Darkest Sin (Las Vegas Sin Book 3) Read online

  Darkest Sin

  J. Saman

  Copyright © 2020 by J. Saman

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover Design: Shanoff Designs

  Photography: Wander Aguiar

  Model: Forest

  Editing: Gina Johnson

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Epilogue

  Also by J. Saman

  End of Book Note

  Touching Sin - Chapter 1

  Love to Hate Her - Prologue

  Prologue

  Emma

  * * *

  Once upon a time in a land far, far away, a sweet fairy princess fell in love with a handsome prince. It was fireworks. It was magic and mystery, and far too many swoony smiles that had her head over heels before her feet could even touch the ground.

  Because let’s face it ladies, men are a dime a dozen.

  The special ones are almost an urban legend at this point.

  But no one at twenty-two feels that let alone acknowledges it. Twenty-two is the age of beauty and wonder and possible romance. It’s the age where you start to think, I’m done with college frat boy hookups, and morph into I’m searching the world for my one.

  And maybe that shit works out for some.

  But that’s not this story…

  Our fairy princess met the handsome prince at a nightclub in Manhattan–okay, so maybe that’s not the stuff of fairytales, but it’s how it happened.

  Let’s switch this up and call her the girl.

  Because this story, much like their meeting, is not a fairytale.

  The girl was dancing with her friends when she glanced up, locking eyes with a gorgeous stranger. He unabashedly stared at her, making it obvious he had been watching her for quite some time. Waiting on her to find him.

  Heat crawled up the porcelain skin of her face. It was as if the world shifted. Her belly dipped, swarming with butterflies. Never before had she experienced this type of immediate reaction to a man.

  She smiled.

  He smiled back.

  He waved for her to come up to the VIP lounge he was standing in. She nodded her head yes.

  She. Nodded. Her. Head. Yes.

  That one, small, insignificant gesture forever changed the course of her entire life.

  Because she went up those steps.

  She entered that VIP room. And she talked and danced with the gorgeous stranger all night, never straying from his strong arms or beautiful smile. The way he looked at her… It was in a way no one ever had before, and it made her feel truly seen for the first time.

  He drove her home in his expensive car just as the sun was rising along the New York skyline. After peppering her lips with a series of passionate kisses, he asked her for her number and then proceeded to walk her to her door, never once pushing for more.

  Her perfect prince called the very next day and the two of them went out for a romantic dinner in the city. He pursued her with gentlemanly patience and devilish persistence. Earning her trust and her heart within days.

  He was her fairytale.

  The dream every little girl pines for.

  The beginning of the ultimate love story.

  Private planes and vacations to exotic destinations. Handholding and up-all-night talks. She was swept up in a whirlwind. Blissfully happy in love.

  Sam was older. British. Wealthy. Kind. Gentle. Adoring. Perfect.

  Until he wasn’t.

  Until the girl showed up at his townhouse on the upper east side to surprise him for a wicked night of naughty fun. Something she had done dozens of times before.

  But this was no ordinary night for the girl and Sam.

  This was the night that changed it all.

  Using the key Sam had given her, she walked in at the exact moment he shot a man in the face. A man who was bound, gagged, bloodied, and beaten.

  Her scream pierced the air, somehow louder and more pronounced than the silenced gunshot. Sam tried to explain, promising her that it wasn’t how it appeared. That the man in the seat was really the bad person. Not him.

  Evil, was the word he used.

  He had threatened Sam and his business, and deserved everything he got.

  But the unfamiliar gleam in Sam’s–her beloved’s–eyes told a different story.

  The girl turned to flee when another shot rang out, this one slicing across her upper arm. Pain seared through her flesh, hot sticky blood poured down her arm, dripping to the floor. She cried out, her steps faltering, allowing Sam to reach her. Hold her. Wrap her up in his strong arms and press his handkerchief to her wound, staunching the bleeding.

  “I love you, Em,” he whispered gently against her sweat-soaked forehead. The girl’s eyes closed, her mind racing as she thought through all the ways she could escape him alive. There weren’t many. The bastard had just shot her after all and was still holding the gun. “And it is because I love you so much that I did what I had to do.” A cold shudder rolled through her body as waves of nausea assaulted her. Her vision swayed. The world tilted for the second time in her life, only now, instead of coming together, it was falling apart. “But I can promise you this, if you ever go to the police about what you saw here tonight, if you ever tell a living soul, I will kill everyone you love before I kill you. Am I understood?”

  Her head jerked in an uneven nod.

  “I am going to let you go. Don’t make me regret it.” His mouth met her face in a rough kiss as he squeezed her against him even tighter. “Now, you need to do something else for me. You need to run. Hide. Get as far away from here as you can, or next time you won’t make it out alive.”

  He released her with a final kiss to her lips, and she stumbled out of the townhouse on numb legs. Tears poured down her face. Her arm continued to bleed; Sam’s silk handkerchief still pressed to the wound.

  Her heart?

  Well, that was the worst of all. It shattered the moment she walked into that house. The moment she came to realize that the last two years of perfect with a man she loved above all others were all a lie. That she had been a fool. Blind.

  Instinctively the girl knew that while her arm would heal, her heart would not.

  She would never love or trust again.

  * * *

  Experts say that victims of trauma are the worst historians. Specific details become impossible to remember. Exaggerations are made. Important pieces go missing. Lost to the haze of adrenaline and endorphins. The funny, or maybe not so funny, thing? I remember everything about that night. Every last detail in perfect clarit
y. The way Sam’s beautiful face smiled menacingly as he pulled the trigger. The way the man’s brains exploded across Sam’s kitchen floor–a floor that was covered in plastic. The way it felt when he shot me and then held me for that last time.

  It’s been five years, and Sam still isn’t far from my thoughts.

  He’s in my every action. Every detail. Every waking hour and restless night.

  It’s been five years. Five. You’d think I’d be in a slightly better place by this point.

  But the truth is, I’m not.

  I left his house and walked the twenty-three blocks back to my apartment. I was bleeding heavily, and since it was New York and people could give a shit, no one stopped me. I didn’t go to the hospital. I was too scared to. Instead, I went home, bandaged the wound as best I could, knowing it needed stitches it would never receive, and then I sank into a hole.

  For a solid week, I waited for him. Angry, heartbroken, and a little psychotic.

  But he never came.

  So after that week, I picked myself up and off my damn couch and made some phone calls. I left my job as a nurse at NYU Medical Center and became a travel nurse. First stop, Hawaii. About as far from New York and Sam as you could get. I hid there for three months and when I still hadn’t heard a peep out of him, and my family was still very much alive, I took another gig in Los Angeles, followed by another and another. I moved on. Started a half-assed version of a life.

  Sam had long-since disappeared. All traces of him gone from social media. Our former friends claimed he sold his townhouse and moved back to England shortly after I left. It was a relief, and yet, it wasn’t. Not knowing if he was here somewhere, lurking, watching, waiting…

  Then my parents died in a hit-and-run car accident.

  Six months later, my sister killed herself.

  Three after that, my old college roommate was stabbed to death in New York.

  Two months following that, a nursing friend in Hawaii had a hiking accident.

  The saying goes, let sleeping dogs lie. But what happens when the dog suddenly wakes up and comes looking for you?

  One

  Emma

  * * *

  Hands wrap purposefully around my neck, squeezing tightly enough to cut the air from my lungs. I jerk involuntarily, shock and panic shooting my reflexes into overdrive. I grapple with his unrelenting grip, desperate to pry him away. Desperate for one hit of air my ravaged lungs are aching for.

  It’s futile, and what is left of my senses, aided with the adrenaline coursing through my body, kick my survival skills into fight-or-flight mode. I thrust my elbow back, landing a direct shot against his abdomen with enough force to cause his grip to slip without falling away completely.

  Air floods my chest as I swallow down gasping heaps of breath.

  All around me is dark. There is no light. There is no sound other than my thundering heart and the overexaggeration of my ragged breathing.

  I can’t hear him, but I can feel him.

  I can’t see him, but his touch surrounds me.

  He lowers his mouth to my ear, his warm breath on my face. “You think you can run,” he hums into me. “There is nowhere you can go that I won’t follow. No place to hide where I won’t find you. They’re all dead now, Em. It’s just you and me.”

  I whimper just as a flash of something catches my eye. I can’t make it out in the darkness, but instinctively, I know it’s a knife. It slices across my arm, directly over the scar from where he shot me. Blinding pain sears through me, and I scream.

  Bolting upright, my hand slaps over my intact scar as I pant for my life. My head whips around, tears leaking from my eyes, as I try to gain my bearings while calming my racing heart. The fog of sleep clears almost immediately replaced by sweet relief and agonizing fear.

  He’s not here. He doesn’t know where I am.

  My mantra does little to squelch the terror that twists my stomach and clings to my skin.

  “Dammit,” I hiss, scrubbing my hands up and down my face, brushing away my sweat and tears. I haven’t had a nightmare in almost two months now. I used to have them constantly. Mostly they’d be about him trying to kill me. Or my sister Sarah’s lifeless body hanging from the rafters of her sorority house.

  I close my eyes so he cannot see me. So I cannot feel him.

  Tossing back the comforter, I climb out of bed, ambling toward the window. It’s the middle of the night here in Las Vegas, and being off the Strip, I don’t get much street pollution filtering in. My gaze casts about the neighborhood. Drug dealers lurk on the corner. Prostitutes not too far away. To say this neighborhood is rough is putting it mildly, but any legitimate places require references, background checks, bank accounts with real names on them, and more than week-to-week rent.

  Other than money, I have none of those things to offer.

  It’s been twenty-eight months, six days, and some number of hours since I started living like this. It’s a long time to live without any real connection to the outside world. Avoiding human interactions. Moving around from city to city, town to town. Assuming a different identity in each new location. Living off the grid like your life depends on it.

  Because it does.

  At first, it’s all a bit exciting. At least, that’s what you tell yourself.

  That it’s a challenge you’re rising to meet. That if you’re strong enough to get through this, to not fuck it up, then you’re strong enough to get through anything. That if everyone you’ve ever cared about is already dead or is trying to kill you, who needs other people anyway. That surviving is the ultimate middle finger.

  Those awesome pep talks die out around year one.

  Then it becomes a daily, conscious choice. Do I live through this day like this or let him come find me? Because one slip-up. One wrong choice. One weak moment. And either I die or someone else does.

  One of the best pieces of advice my adoptive father ever gave me, I still hold as my ultimate truth: Always anticipate the worst in any situation. It could be the difference between life and death. One of the other ones: Fear is an asset, not a weakness. Treat it as such and it will stop you from making the wrong choice.

  As I watch the junkies score in more ways than one, I begin to wonder about the second one. Fear. Because those wrong choices are the limit I enjoy testing the most. The only high I allow myself to indulge in.

  Stupid? You bet.

  But like I said, those awesome pep talks die out around year one.

  * * *

  Staring at my book, a spicy rom-com of sorts, I’m seriously tempted to chuck the fucking thing out the window. My life is not spicy. It’s most definitely not a rom-com. And even though it’s lame and maybe slightly pathetic, I feel like I’m being mocked. Never again will I be romping around the streets of Manhattan, loving my awesome job and making out with the hot playboy who turns from bad to good just for me.

  My days are spent surviving.

  “Screw you,” I hiss. I guess today is one of my bitter days.

  Yet, I still read these goddamn things so I can feel…well, human, I guess. Like I’m part of the world where shit like this actually happens. Where paranoia isn’t your primary survival skill, crying yourself to sleep isn’t part of your nightly ritual, and anger and guilt aren’t your highest-ranking emotions.

  The door at the front of the coffee shop slams open. I jolt in my seat, my head shooting up and jerking in the direction of the sound. This is where insomnia gets me. Where my desire for nice hotels and public places, over shitty apartments and solitude, might be considered questionable. I come to this place at least twice a week. It has the best coffee in town, the best seating and view of the Strip, and the hotel is nice and not gimmicky. All pluses in my book.

  A drunk guy who barely looks old enough to drink staggers through the door, laughing loudly to himself as he practically barrels over a woman trying to get past him.

  I roll my eyes, muttering, “Vegas,” under my breath.

  How I
found myself in this city of all places is beyond me. Yet somehow, one week has turned into three has turned into nearly two months. I can’t make myself leave. Mostly because I’m not sure where to go next. Running requires planning. It requires purchasing IDs. It requires plenty of research, an inner fortitude and motivation I find dwindling as the days continue.

  He could find me here. Hidden in the shadows and overabundance of tourists. The longer I stay, the greater that eventuality.

  Which is why, I gave my landlord notice. It’s why I’ve decided that hotels are more favorable than my shit apartment on the corner of Crack House Street and Meth Alley until I can come up with my next real plan. Cameras. Facial recognition. After all, I’m not hiding from the police or federal agents. Just my psycho ex. I’m oddly safer here in the light than I am in the darkness.

  Watching the drunk asshole for another second, I roll my eyes again at him and return to my book, trying to rein in my racing heart. Five years of this crap and I’m so much more paranoid now than ever before. Not a second goes by where my mind is free of the never-ending questions I have no answers to. Of the heartache that eats away at my soul, piece by broken piece.

  Of the anticipation of what’s to come next.

  Blowing out a silent breath, I take a sip of my coffee before settling back against the soft cushion of the chair. Just as I finally start to get my shit back together, someone lands in the seat directly across from me, startling me once again. My coffee sways in my hand, some spilling over the side before I set it down. Lifting my thumb to my lips, I suck off the drops of java before shifting my eyes across the way to find the drunk asshole smiling at me. I scowl.