Accepting Sloth: The Deadliest Sin Series, #14

By Gwyn McNamee

The truth may be shocking.

It may not be easy to accept.

But it's the truth nonetheless.

Ugly and dark.

We've come to a point where keeping it buried only prolongs the inevitable.

And I've taken steps that mean there isn't any turning back.

Blood will spill.

Enemies will fall.

Those who believe themselves to be safe will be square in my sights.

There isn't anyone can do to stop it now.

Just as the end of times is coming…

So am I.

 

***Accepting Sloth is the fourteenth book in The Deadliest Sin Series about organized crime in Chicago. This series is best read in order, as the stories are chronological and each sin builds on the events of the previous one.***

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gwyn McNamee
• Release date: Nov 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201070588

Gwyn McNamee

Gwyn McNamee is an attorney, writer, wife, and mother (to one human baby and two fur babies). Originally from the Midwest, Gwyn relocated to her husband’s home town of Las Vegas in 2015 and is enjoying her respite from the cold and snow. Gwyn has been writing down her crazy stories and ideas for years and finally decided to share them with the world. She loves to write stories with a bit of suspense and action mingled with romance and heat. When she isn’t either writing or voraciously devouring any books she can get her hands on, Gwyn is busy adding to her tattoo collection, golfing, and stirring up trouble with her perfect mix of sweetness and sarcasm (usually while wearing heels). Gwyn is the author of The Hawke Family series, The Slip Series, The Deadliest Sin Series, The Inland Seas Series, The Supernatural Love Stories in the Absurd (written as her alter-ego, DP Payne), and several stand-alone novels.

Book preview

Accepting Sloth

ACCEPTING SLOTH

THE DEADLIEST SIN SERIES - BOOK 14

GWYN MCNAMEE

ACCEPTING SLOTH

© 2021 Gwyn McNamee

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All rights reserved. Except as permitted by U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior permission of the author.

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, establishments, or organizations, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously to give a sense of authenticity. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

CONTENTS

Preface

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

About the Author

OTHER WORKS BY GWYN MCNAMEE

To everyone who has ever loved and accepted their partner’s flaws.

What is right is often forgotten by what is convenient.

-Bodie Then

1

ROWAN

I am not who or what you think I am, Rowan. Neither are you.

Felipe’s words slam into me, one by one, hammering at the very thing I’ve been struggling with for so damn long—the uncertainty fogging my memories and past.

I shake my head, trying to dispel the confusion clouding my brain from this entire situation, from everything that’s been happening with Felipe recently, a man I thought I knew and thought I understood. With him standing here like this, heat in his gaze and shirtless, all his hard muscles and the myriad of tattoos on display, I can’t even look him in the eye.

These aren’t the words or actions of a pious priest. The sexual energy oozing from the man in front of me is all wrong for someone who committed himself to God and the church. So are the words he’s speaking.

All of this is so wrong.

I don’t understand, Felipe. You keep saying all these cryptic things, but I don’t know what any of it means.

He closes the distance between us so quickly that I don’t have time to back away or prepare myself and captures my chin in his hand, squeezing it tightly and forcing me to look up at him. "I’ll tell you everything, mi palomita. All the dirty, dangerous, ugly truths."

Finally…

It’s all I ever wanted since the day he showed up at Kat’s Cradle and told me I had to come with him, warned me I was in danger and that I needed to get away from Kat to somewhere safe.

For some reason, on that day, I believed him despite all the reasons not to accept the word of a strange man arriving at the brothel, making wild statements.

Something about him put me at ease. The sincerity of his plea for me to come with him, his promise that I would be safe at the church. Kindness in his dark eyes I rarely saw from any man who came to me at Kat’s place.

The vision that flashed in my head that day slams to the front of my brain again, standing here with Felipe in his own church.

A large crucifix hanging above an altar—though, it isn’t the modern one just outside this door in the church where Felipe has kept me hidden.

This one is different. More rustic. Simpler. Older.

A sense of well-being and calm settles over me, and a voice rings out, steady and determined.

Only it isn’t Felipe’s voice, accented by his South American upbringing. This one is tinted with a lilting Irish brogue and holds a familiarity I can’t place.

Someone hugs me to them tightly and presses a kiss on top of my head.

Rowan… Felipe’s voice jerks me back to the here and now, standing in the small room at the back of St. Mary of the Angels. He had his goons drag me back here, away from the safety of the seedy hotel I managed to keep myself hidden at for the last week—safety from this man and all the feelings he’s stirred up in me.

The confusion. The lust. The shame. The regret.

He narrows his eyes on me and brushes a thumb across my cheek. Where did you just go?

I…I don’t know. Tears burn my eyes, threatening to fall like they have so many times over the last few months. I keep having these…I don’t know what they are. Memories? Ever since you brought me here. They come at the strangest times, and I don’t understand any of them.

He releases his grip on my chin and uses his hand to brush my wild red hair back behind my ear in a move that’s tender and comforting—but not in the way it should be from a priest. The move is too familiar, too personal, too heavy in unspoken words and desires. That’s because you’ve been lied to your entire life, Rowan. You’ve been used by dangerous people who have a very particular purpose. People who didn’t care what it did to you.

I don’t understand! My chest tightens, making it difficult for me to suck any air into my lungs, and the room spins around me slightly.

I feel like a broken record, stuck on some endless loop, but my brain can’t process any of what’s happening. Too many things don’t make sense. They don’t add up. There are too many missing pieces and holes.

But Felipe seems to have the answers.

"What’s your earliest memory, mi palomita? Real memory that you hold and can feel and know that it actually happened?"

Almost instantly, bile climbs up my throat, and I squeeze my eyes closed again and shake my head. No. Please don’t make me go there.

I buried those things so deep such a long time ago that I don’t ever want to relive them. If I let myself get dragged back there, I might completely fall apart, and the idea of doing that in front of Felipe somehow feels so wrong when he’s so sure, so strong.

I understand you’re scared, Rowan. He slips his fingers under my chin and gently tilts my face up. You should be. But if you want to truly understand what’s happening, we have to go back to the beginning.

The beginning? I open my eyes and meet his stormy dark ones that flicker with concern. I don’t even know how to.

What is your earliest memory?

The image slams into my brain so strong that I stagger back; the only reason I don’t fall is because of Felipe’s firm grip around me with his tattooed arm.

"A house. An old one.