Faithless Angel Read Online Free PDF

Why, when he’d wanted only to leave the past behind and get on with eternity. With forgiveness.
    His hand shook as he snatched the tape aside and walked into the all-too-familiar room. Debris littered the floor. The wind gusted through the windows, the edges jagged with broken glass. Rain drip-dropped in one corner from the leaky ceiling Jesse had patched at least a dozen times in the short three months he and his brother and sister had lived here. As soon as he’d sealed one leak, another had sprung.
    He almost smiled; then he caught sight of the dark stains that covered the rotting floor near the far corner of the room. He didn’t want to look, but something deep inside—the rage, the fury he’d felt that night—refused to allow him to look away.
    Funny. The stains didn’t even resemble blood anymore. His own blood that had soaked the floor in this very spot. His own life that soiled the rotting wood.
    Well, lookee what we got here!
    The voice exploded inside his head, and he clamped his hands over his ears. But it came again,vicious and relentless and determined to make him remember.
    Jason, what’s going on? Who are these guys?
Jesse heard his own voice, remembered the confusion when he’d rushed inside the apartment. The agonizing scene he’d stumbled upon.
    “Jess, please just turn around and leave,” his younger brother, Jason, pleaded. “You don’t want any part of this.”
    “That’s right, pig,” the man muttered to Jesse, his face hidden beneath a heavy black beard, his lips twisted in a cruel smile. “This is private business, my business, which means it ain’t none of yours, cop.”
    “Like hell. I want to know what this is about. Now!”
    “Now,” the man scoffed. “The pig wants to know now, so I guess we better tell him.” He motioned to Jason. “Your brother here has been moving a little merchandise for us,” the man said. The knife in his hand flashed like silver fire in the dim apartment light. “But he ain’t been what you might call a model employee. He’s been holding out, ain’t that right, Jason? And now he owes us.” The man advanced, moving the knife closer to Jason, who took a step backward, fear filling his deep brown eyes
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    “No!” Jesse pushed in front of his brother at the same time that his younger sister walked out of her bedroom
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    “Jesse!” Her frightened scream pierced his ears
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    He whirled, gun drawn, but the warning came too late. The knife plunged down. Again and again and again
…

Chapter Three
    Jesse sank to his knees, gripping his hand, which throbbed unmercifully. He stared down, expecting to see the blood again. There’d been so much. Spilling from his hand, his chest, his neck …
    There was nothing now. Only newly healed skin and the pain of those few moments as his life had slipped away. He’d listened to his sister’s dying screams, his brother’s final gasps, breathed his own and wished with all his heart he could do something, say something.
    The words had been there on the tip of his tongue, yet he hadn’t been able to speak them, no matter how he’d tried. The pain had swamped him, paralyzing his vocal cords. Then he’d taken that last, final breath, and the opportunity had been lost.
    Jesse gasped for air. Heat surged through his body. He slammed his fist against the floor and threw his head back, staring at the collection ofshadows that blackened the ceiling. He wanted to scream, to shout, to cry, but he couldn’t. Not in this place. Here, rage dominated his emotions, refusing to let him feel anything except the hatred of that night.
    The bearded man’s face filled Jesse’s thoughts, his eyes black and cold and glassy. Even a year hadn’t dulled the picture, eased the anger, or soothed the regret.
    What about an eternity?
The words whispered in his head like a cool wind easing the blistering heat inside, and Jesse opened his eyes to stare up at the sagging ceiling, at the pinpoint of light that pushed its way through, like