Page 136 of Two Sides of Sin

She looked back across the table at me, and the soft, dreamy look in her eyes suddenly turned into something far more curious. She narrowed her eyes slightly, resting her chin in her hand.

“Okay, enough about me,” she challenged gently. “What about you? What do you want, Julian? You never actually talk about yourself, and it bothers me. I feel like I’m always talking your ear off, but I hardly know what you want out of this life.”

I set my wine glass down onto the crisp white tablecloth. I held her gaze, the centuries of war, blood, and loss hidden behind my meticulously crafted human facade.

“I’m not after much anymore,” I told her, the unvarnished truth ringing in my low voice. “I’ve already accomplished every goal I ever set out to do. I’ve fought my battles. Now… I just want to live in peace.”

I reached across the table, my large, scarred hands gently enveloping her smaller ones.

“I want to live a life that isn’t dictated by anyone but myself,” I murmured, my thumb slowly tracing the smooth skin of her knuckles. No military. No immortal bloodlines. No psychotic brother hunting us in the dark.

I stopped moving my thumb. I looked up, locking my eyes directly onto hers. The rest of the restaurant, the hum of the conversation, the entire world simply ceased to exist.

“And I want you,” I said softly, the vow vibrating with a heavy, ancient weight.

She didn’t look away, captivated by the overwhelming burning in my eyes.

“Forever.”

Was this the moment? I stared into her beautiful eyes, the word forever still hanging in the candlelit air between us. My heart thundered against my ribs. Just do it, I told myself. Do it right now.

I slowly broke eye contact, shifting my weight as my hand dropped toward the inner pocket of my suit jacket, my fingertips brushing the soft velvet of the ring box⁠—

Bzzzt. Bzzzt. Bzzzt.

The vibration of my phone vibrating against the wooden table shattered the quiet intimacy of the booth.

I froze, my hand still tucked inside my jacket.

Sage blinked, the heavy spell broken. A small, teasing smile returned to her red lips as she glanced down at the glowing screen resting next to my water glass.

“You going to get that, Mr. Popular?” she asked lightly.

The moment was gone.

I pulled my empty hand out of my jacket, forcing a tight, apologetic smile as I picked up the phone. But the second the screen illuminated my face, my expression instantly hardened into stone.

It was an encrypted, untraceable number. Two messages.

The first was a line of text:

Good brothers share their toys. They don’t hide them.

My hands instantly went clammy, a cold sweat breaking out across the back of my neck. With a numb, trembling thumb, I pressed the video link in the second message.

The screen buffered for a fraction of a second before a dark, grainy video began to play.

It was shot in the dark, illuminated only by the faint, eerie green glow of night vision. It took my brain a few moments to process the chaotic shapes and shadows. But then, the camera steadied.

I saw the torn, lace of the corset. I saw her soft skin, smeared with dirt. And then, I saw the massive, gloved hand dragging a knife down her chest and it instantly all clicked.

I stopped breathing.

The camera angle shifted upward, catching the reflection of the grim reaper mask —the exact identical costume Sage had playfully picked out for me in the store.

A wave of nausea hit me so hard my vision blurred. He had filmed it. Cain had actually set up a camera in the dirt, recording himself violating her. He had captured every breathless moan, every desperate, drug-induced plea, knowing exactly how badly it would destroy me to watch it. He was getting off on the painful, disturbing psychological torture of it, twisting the knife into my chest even if she didn’t remember a single second of it.

My hands started to shake, the metal casing of the phone groaning under my crushing grip.