Shades of Sins (New York Sinner Series Book 2)

13| Sins

┏━━━✦❘༻༺❘✦━━━┓

Sins

┗━━━✦❘༻༺❘✦━━━┛

EXTRA long chapter

Chapter 13: Sins (Anastasia's POV)

I didn't dare to stop Dante as he pulled me out of the room and down the hall, stopping at the elevators where we waited. 

The rational side of my brain was screaming at me to stop, go back into that room, and investigate the scene like I was supposed to. After all, it was my job, and this was what I had signed up for. 

In my years as an agent, I had never encountered a case like this with so many questions surrounding it and no answer in sight. Everything was a mysterious jigsaw puzzle; we weren't even one step closer to solving it. 

Monica Coleman could be getting killed as we stood there, and we wouldn't even know it. Everyone always said that no matter how cunning a criminal may be, they would always leave a clue and some kind of evidence, no matter how cautious they were. In this case, even if clues were left behind, everything was so confusing that we could have missed it. There were so many people at the scene; it was all chaos. 

My gaze drifted to Dante's grip on my hand. I couldn't decide if I wanted to pull away or not. The first time he grabbed my hand tonight, I hardly noticed it. Adrenaline was pumping through my veins. I was horrified at what we could have walked into, and I didn't realize when his touch brushed against my skin. 

But when he did take my hand, I knew it instantly. It was like a trail of fire shot up my arm, pinning me in place. I couldn't let go even if I wanted to. Despite the agents surrounding us in that room, it felt unsafe, like someone was watching us, perhaps even following us. 

Dante's suspicions seemed possible, so I didn't argue and let him bring me out. The longer his hand remained in mine, the more familiarity began sinking in. My breath hitched for entirely different reasons now. "You can let go," I said after a beat. 

His hand slipped out of mine without another word, without so much as a glance at me. The doors closed once we stepped inside, and we stood in awkward silence again. 

"Why do you think we were being watched?" I questioned, glancing at him briefly. 

"Whoever this person is, they like the attention. It wouldn't make any sense for them to call us here and not be there to witness our reactions," he exhaled, resting his shoulder against the wall. 

Taking a step away, I leaned against the opposite wall, bracing my hands on the railing behind me. "It's been three days, and we don't have one solid piece of evidence," I said, "maybe we're doing something wrong." 

He turned to face me, his body now mirroring mine. "We're doing everything we can." 

"It's clearly not enough." 

He took in an exasperated breath. "There's no point in sulking." 

"I'm not sulking about it," I bit back defensively, "I'm just saying maybe we should take a step back and re-evaluate how we're doing things." He stared at me for a beat, and I felt heat steadily crawling up the nape of my neck, threatening to bleed into my cheeks, tinting them red.