29. Saint #2
“What do you want from me, Bex? Huh? To admit I’m in love with Hendrix?”
“If that’s what you feel, then yeah.”
“Well I’m not. And I don’t. Other than just feeling like it, there are three reasons I hurt your bitchy little friend. One—she talked shit about my sister. Two—she means nothing to me. Three—because it felt fucking good to make her cry.”
Bex takes a step back, clearly appalled. “Why the hell are you acting like this?”
“Because this is who I am!” I punch my chest. “I fuck girls, get bored of them, get rid of them. In that order. I have no idea why you’d think your precious Hendrix is any different.”
Bex counters with a fierce shake of her head. “I don’t believe it. Nope. You spent way too long obsessing over her, looking out for her, just to decide you’ve had enough.”
“All a result of the chase, baby.”
“Still don’t believe you.”
“Believe whatever you want, Bex. It doesn’t fucking matter anymore.”
It’s never been easy to get one over on this girl…putting up with a sick motherfucker like Crayton will have that effect on you.
Doesn’t mean I won’t fight till the death.
“You know what? You’re right.” Bex sucks air through her teeth. “It doesn’t matter because whether you’re lying or telling the truth Hendrix still deserves better.”
An invisible fist squeezes my chest so hard I fight back a wince.
Bex is right too.
Hendrix doesn’t only deserve better than me.
She deserves everything that isn’t me or what I represent.
The broken.
The monsters.
The temporary fixes.
And I’d be doing her the service of a lifetime to continue playing the role of her evil stepbrother.
“Maybe so…” I retort, keeping my eyes trained on her angry scowl. “But that also includes a best friend using her own discomfort as an excuse to break her heart.”
“W-T-F are you up to motherfucker?” I narrow my eyes on the laptop screen, watching Nikolai Ivanov outside his restaurant shaking hands with Whelan Kane.
There are very few reasons The Russians would cozy up with the Irish, and my guess is it has something to do with Ivanov’s nasty grudge for the recently deceased head of the Salvinis’. Who decided the best way to go out with a bang would be killing his only son.
Then leave it to his younger brother to answer for his crimes.
There’re crazy people…then there’s Luca Salvini.
A guy even his own brother knew wasn’t stable enough to sit at the head of the table. But I guess politics dictate the mafia too.
The two of them disappear behind the entrance door, signaling the end of my virtual stake out through one of the security cameras I hacked into.
So, I hack into another one.
My tendencies to go rogue were never Victor Lavell friendly, but it’s his fault for leaving kid Saint bored and to his own devices every time he dragged him to headquarters.
I snooped. Researched. Even practiced my charm on some of his employees to teach me the ropes. Until the ropes became my playing grounds—and computers my second to football.
With a blunt wedged between my teeth, I type away at the keyboard, breaking through every firewall and back door until I’ve got a clear view of Nikolai and Whelan taking up the section tied off by at least six loads of Russian and Irish muscle.
I may be good at many things, but lip reading isn’t one of them, so my recon has to get drawn at body language.
And judging by the tense expression on these two motherfuckers, they’re either holding back hatred or a painful ass shit.
I survey every face in the closed off area—from the bodyguards to the boss’ advisors all the way to the staff—burning their images in my mind to stow away just in case.
A minute or so passes before Nikolai caves with a whistle at the bartender, who gets to work on fixing them drinks.
I watch her every move carefully, hoping, even praying for the first time in my life that she drops a bit of arsenic in the fancy gold glasses. Save me the trouble of doing something stupid like murdering them myself.
I’m leaning back in my desk chair as Nikolai whispers something into Whalen’s ear right before a waitress’s perky little ass blocks my view of the exchange.
“C’mon sweetheart, two steps to the fucking right,” I say after inhaling a deep pull. “I’ve got blunts to be smoked and killers to stalk.”
The universe must pity me after my chat with Bex, because instead of two steps the waitress takes ten…all the way back to a corner.
“That’s a good girl…” I blow out a cloud of smoke through a cough, then reach for the small key in my sweatpants pocket and twist open the top drawer of my desk.
The second it’s open I’m met with the stack of Ivanov folders I stole from my father’s office drawer last night—holding every picture, file, even medical history of the family. I pick them up in a single swoop, then go through them one by one.
Nikolai.
His wife Katya.
Dead son Dimitri.
His daughter Valeriya who lives in Russia.
The raging cunt Alexis from last year.
I study every detail about the fuckers.
My blunt is two tokes shy of a roach by the time I reach photos taken of their cars, so I put it in the ashtray left behind by Hendrix.
A long list of Mercedes.
A Rolls Royce.
Even a Lincoln.
But my focus is mostly on the Escalades.
Comparing each with the few I’ve spotted around Riverside and the mansion. No matches so far, but that doesn’t stop me from writing down the plates on the back of a receipt.
I go on this way…bouncing between staring at papers and computer screens until the obsession leaves my eyes burning red. So, once the run through of Nikolai’s criminal history is at its end, I call it quits for the night and organize the folders.
I’m about to slide them back in the drawer when I notice another manilla folder staring me in the face—this one sealed and not labeled.
“Well…well…well. What do we have here?” I slap the pile down on the desk then reach for the loner, ripping it open on my lap.
What I find hits me like a freight train.
More papers and a photo…but of something else entirely.
Someone .
Lying unconscious on the floor next to her Doc McStuffins doll.
Face full of blood.
So much fucking blood.
With shaky hands I pick it up, feeling the strain behind my eyes as they widen on her tiny body. Swollen, bruised, and broken.
“No…”
I peel my gaze from picture to folder, where a paper on top has “paint them red” scribbled all over in red crayon.
Behind it—police reports from that day.
Behind those—psychiatric reports.
My throat burns as I skim through Dr. Morris’ first assessment, with phrases like “family history of drugs and mental illness on mother’s side” along with “minor with hallucinatory behavior.”
“Intent to cause extreme harm.”
Each one of my broken pieces checked off in black ink.
Tears and memories of the little boy I’ve suppressed for years overwhelm me, beating my chest until it cracks open.
His hand squeezing the little girl’s hand as he begged her for forgiveness.
The cries scorching his insides when they took him away.
But most of all…the promise he made to himself from that day on.
If it’s you who hurts them first , then it’s you who makes sure no one does ever again.