Bad Company (Seven Deadly Sins #1) ✅ Completed

Chapter Twenty: Down Memory Lane

Chase stormed down the still empty street, making his way back to his car in the mid morning sun. The plans he’d made for the day were shot to pieces and no matter how much he tried, he couldn’t stop thinking about Eliza. Why had she refused to spend the day with him? He thought she liked him. He was really digging her, so what was the problem? But he knew what the problem was the second he’d asked himself the question.

Dante Kane.

What the hell was he even doing there today? Normally he was already out of town during this time of the day. Chase usually saw him in his black truck heading out as he was pulling up to the store. As a rule, he didn’t make it his business to care about Dante or what he did most days, but today had been different. Today he’d stuck his nose between him and Eliza, and that wasn’t cool.

Every time he stepped into that store and Dante was there, it was always a freaking problem. It was like he personally enjoyed messing with him. Everyone else may not remember, but he’d been in that store with his mom more than any of his friends back in the day. Dante had been there too, only back then he didn’t have those lip piercings and his hair had been a little on the long side, like every other boy that year. But Chase knew it was still him, and he hadn’t aged a day.

He hated going into that store with his mom when he was young. He thought the old lady who owned, Ms. Devillier, it was mean and hated kids. She never ever let him touch anything and she wouldn’t let him go with his mom to the secret floor of hers. He’d been left downstairs with her stock boy, while his mother shopped upstairs.

The stock boy had been Dante and he was even surlier back then – or least he’d seemed so to him as young as he was. As far as Chase could remember, Dante had never done anything personally to him, but that didn’t mean that something hadn’t happened. If he were being honest, he didn’t think he was meant to see anything, and he still wasn’t sure if what he saw had really happened, but it had freaked him out all the same. It was the last time he ever went in there with his mom. She’d promised they would go for ice cream right after, and this time she’d even let him bring a toy inside so he wouldn’t be so bored.

He’d been playing with his favorite army guy at the time – the parajumper that came with his very own plastic yellow parachute. He loved to drop the plastic green soldier and watch the yellow chute flare open as he made his way down to the ground. On this last trip to the gift emporium Dante was gone, so no one was manning the counter. His mom let him stay on the second floor landing, right by the iron railing. He was still a floor away from where she was shopping, but it was safer than staying downstairs should any strangers come in. At least this way, he could run up the stairs and call for her if he needed help.  

He’d just finished collecting his soldier from his latest jump, running up the spiral staircase quick enough to make him a little dizzy, when he heard the small bell inside the store chime. He’d just set his soldier on the railing for the next jump when the door banged open a second time, this one startling him enough that he crouched down low to hide. He peered through the bottom of the iron railing and saw Dante standing by the counter. A pretty girl was right behind him. She must’ve been the one who’d banged open the door the last time.  

Chase knew her. She was one of the girls from his Sunday school. She was part of the group of older kids that led the smaller kids like him around during the youth activities. She was always really nice to him and his friends, taking the time to help them learn all the songs and play the games. She had a really sweet voice too, because she sang in the choir each Sunday. But today she didn’t look sweet or nice at all – she looked super angry. She looked way angrier than he’d ever seen anybody before, including his own mom and dad.