here, surrounded by the sights and sounds of my childhood. Foreign and familiar all at once.

  But I had unfinished business here. And so did Matthias.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” Matthias didn’t sound any surer than I felt.

  But I wanted to visit Sabine’s grave while we were in London.

  “It wouldn’t feel right to come all this way and not see her, you know?”

  By his blank expression, I doubted he understood, but it wouldn’t stop him from standing by my side and supporting me. The past few weeks had been chaotic as I adjusted to life on the outside. Now that things at ORUS had changed, for the first time I believed retirement was possible. Noah and Matthias had proven that it could be done. There was life after being in the shadows.

  But knowing it was possible and adjusting to living life on my own terms were two different things. It was hard to accept that I was calling all the shots now. With no mission and no protocol, I was on shaky ground each day. With Matthias’s help, I was learning how to establish my own goals and missions.

  “You don’t have to come with me, you know?” I said after we’d been riding along in a taxi silently for a few minutes. I wanted to give him an out. This trip had been hard enough on him.

  He didn’t look at me, but he squeezed my hand. “I’m coming with you.”

  And that was that.

  The taxi dropped us at the entrance to the cemetery, and before I could do it, Matthias handed over the money. Then we were on the sidewalk, looking up at the entrance gates.

  I’d done the research ahead of time and knew where Sabine was buried, so I started walking that way. It was a decent day for it, chilly as London often was, but crisp and clear. The names on the headstones we passed didn’t register until I saw the angel carved into the headstone.

  Sabine Anne Whitley.

  Now that I was here, I had no idea what to do. So I knelt and placed the single flower I’d brought along on the ground before her headstone. Sabine had been buried next to a brother I hadn’t even known she had. There were several other headstones around them; I assumed they were other family members. The names were unfamiliar, driving home just how much I hadn’t known about my friend.

  “I’m so sorry, Sabine.”

  Matthias dipped his head and stepped away slightly, giving me privacy. I sighed. There were so many things I wanted to say but it seemed so futile. None of it would bring her back. It was true what people said about death, it really made you think about what was important. In this case, rehashing all the ways we’d failed each other no longer mattered. The friend I’d grown up with would have wanted me to be happy in the end. And I wanted the same for her.

  “Rest in peace, my friend. I’ll never forget you.”

  I walked a few feet away to where Matthias stood staring out into the distance. His lips curved up at the edges when my arms wrapped around his waist, but I could see the worry in his eyes.

  “Are you okay? Did you get to say what you needed to say?”

  “I did. I loved her, and I hope she’s at peace. Maybe that’s stupid after what she did—”

  His face relaxed slightly. “It’s not stupid. No matter what happened at the end, she was still our Sabine in there somewhere.”

  It meant more to me than I could say that he got it. Despite her final days, my heart was mourning the person she used to be. The person who was good before the Family corrupted her. That’s the person I wanted to remember.

  Matthias grabbed my hand. “Let’s go back to the hotel. We h
ave a bit of a ride tomorrow. We need to get some rest.”

  I nodded. We were going to explore the northern English countryside the next day, and Matthias had been really excited about it. This was his chance to revisit some of the places he knew as a young child, before he came to the Family, so it was particularly meaningful. And I was excited because I wanted to share everything with him.

  I glanced over at him. There was something different about him. A peace that had never been there before. Whatever it was, it looked good on him.

  We left the cemetery hand-in-hand, walking away from our past and toward our future.

  Matthias

  It looked exactly the same.

  My head was swimming as the train sped through the verdant hills and valleys of my childhood. Outwardly, I appeared as calm and stoic as usual, but inside I was a mess of emotion.

  This trip to England was supposed to be about closure, for both Gemma and me, but in some ways it was opening wounds I hadn’t realized I had. The memories I’d long thought buried and forgotten were bursting forth like floodwaters being released. I was desperately trying to paddle along, but eventually I’d given up and was just riding the wave, content to land wherever the storm took me.

  Thankfully, Gemma was with me. I could see her profile in the reflection of the train window, head bent reading something on her phone, her brow creased in that adorable frown she always wore while concentrating hard on something.

  With anyone else this entire trip would have been torture. Having the scabs ripped off my emotional wounds had left me vulnerable in unexpected ways. Yesterday we’d explored London, and now we were taking the train to Northumberland. Working on old memories of my time with my grandmother, I’d been able to narrow down the likeliest counties where she’d lived. I hadn’t slept in weeks, hacking into various companies trying to run down data on elderly residents in each of the identified regions, until I’d gotten one name that fit. Once Gemma had shown me the locket, I’d avoided looking at it for a while. It made me feel things, things I wasn’t ready for. But one day, I’d finally pulled it out and examined it.