Sinners Anonymous (Sinners Anonymous, #1)

by Somme Sketcher

As my attention falls back down to the table, I lock eyes with Angelo. He’s no longer laughing at his brother’s story, nor is he eating. Instead, he’s staring right at me, his hands clenched into fists on either side of his untouched plate. Once I acclimate to the chill of his gaze, I realize what he sees. Me and Max, shoulder to shoulder, heads huddled and having a private, heated conversation at the end of the table.

Hotttttt

“May I have everyone’s attention, please.” His voice is low yet commanding, and triggers immediate silence. He basks in it for a few seconds, then shifts his attention to me. “Aurora, isn’t it?”

“Perfect. Now, take three steps to the left.”

“Happy?”

There’s a glint in his right hand. Then the bang is too loud. The smell of gunpowder too strong, and the taste of blood splatter on my lips too tangy. The bullet enters Max right between the eyes and exits out the back of his skull, taking half his brain with it. His head hits the table with a heavy thud, his blood turning the lace tablecloth crimson.

Screamin!!!

With my ears ringing, I look up at Angelo. As calm as a spring day, he sits down, sets the gun next to his napkin, and stuffs a forkful of ham in his mouth. He chews. Takes a sip of whiskey.

“The kid’s been selling your business plans to the Russians.” Then, lazily glancing around the rest of the table, he adds, “Eat up, your food will get cold.” Raphael sniggers. Tor lets out a low whistle. The word vicious flashes behind my eyelids. And I black out.

With a sigh, he tears his attention away from his phone and looks at me. “The Dip brothers have this hotline. Anyone can dial it and confess their secrets. Max probably called it. Snakes like him usually have a guilty conscience.” No. No, no, no. “A hotline?” I croak.

“Yeah, you’ve probably seen the cards around.” Please god, no. “It’s called Sinners Anonymous.” Not for the first time today, my world goes black.

I was twelve, Rafe ten, and Gabe eight when my father sat us down in Sacristy and told us it was time we became men.

We continued this ritual, all the way up until I was eighteen, which was when I left the Coast to study business at Oxford University in England. Rafe and Gabe didn’t want to continue the tradition without me, so it fizzled away into nothing more than a fond memory we’d drag up whenever we came home for the holidays.

Sinners Anonymous was all his idea. A bigger, shinier version of the game that forced us to become men. He’d hatched a whole plan as he flew thousands of feet above the Atlantic, fueled by liquor and nostalgia. An “anonymous” voicemail service instead of a church confession booth. A reach that touched all four corners of the globe—not just the cobbled streets of Devil’s Dip. We wouldn’t meet at Saint Pius’s at the end of every month, but a different church anywhere in the world each time.

I told Rafe I was in. Now, he sinks down on the bench next to me, and I can hear the click-clack of his dice as he rolls them between his thumb and forefinger in his pocket. Our childhood game shaped him a lot more than it did me. In fact, his whole life is a game—he owns half the hotels and casinos in Vegas and collects protection from the ones he doesn’t.

There’s nothing Rafe hates more than a cheat. My brother is a fucking shark. All pearly white teeth and charm, but nobody survives his bite.

“Fuck me, brother,” Rafe barks down the aisle. “Do you own any footwear that aren’t steel-capped boots? You stomp around like the Big Bad Wolf from Little Red Riding Hood.” Gabe looms over us like a storm cloud and scowls down at Rafe. “All the better to kick your head in with, my dear,” he growls.

Smash lololol

But I was going to kill him anyway. Like I said, utterly fucking insane.

I ignore him and turn back to Gabe. He unlocks the iPad and holds it up so we can both see the screen. “You know the drill. We’ve each chosen four callers.” He stabs the big “Generate Random Numbers” button on the screen. A spreadsheet populated with twelve names appears, each with a number between one and twelve beside it. “Over to you, Rafe.”

“So, who we got?” I ask. Rafe reaches for the iPad and peers down at the screen. “Phillip Moyers. Some old bastard in Connecticut. Called to confess to a hit and run.” “Big fucking deal,” I mutter, rolling my eyes.

Gabe’s a goddamn mystery. Has been since he came back to the Coast one Christmas, shortly before our parents died, with a whole new personality and a fresh scar running from his eyebrow to his chin. He won’t share his shit. Everything we’ve pieced together comes from Chinese whispers and half-baked rumors. Some say he’s building and testing new weapons out of a Siberian military base. Others say he’s working as a hitman for the Palermo outfit. All we know for sure is that on the last Sunday of every month, he’ll turn up wherever in the world you ask him to.

Rafe doesn’t laugh at his crappy joke. Instead, he stares at me with sea-green eyes too similar to Angelo’s. But it’s not just his likeness to his brother that makes me uncomfortable. Behind the charm and the smile, there’s something scarily stoic about him. He oozes power out of every perfect pore, filling the room with his presence. Tonight, he wears a navy suit, pinstripe shirt, and a rose-gold collar pin, complete with a small chain. He has that same untouchable air as his brother. I can’t ever imagine him doing anything normal, like standing in line at Starbucks, or driving his car through a car wash.

Tayce is the best tattoo artist on the continent. Some would argue the world. Her waiting list is as long as the Bible and people clamber over each other to get on it. Including the members of the world’s most powerful mafia families. Ones that have names like “Blade.”

The calmness in Angelo’s voice forms an icicle along the length of my spine. I steal a glance up at him. He’s standing under a streetlight. The yellow glow shines off his dark hair and casts a dark shadow under his high cheekbones. Makes his green eyes glitter like emeralds. Tonight, he’s wearing a black wool jacket, with a gray turtleneck sweater poking out from underneath the collar. He looks warm, strong.

We stare at each other. His expression is disinterested as always, but behind his eyes something dark glitters. A challenge. Like he’s silently goading me to dispute his lie. I tilt my chin up and he cocks an eyebrow, as if to say, go on. I dare you.

I shouldn’t glance in the side mirror, but I do. Angelo stands under the streetlamp. Before we turn the corner, I see the flick of his lighter. A billow of smoke oozes out from his parted lips.

Before I can pluck up the courage to ask, he pushes off the hood and strolls to the passenger side. He holds the door open. “Get in.”

“I was going to say, unattractive.” Frustration claws at my throat, threatening to cut off my air supply if I don’t let it out. “I’m not a whore.” “You’re not unattractive, either.” I freeze.

Ahhh

His stare scorches my cheek, hot and unrelenting. When I turn to meet it, my heart stills. “Are you a bad girl, Aurora?” I swallow. His eyes dance with dark amusement, but his tone is more sinister.

“I could listen to every secret you have with a tap of a button.” My blood runs cold. “But you won’t.” “But I could.” He tilts his head in the direction of the phone booth. My phone booth. “I know exactly where you’re calling from. It’d be piss-easy to trace.”

“Tell me a sin, Aurora,” he drawls. His tone drips in syrup, thick enough to drown in. I briefly close my eyes from the twisted pleasure of it. “You’re serious?” “Deadly.”

And then, his laugh. A delicious, throaty laugh that lights up my skin like a live wire. I can’t stop staring at him. At the way the hard lines of his face soften, all except the cleft in his chin, which deepens under the weight of his broad smile.

I have a rule book as thick as my dick when it comes to women, but all rules can be boiled down to one word: Don’t.

A fat raindrop falls on my windshield, followed by another. Eventually, they merge together and obscure my view of Aurora’s perfect ass in those gym leggings as she hot-foots it away from my Bugatti. Oh, and don’t ogle your uncle’s fiancee.

Big Al is one lucky fucker and he doesn’t even realize it. Turns out, his latest squeeze is more than a smoke show—she’s a guilty conscience locked in a tight, stubborn body. If she wasn’t so fucking hot, the fact she thinks petty theft and being a little scissor-happy warrants a confession to Sinners Anonymous would be kind of adorable.

Get a grip, Angelo. I’m a thirty-six year old man, perving on a girl nearly half my age.

Another smirk prickles on my lips, and I chew the inside of my cheek to stop it from forming. The only thing bad about this girl is her bite. “You kiss my uncle with that mouth?” “Unfortunately.” Something flickers in the pit of my gut. Something I don’t want to name.

Looking like that, she could never be a sinner. Her eyes are too big. Each of her pitiful secrets swirls in her irises, which are the color of warm whiskey. Her skin is too pale and perfect. The slightest sin will make her flush a beautiful shade of pink. My gaze drops to her plump, parted lips. And that fucking mouth. The only sound inside the car is the small, shallow breaths escaping it.

But I’m fooling nobody. My moral compass: it’s as weak as a house of cards, and if Aurora lets out one more fucking breath like that, she’ll blow it down.

I’m not going to grab her by the base of her nape, pull her closer, and see how those soft lips taste.

And for the first time since we met, I see her smile. I think I like it when she smiles.

Whiskey Under the Rocks. It’s a secret buried deep within the caves of Devil’s Hollow, a far cry from the glitzy strip of clubs over in Devil’s Cove. Over there, money will buy you entry to any club or casino, but this joint is invite-only.

Once a month, Rafe, Tor, and Benny come together to hold a poker night. It’s a partnership that’s worked seamlessly over the years. Tor brings in the biggest spenders from his casinos in Devil’s Cove. Rafe has a reputation that has any gambler begging for a seat at one of his games. And Benny, the second oldest Hollow brother, is a fixer. From the finest Russian whores to the purest Peruvian cocaine, there’s nothing he can’t, or won’t, source to give his guests a good time.

Hearing a familiar bark echo through the empty club, I twist my head to the left, a lazy smirk forming on my lips. Tor’s here already, acting like the big nightclub boss, a role he assumes so well. Behind me, the elevator dings, and a loud Russian voice spills out of it.

“Well, what the fuck am I supposed to do for the next three hours, Castiel?” I glance over my shoulder and spot a long-legged blond in an impossibly tight dress. In front of her, my cousin Cas storms ahead, a face like thunder. He catches my eye, mutters something in Italian, and spins on his heel. “Here,” he spits, taking a wedge of bills out of his pocket and tossing it at the woman’s stilettos. “Go play.” She yells at him in Russian and storms off. Judging by the weary gaze settling on his face, Cas is used to it by now.

I jerk my chin up. “Lover’s tiff?” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “...

Cas is the oldest Hollow brother; I’ve always liked him and admired his business acumen. He’s calm, money-minded, and single-handedly turned Smugglers Club whiskey from “mafia juice” into a global brand. He’s got a few nicknames along the coast, one being The Silver Fox—thanks to his George Clooney-esque good looks and salt-and-pepper hair, and the other being Mister Moonshine.

Owning a special-edition Smugglers Club liquor bottle, brewed by Castiel Visconti himself, is the ultimate status symbol.

I need a woman with a damn backbone, both in and out of the bedroom. But especially in the bedroom. I like to fuck rough, but rough’s boring when she lies back and takes it.

Cas groans. I turn around to see Benny, the middle Hollow brother, stroll into the club, a gaggle of half-naked women on his arms. He shoots a wink at me. “What’s your type, cugino?” Curly-haired and unavailable.

Maybe I should get laid tonight. Find a blond, curly-haired babe and have her mutter dirty bird puns in my ear.

Oh he’s obsessed

“It’s just family; you didn’t need to bring the cavalry.” “I’m an important man, cugino,” Rafe shoots back, throwing me a wink as he sits down next to me. He nods to his men, who then take guard by the door. “I don’t expect you to understand.”