Page 29 of Two Sides of Sin

I’d let her keep it for now. I’d let her have her little shifts and her meager tips. We would see just how long I’d allow her to pretend the world was a safe place before I dragged her back to the one I’d built for her.

When she finally pushed through the double doors, the bell chimed—a tiny, cheerful sound that felt like an insult in the heavy night air. She froze for a heartbeat, her eyes scanning the shadows until they landed on me.

I didn’t move. I didn’t hide. I stood there, a dark stain on her horizon, letting the cherry of my cigar glow bright enough for her to see the smirk on my face.

She started walking, her pace fast, her shoes clicking a frantic echo against the concrete. I followed staying close enough for her to hear the heavy tread of my boots, but far enough that she couldn’t call it an assault. It was a haunting, nonetheless, and I wanted her to feel every second of it.

She reached her front door, her hands fumbling with her house key. She didn’t look back until the door was halfway open. She shot me a venomous look, her eyes narrowing into sharp daggers, before she stormed inside and slammed the door hard enough to rattle the frame.

I stood on the sidewalk and let out a soft, dark chuckle. How cute. She thinks a wooden door can keep out the thing that’s already inside her head.

Back at the manor, the atmosphere was heavy with Julian’s pathetic moping. Every time I passed the library and saw him staring into the fireplace like some tragic, Victorian lead, I felt the urge to smack him in the back of the head. He’d broken it off. He’d “freed” her. He’d let his guilt win, and now he was rotting in it.

But I won’t lie—even in the silence of the manor, I’ve missed her. Not her conversation. Her presence. The way the air in a room changes when she walks in, like a storm front moving in over a calm sea.

I love the way I get under her skin. I love the way her pulse jumps when I step too close, that delicious friction between her disgust and her curiosity. She wants to hate me; she tells herself she does. But I saw her eyes when she walked into my office. I saw the way her pupils dilated until the deep blue was swallowed by black.

She hadn’t wanted to look away. She couldn’t. Her body was already whispering truths her mouth wasn’t ready to say. She was terrified of the scene in front of her, but she was starving for it, too. An unquenchable thirst she’s spent her whole life trying to ignore.

I intend to make her look at me that way again. I’ll make her look at me until she forgets Julian all together.

Julian had his turn with his poetry and his gentle hands, and he failed. He let her slip through his fingers because he was too afraid to squeeze. I don’t have that problem.

Now that she’s “free” from my brother, she’s for the taking. And I intend to take every single piece of her..

Mind, body, and soul.

I sat there for God knows how long, a shadow tethered to the curb, waiting for the glow in her window to die. It didn’t take long. My little working girl was exhausted, her spirit drained by the mundane rhythm of a life that was beneath her. I could almost feel the moment her head hit the pillow—the instant her consciousness gave in and she slipped deep into a sleep she’d earned, but wouldn’t enjoy.

The air had turned cool, a restless wind whipping through the trees and rattling the dry leaves along the gutter. A dog barked a few streets over, a lonely, echoing sound that only emphasised how quiet this neighbourhood really was at night.

I stood up, my fingers cracking in the silence and crossed the street with quick deliberate steps.

I walked straight to the step, reached under the chipped ceramic pot plant, and pulled out the spare key.

It felt pathetic in my palm—small, cold, and far too easily found.

The door creaked as I let myself inside, but it didn’t matter. The house was already filled with the laughter of some sitcom—The Golden Girls, by the sound of it. I walked past the lounge room, my shadow stretching long and predatory across the wall. June’s grandmother was slumped in her recliner, fast asleep, the television volume turned up way too loud.

I paused for a second, watching the blue light flicker over her wrinkled features. They really were like prey served up on a silver platter. So trusting. So dangerously naive. They lived their lives as if the monsters only existed in the movies June liked to watch, never realising one was standing in their hallway, breathing their air.

But June… June was different.

Sometimes I think she wants to invite the monsters inside. She’d seen me following her. She knew I was lurking in the dark, a predator she couldn’t outrun, yet she left that key right where I could find it. In my world, that’s not an oversight. That’s an invitation.

She was daring me to come for her, even if she was too scared to admit it to herself.

I moved up the stairs, my boots silent on the carpeted treads. I took them one by one, shifting my weight with a hunter’s precision just in case she wasn’t as far gone as I thought.

The higher I climbed, the more the air seemed to thicken with the scent of her.

I stepped into the room, the pitch-black shadows swallowing her small frame as I moved deeper into her sanctuary. The only light came from the moon, casting a pale, ghostly glow across the length of her legs. I looked towards the window—the thin curtains were fluttering softly in the breeze.

She’d left it open—another invitation.

She’d done absolutely nothing to keep me out—no locked doors, no latched windows, no defences. It was as if some primal part of her was screaming for me to find her, even while her conscious mind pretended to be afraid.

I reached the side of the bed and stood there, a silent predator in the dark. She was drowned in an oversized band shirt, her legs tangled outside the blanket, exposing the smooth line of her hip where the fabric had ridden up. She shifted in her sleep, rolling onto her back with a soft, subconscious sigh that cut through the quiet.