by Eva Ashwood
I can’t believe that bitch choked me out.
When my vision clears completely, I realize that Reagan is here too. She’s sitting in the corner of the dimly lit room, watching me with the single-minded focus of a predator or a feral animal.
Reagan.
Jesus fucking Christ.
All this time I was worried about Cliff. Caitlin. Or maybe Aaron. I didn’t even think about Reagan. She wasn’t even on my radar. She was just always there, one of Caitlin’s little followers.
But she’s obviously not as much of a follower as I thought. I’m pretty sure she orchestrated this whole thing herself—the kidnapping, holding Max hostage to get to me.
And she’s obviously crazy. Bat shit crazy.
My muscles scream as I try to get the blood flowing into my stiff, cold, limbs.
Reagan shifts, her gaze tracking every small movement of my body as I shift in the chair I’m tied to. When her attention moves up to my face, my stomach clenches as our gazes meet.
“Where are they?” I ask, my voice hoarse.
She knows who I mean—Max, Elias, Declan, and Gray.
Fuck. My heart throbs in my chest at the thought of them. Are they safe? Are they hurt? Did they survive the fire Reagan set? Did she go back for them after she knocked me out?
Where are they?
If she thinks she can get away with this, she’s fucking wrong. The thought is full of vengeful fury, but it doesn’t do much to ease my fear. I’ll make her pay if she hurt any of them, but that won’t unbreak my heart.
Reagan just shrugs. She doesn’t look concerned at all, and my jaw clenches as I wonder if that means they’re okay—or if it means they’re dead.
Maybe she doesn’t actually know how they are. Maybe she never went back to the site of the fire if she was too busy fighting with me and dragging me here, wherever this place is.
That gives me a little hope. The Sinners are smart. They’re tough, and so is Max. They’re survivors. They would’ve gotten out of the fire, I’m sure of it.
I let myself believe the four of them are okay. I need to believe that right now, or I won’t be able to think about anything else. And I have to focus, have to figure out what—
“You were there,” I say suddenly, the realization plowing into me like a wrecking ball. “You were at the end of semester party.”
She smirks.
“You tried to push me down the stairs,” I croak. As I say the words, I’m struck with a sudden certainty that they’re true. I still can’t remember her face in that moment, but I’m positive it was her.
And what else did she do? Was she the one driving the fucking car that almost hit me? Goddammit. This entire time, the biggest threat hasn’t been Cliff trying to hurt me, it’s been Reagan trying to fucking kill me.
“What do you want from me?” I demand.
I have no fucking clue. Money? Don’t have any, besides what I have left of what I won from Gray during fall semester, but I’d be willing to bet that’s nothing compared to whatever is on the card her daddy gives her for her necessities. Power? Don’t know what that is. Acceptance from my social circle? She can find it elsewhere. A couple of old paintings, worth less than a hundred dollars?
I have nothing for her. Nothing.
“I can’t let you hurt him,” she says. Her voice is simple and direct, her gaze never leaving mine. There’s something strange in her tone when she says the word him. Something almost like awe or worship. “I just can’t.”
What the fuck? Hurt who?
Panic starts to rush in, slow but steady. If I don’t get the fuck out of here, she’s going to do something terrible. Maybe even kill me. I don’t know. She’s clearly fucking insane, and if I’m right about the events of earlier tonight and all those weeks ago at the party, she’s tried to off me before. Why wouldn’t she try again now that she’s got me tied up and at her mercy?
It’s a miracle I’m not dead already.
“Where are we?” I demand. “Where the fuck did you bring me?”
The room is sparse, with simple cement walls and a plain light fixture in the ceiling. It looks sort of like an unfinished basement or something, but if that’s what it is, it leaves the question—whose house are we in?
She laughs, and I repeat my question, my voice rising. “Where the fuck are we, Reagan?”
My body is straining against the ropes, my heart crashing against my ribs. I’m losing control of myself, my hatred of being restrained making my nerves feel like they’re on fire.
Focus. Focus, Sophie, dammit.
“You don’t remember?” Reagan cocks her head, her soft, feminine voice dripping into my ears and infecting my brain like poison. “It’s where the bad girls go, Sophie.”
She takes a few steps closer to me, and I can see every place where I hit her. A black eye is blooming on one side of her face, and she sports several scrapes on her cheeks from my nails and the rocks and twigs we rolled around on. Her wounds have been cleaned though, the blood washed away so that all that’s left are little red scratches and purpling bruises. I doubt I look like that right now. I’m probably still a blood-smeared, filthy mess.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I grit out.
Her voice drops, her eyes narrowing a little. “You should know. You were a really bad girl. You spent more time here than I ever did.”
More time than she did? Have we been down here before?
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I insist through gritted teeth. The throbbing pain in my head is getting worse, and it feels like someone is trying to rip a piece of my brain out.
My gaze flicks around the room, searching for clues. Something. Anything.
You spent more time here than I ever did.
The words play on repeat in my mind as I scan the small space. Then my attention snags on a crack in the wall, a few feet high, only a few inches wide. There’s something about the way the shadows hit it, the way the gray concrete turns into black and purples and deep blues that reminds me of something I should know, something I was trying to remember…
It comes back to me in a rush. My paintings.
The patterns. The whorls of colors and shadows and darkness.
I do know this place.
Oh, fuck.
My stomach knots as I turn my gaze back to Reagan, my eyes wide. Long-repressed memories are pressing up against the inside of my skull, threatening to break me. Threatening every shred of my sanity.
I know this place.
On the other side of the room, the door scrapes open. Its hinges creak a little, and Reagan’s head snaps up at the sound, the twisted hatred on her face transforming instantly to something softer. Something fawning and needy. The sudden change in her makes all the fine hairs on my body stand on end, my skin prickling with goosebumps as the fractured memories in my mind finally start to take shape.
Reagan takes a step back, and the man who just entered takes her place, coming to stand in front of me.
I crane my neck, looking up into blue eyes and a handsome face. Perfectly styled hair with streaks of gray that accent the coppery-red strands. Movie-star handsome. That’s what I thought when I saw him at my art show, standing in the corner talking to Cliff.
Now I don’t see a movie star.
I just see a fucking monster.
Alan Montgomery gazes down at me, his hands clasped behind his back and his face unreadable.
“Hello, Sabrina.”
To Be Continued…
What Sinners Love, the final book in the Sinners of Hawthorne University series, is on Amazon HERE.
And if you’re dying to talk about the book, come hang out in my Facebook group, Eva Ashwood’s Readers. I post giveaways, teasers, and updates there too!
Looking for another series to binge? Try my completed dark high school romance series, Slateview High. Turn the page to check out the cover and blurb.
"You're in our world now, Princess. You're ours."
My whol
e life, I’ve been groomed as American royalty, raised to be the perfect daughter of the wealthy elite.
On my sixteenth birthday, my father bought me an Aston Martin.
And on my seventeenth birthday, the Feds took everything away.
With my father in prison for fraud and nothing left to our name, my mom and I are forced to move to a tiny house across town, and I transfer to Slateview Public.
The only problem is, nearly everyone at my new school has reason to despise my family name. They want to see a princess brought low, and they’ll do whatever it takes to make me fall.
Money was the language of my old world, but violence is the language of my new one. The only way I’ll survive until graduation is to make a deal with three gorgeous, dangerous devils—the ones everyone calls the Lost Boys.
If I accept their bargain, Bishop, Misael, and Kace will protect me.
But they’ll own me too.
Start reading now!
Books by Eva Ashwood
Clearwater University
(college-age enemies to lovers series)
Who Breaks First
Who Laughs Last
Who Falls Hardest
Magic Blessed Academy
(paranormal academy series)
Gift of the Gods
Secret of the Gods
Wrath of the Gods
The Dark Elite
(dark mafia romance)
Vicious Kings
Ruthless Knights
Savage Queen
Slateview High
(dark high school bully romance)
Lost Boys
Wild Girl
Mad Love
Sinners of Hawthorne University
(dark new adult romance)
When Sinners Play
How Sinners Fight
What Sinners Love
(contemporary romance standalone)
Say Yes