Sinners Anonymous (Sinners Anonymous, #1)

by Somme Sketcher

Visconti women love a pissing match at funerals.

“I slit a bastard’s throat last week. He made the exact same noise.” There’s a ripple down my row, and I glance left to my brother, Rafe. He’s biting down on his bottom lip to suppress a snigger.

Nobody throws a party like a recently deceased Visconti, let alone two of them.

When I open my eyes, Rafe is standing on one side of me, Gabe on the other. They both follow my gaze up to the low-hanging clouds, their bellies pregnant with the incoming storm. Rafe lets out a hiss. “What a beautiful day to bury our parents.” Gabe says nothing.

Side by side. Together for eternity. There will be a sanitized version of their love story etched onto a joint headstone. I think of all the mid-morning joggers and wayward tourists that will stop to read it and believe it’s their daily reminder that love exists. Meanwhile, the sinful truth is buried six feet underneath them.

No matter what romantic prose is chiseled into a marble headstone, true love doesn’t exist. It’s nothing but hope in a different form. A concept for the poor and the powerless to latch onto when there’s nothing else.

Made men know love doesn’t exist.

Visconti men in particular don’t fall in love. Because falling suggests it was accidental, and everything this family does is cold and calculated.

Incense burns, wisps of smoke merging with the morning fog. Then come the roses. Blood red and full of thorns, landing with a dull thud on the mahogany lid. Rafe crouches next to me, brings his fist up to his mouth, and blows. With a flick of his wrist, a pair of dice scatters across the lid, rolling off the curve and falling into the gap between the coffin and the soil.

Mama believed in fate as much as she believed in God. But while she was content having never seen or heard the big man in the sky, she constantly sought out proof that fate existed. She searched for it everywhere. Five-dollar tarot readings by fortune tellers at the fair, the little eight-ball key ring attached to her house keys. And goddamn fortune cookies.

It was a fortune cookie that had brought her from New York to Devil’s Dip, Washington, in the first place. Seek hope where the air is salty and the cliffs are steep.

I know what they are all thinking. The death of my father marks a new era for the Cosa Nostra, and it starts with me. The new capo of Devil’s Dip.

My father always said my temper was different from my brothers. Their anger burns slow like a candle and is easy to extinguish, whereas mine is like a firework. Light my fuse and I explode mere seconds later, with no thought to the irreparable damage I will cause. You’re vicious, son. A great trait for a capo to have. Not.

I bring the rosary back out of my pocket and to my lips. “Forgive me Father,” I mutter into the cold metal as a raindrop lands on my cheek, “for I have sinned.”

A strike of lightning flashes across the horizon. God trying to smite me down.

“My name is Rory Carter and I do bad things.” The

I’m not a criminal. I just do bad things. Morally questionable things. Spiteful, revengeful things. I didn’t used to be like this, but now there’s a stain on my soul so dark and stubborn that there’s nothing I can do to scrub it away. So, I don’t bother trying anymore. Instead, I confess.

I twist the ring around my finger and swallow the knot in my throat.

“You hoping to fall, or fly?” Oh, sparrow. My eyes snap open and I scurry away from the edge, feeling like a naughty schoolgirl caught doing something she shouldn’t.

He stands less than a foot away. Sharp suit and an even sharper cheekbone, from what I can see of his profile. It becomes even more defined when he slips a cigarette between his lips and inhales deeply.

He’s staring out to the sea as if he never said anything at all. Maybe he didn’t. Jesus, how long has he been here? And where did he come from? Licking my weather-beaten lips, I glance to the road behind me, which runs parallel to the graveyard. A black sports car is parked haphazardly, the front wheels mounting the edge of an old tombstone.

My eyes drag back to him. Well, he is dressed all in black. Just an expensive-looking coat instead of a cloak, and he holds a cigarette instead of a scythe. The cherry glows red against the gloomy sky as he takes another deep drag.

“Because if you’re hoping to fall…” He takes a deliberate step toward the edge and my heart leaps into my throat. He has the confidence of someone simply peering over the side of a swimming pool and not into the raging sea a hundred and fifty feet below. “You’ve got a long way to go.”

The question leaves my head as quickly as it arrives. Of course, I already know what I’d do. I’d cross the graveyard, round the church, and slip into my favorite phone box across the road. Then, instead of calling the Coast Guard, I’d dial the number I know better than my own, and I’d confess that I’d done nothing to help. Because that’s what compulsive sinners do.

Piercing green eyes and a squared-off jaw as sharp as his cheekbones. That’s all my muddy brain has time to register before he turns beside me, his back now facing the gloomy horizon.

“Suicide is a sin,” he rasps, his stubble grazing my cheek. “But Devil’s Dip has a way of making you want to throw yourself over the edge, doesn’t it?” And then he’s gone, those wingtips crunching over the gravel toward his car.

“You have reached Sinners Anonymous,” a woman’s robotic voice says. “Please leave your sin after the tone.” After the long beep, I take a deep breath and let my soul bleed.

I learned quickly it’s better to vent my frustrations silently, usually by balling my fists until my fingernails carve half-moons into my palms. Oh, and spitting in his mouthwash.

Two-and-a-half months ago, I sank to my knees on the doorstep of Alberto’s white colonial mansion and begged for mercy. Now, I’m living a life I don’t recognize; playing a side character in a story I don’t understand.

Everyone on the Devil’s Coast knows the Visconti family because they own almost everything on it. Every bar, hotel, restaurant, and casino in Devil’s Cove. The Smugglers Club whiskey factory in Devil’s Hollow. The one corner of this coast their reach hasn’t touched is my humble hometown of Devil’s Dip.

Taking a sip of water, I glance up and lock eyes with Dante Visconti. He’s Alberto’s oldest son, his underboss, and the coast’s bigger jerk. He’s tall, dark, and as much as I hate to admit it, very handsome. Everything about him is chiseled, including that scowl permanently carved into his forehead. His gaze darkens, and I know exactly what he’s about to say, because he says it aloud at every Friday night dinner without fail.

But instead of using the Viscontis’ silverware as a weapon, I do what I’ve become accustomed to: plastering on a fake smile and biting down my bitterness.

I knew of Tor Visconti long before his father put a rock on my finger. Every girl on the Devil’s Coast knows Tor, some more intimately than others. Plump lips, tousled hair, and a smile that could melt the Arctic. And then there’s that stupid nose stud that glints every time he tips his head back to sneer at me. He’d look almost feminine if it weren’t for all the ink and the fact that his shoulders are the width of a football field.

The first, is that they aren’t just a powerful family, they are in fact, the mafia. Cold-hearted, hot-blooded Sicilian-Americans who live and die by the Glocks tucked into the waistbands of their Armani suits. The second, is that whatever they want, they get. Including one ice cube in their lowball glass.

But Amelia Visconti: she’s different. She’s softly spoken and kind and now that I come to think of it, really damn delusional. She’s sitting around this table by choice—she married Donatello Visconti, Alberto’s second son and consigliere. He sits on the other side of her, sifting through paperwork, and, unlike Dante, he couldn’t care less that I took his seat at the table.

Amelia may have married a Visconti for love, but I’m sure that’s a hell of a lot easier when your husband looks like an Italian Ryan Reynolds. It only takes one look at my fiance to realize that I’m not doing the same.

I’m sick of these stupid high heels and short dresses that Alberto forces me to wear. I’m sick of the sneers and eye rolls and the insults from people who wouldn’t pee on me if I was on fire. The escorts and itineraries and the sleepless nights staring at the gilded ceiling of Alberto’s bedroom, wondering if his fat belly will suffocate me when he finally clambers on top of me on our wedding night. I hate the Viscontis. And I hate that I have no choice but to suck it up and smile.

“Aurora?” And I’m sick of being called Aurora. My name is Rory.

I force myself to swallow and focus on the man’s profile. That sharp cheekbone, the stubble lining his jaw… And then, as if he can feel my stare boring into the side of his face, he turns and locks eyes with me.

It’s him. The man from the cliff’s edge. The one with the cigarette and the wingtips and the indifferent tone. Suicide is a sin. He pins me with a disinterested stare, and then his gaze darkens.

“We have an unexpected but very welcome visitor. So, cheers to my favorite nephew, Vicious Visconti!” Nephew. Vicious.

He’s barely said a word. Barely moved. When the appetizer arrived, he slipped off his suit jacket and folded it neatly over the back of his chair, revealing a cream-colored sweater that hugs his body like a second skin. Ever since, he’s sat there with a steel-like spine, fists clenched on either side of his untouched plate, while Alberto and Dante do all the talking. He hasn’t looked at me once.

Angelo Visconti. So, the mysterious jerk has a name. My eyes follow him obsessively as he finally moves for the first time since appetizers were served, only to lean back in his chair and rub his hands together in a way that makes his huge biceps flex. He looks bored.

Who is this girl? I silently ask the mirror. Because I don’t recognize her with the inch-thick makeup and the poker-straight hair. Despite the fact that I signed my name in blood on the dotted line of Alberto’s contract, I’ll never be Aurora Visconti. I’ll always be Rory Carter from Devil’s Dip. The Rory who wears her hair curly and lives in Lululemon and sneakers. Who can start a fire with a soda can and can identify over three hundred birds by their tweets alone.

Dante Visconti isn’t the type of man who paces.

“Rory Carter,” he purrs, twisting a cloth around the inside of a beer glass. “I heard you were hanging out with the Viscontis these days. Didn’t believe it.”

There’s a running joke in Devil’s Dip that every girl’s life goal is to either get out or marry a Visconti. And if you can’t snag a Visconti, then at least one of the very rich men that can afford to frequent the Visconti-owned establishments in Devil’s Cove.

I want to tell her that everything she sees in front of her is made in Alberto’s image. That this darn thong is slicing my butt in half, and I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve caught my skin in too-tight zippers. But even though Amelia is my only tie to the normal world within the gates of this mansion, she’s still part of the family.

“He’s thirty-fucking-two,” Tor chuckles, counting the bills in his hand. “And he’s still bitter about it.” “About what?” I find myself asking. Tor glances down at me and smirks. “Angelo fucked his prom date.” “Why?” He looks at Donatello, and in unison they say, “Because he’s Vicious Visconti.”

“Remember when he blew out his driver’s kneecap ‘cause he took the wrong turn?” Donatello nods. “Mmm. And when he locked all those port workers in a shipping container and blew it up, all because there was one boat log they couldn’t account for.” He shakes his head in disbelief. “Of all the made men to go straight, I never thought it’d be Vicious.”