36. Saint
Saint
“ Y ou gotta hold still, Jimi,” I tell her, keeping a close eye as one of our trusted plastic surgeons patches her lip up. “If he doesn’t do it right, shit’s gonna scar.”
Fury stirs in my gut for the hundredth time since I left the useless dipshit Carlo to clean up the mess we left in the alley, but I contain it for my girl’s sake since she’s still riding the tailend of shock.
Motherfucker had one job.
Keep Hendrix safe.
And then he goes and leaves her to fend for herself against one of Ivanov’s hired goons.
I don’t give a shit about how well they orchestrated the distraction, or that he was purposely dragged into the crowd, Hendrix being left vulnerable never should’ve fucking happened.
Some people may say I’m projecting my own guilt for bringing Hendrix to the club in the first place, but fuck those people. I’m not going to hold her hostage. Not because I feel bad, but doing so would raise too many suspicions.
Well, after tonight, suspicions can go fuck themselves too.
Because if the Italian’s proven anything, it’s that I can’t trust anyone else to keep her safe. Therefore, my little Jimi Hendrix won’t be leaving my side moving forward. Not even to shower.
Hence my shorts and tee she has rolled up from getting bandaged.
Hendrix can bitch about it. Cry about it. Be spiteful about it.
Not a damn chance will she be put at risk again.
“Couldn’t Dr. Dan do this at the hospital?” She winces as he threads another stitch. “Or at least come up with a less obvious fake name?”
This fucking girl and her intuitions stay proving my point.
“It’s safer this way, Jimi.”
At least until my father’s done watching footage of the club and streets around it.
Yeah, Thornvale Medical, like everywhere else intertwined with the Royal families, is under a twenty-four hour watch and heavily guarded. Including Riverside, even if the students and families aren’t made aware of it.
But after the bold move from the Ivanovs?
We can’t be too careful.
Hendrix rolls her eyes. “Pretty sure our bed is the last place that’s sterile.”
I ignore the second sexual comment she’s made tonight and save the spanking for when she didn’t just use the term “our” in reference to her bed. Or more importantly…watch me help Carlo put two bullets in a man’s skull.
“Stop being a brat and let the man work.”
Hendrix groans but makes no sounds other than cursing and wincing until the doctor’s finished.
“With oral antibiotics twice a day, ointment on her cuts once a day, Miss Lavell will be good as new in no time,” the doc announces with confidence as he exits the room. That is, until Hendrix screams, “It’s Montgomery, you flippin’ dick!”
He blinks.
“Sorry, Frank. You’ll have to excuse… Miss Lavell. She’s got a stick permanently stuck up her ass.”
A boot hits the wall behind me, making poor Frank wide eyed as I slam the door.
“And here I am thinking you save all that sass of yours for me.” I chuckle, laying next to Hendrix on the bed.
She scoots closer, resting her head on my bare chest, the bravado with the doctor gone as she says, “Eh…there’s more than enough to go ’round.”
“You doin’ okay?”
“Not really, if I’m being honest.”
“Wanna talk about what happened?”
Hendrix pauses, contemplating something as she picks at the bandage around her forearm. “I mean…there is something kinda nagging at me.”
“Shoot.”
She pins me with a glare. “Seriously?”
It takes me a few blinks to realize what the mean mug is all about.
“Shit. My bad.” I wince. “ Tell me .”
“I wanna know why you guys killed him.”
“Because he deserved it for what he did to you. Obviously.”
“Yeah…” She goes back to picking at the bandage. “But he was about to talk. We could’ve gotten info out of him for your dad, or even the Salvinis to use to their advantage.”
Fuck.
I don’t know whether to be impressed by how tactical this girl is, or pissed off. For now, for many reasons, I’ll be going with neither.
“Anything he said would’ve been a lie. Plus, Carlo had to send those Ivanov motherfuckers a message.”
“ Yeah… ” Hendrix presses on. “But that could’ve been done after Carlo took him somewhere to interrogate him. Hell, even you. I just think killing the guy right away was a sloppy decision.”
Listening to Hendrix scrutinize murder like it’s a shitty football play is not only an astronomical turn on, but an astronomical problem.
One I need to rectify quickly.
“Alright, alright, Karen. I’ll be sure to pass your disappointment along to the manager.” I attempt to keep shit playful. “Preferably to the Italian.”
Hendrix doesn’t laugh or respond before getting lost in thought again, and suddenly I feel like a dickhead for cracking jokes hours after she was almost abducted and witnessed an actual murder.
“Need to talk about anything else?” I ask, already anticipating her answer. Or better yet…questions.
“I wanna talk…but not about the kidnap attempt.”
Thank fuck for small favors.
“Okay…then what do you wanna talk about?”
“Him…”
Color me all types of damn confused.
“But you just said—”
“I wanna talk about Vicious, Saint!” Hendrix blurts out, unable to look at me.
Every muscle inside me coils with the mention of his name.
I knew this conversation was coming…and dreaded the idea of having it. But tonight isn’t the night for Hendrix to unravel my monster.
Not when she just witnessed me become an accessory to murder.
“Not tonight.”
“Saint…I’ve almost lost you to him too many times already. I won’t have it happen again. Not without you telling me about who or what I’m up against.” For what Hendrix says next, she makes sure to meet my eye. “You promised me honesty in those woods, remember?”
Not the three percent.
Fuck. Fucking fuck.
It was a lot easier to lie when I had my monster under control. But now, once again, Hendrix has not only caught a glimpse of him, but managed to keep me from becoming him.
The least I owe her in return is some type of explanation.
“Lay your head back down on me, Jimi.”
Hendrix listens, but only because she knows she’s won, and softens the blow by drawing circles around my torso.
“I was nine years old the first time he made me hurt someone.”
My eyes squeeze closed, and I’m met with enough excruciating images to form a dry lump in my throat.
Hendrix must sense me suffocating, because she takes hold of my hand, comforting me, similar to how I did when she was having a panic attack. “Breathe, Saint. It’s okay.” When I don’t respond, she adds, “I would never judge you for something you can’t control. Ever.”
I manage to swallow the lump, but not the pain squeezing my chest.
“It was a little girl.”
This has Hendrix tensing, but she catches herself quickly before relaxing again.
Not that it matters…this is insane.
I’ve never told anyone what I did, not even the guys I’ve known practically my whole life.
But I’m going to tell the girl crazy enough to fall in love with me?
Hendrix will be disgusted by me. Hate me. Never look at me the same. I’ll lose her for good.
And for good reason.
“Just forget it.”
“No.”
“I fucking can’t, Hendrix!”
“Yes you fucking can!” She stares up at me again, green eyes filled with fiery determination. “Because love doesn’t stop at the good, Saint. It’s part of the bad too.”
I squeeze my mouth shut and turn my head, never sure what to do when this girl makes me feel so damn vulnerable.
“I’m not afraid to face your demons,” Hendrix says, pressing her cut up palm against my cheek. “But I can’t prove it to you unless I see them.”
“Even if they want to hurt you?”
“Have you let them yet?”
Those words…they hit hard.
Soothing deep, dark places inside me I didn’t even know existed.
Let alone were in pain.
I look down at Hendrix’s bruised, beautiful face again, realizing there’s not a world, realm, or fucking universe where I don’t end up falling in love with her.
I concede with a nod and she smiles, going back to her perch on my chest.
“I had no reason to do what I did…she was just being a brat.”
“Did she go to your school or something?”
A pang shoots like a fireball through my chest, fleshing open the wounds Hendrix just managed to close.
It’s too much, too fucking much, and I know if I want to get through the conversation it has to be without the brutal reminder.
“Yes…but please don’t ask for more details about her…I can’t.”
“I won’t. Promise.”
“One minute she was whining…the next I was being told to paint her red…”
“Paint her…red?” Hendrix asks way too curiously for a girl finding out her boyfriend listens to sinister voices inside his head.
“No idea…that was just the first thing I heard when I blacked out. So I did. All the way down to her Doc McStuffins doll.”
“Doc McStuffins?” Hendrix asks with even more emphasis, proving she’s either really good at hiding judgment, or she is genuinely trying to understand my fucked up head.
“That show was her favorite…took the doll to and from school every day.” My throat burns as I swallow the tears inching to the surface. “She didn’t let it go the entire time I was attacking her.”
“Oh my God…Saint.” Hendrix whimpers, hugging my waist. “I’m so sorry this happened to you both.”
You both… what an absurd thing to fucking say.
As if the violence I inflicted was on me too.
What else is absurd? The fact hearing Hendrix’s apology is making the tears I was fighting back stream down my face.
“Why would you feel sorry for me?” I swipe away at my eyes. “I was the piece of shit who almost killed her.”
Hendrix doesn’t turn around, and fuck am I grateful for it.
“Because your innocence was stolen from you that day just as much as that little girl’s. You didn’t want to hurt anyone…you were just…”
“Sick.” I finish for her. “Go ahead…you can say it.”
Hendrix’s silence is my fucking enemy, until she responds, “We’re all sick in our own ways, Saint. Yours is just… louder than others.”
One very accurate and specific way to put my monster for sure.
I laugh, but with nothing but disgust. “Now you sound like my psychiatrist.”
“Were you ever…diagnosed?”
“With a slew of shit that involves medication…” I shrug. “None worth listing because I’m gonna end up dying with him anyway.”
“He’s not real, Saint. You have to know that.”
You have to know that.
It’s amazing how many times someone can hear the same fucking words and never believe them.
“Doesn’t matter…he’s been haunting me ever since.”
“It absolutely does matter,” Hendrix insists. “Self-perception is everything…something you make sure to remind me of whenever I’m in doubt.”
I say nothing…mostly because my shoulders are shaking in ways they haven’t since I was a kid.
Whatever space Hendrix was giving me by not turning around is closed in seconds as she twists and climbs on me to straddle my waist.
“Listen to me, Saint,” she says, all business, using her bandaged hand to dry my face. “You may be sick. But not broken. Not unless you choose to be.”
“You don’t know what it’s like…”
“Maybe not completely…but you saw what I did to Annalie. How ready I was to kill her. For some reason, shit’s never been right in my head either.”
Of course I know this…I recognized the flames burning inside this girl the second I cornered her in the storage closet.
They’re what’s been drawing me to her ever since.
Kindred fucked-up-ness, and all that.
But those flames…they’re nothing to be compared to an inferno.
“I know…that’s why I stopped you.”
“And now it’s my turn to stop you.”
Hendrix succeeds in her attempt to calm me, at least enough to get through the conversation.
“That’s not how this works, Jimi. There’s no on and off light switch.” I pause as she raises a brow. “Okay, fine , maybe there kind of is. But the light will never be permanent…”
“Just turned up and down…” Hendrix breathes, as if realizing something. “Theory’s catch phrase.”
Like I said… too fucking intuitive .
“My doctor had us come up with it during the first year I spent in… Cyprus .”
“A.K.A?”
“Holy Trinity Mental Health Treatment Center in Cypress, California.”
Hendrix bubbles out a laugh, then slaps both hands over her mouth. “Oh my God…I’m so sorry.”
She wouldn’t be if she knew how badly I needed to hear her laugh.
“I mean…technically I only lied about the spelling.”
“And the continent.”
“Fine…continent too.”
“So you missed a whole school year? Did the guys know why?”
“My dad told their dads it was because he was opening an office there.”
“So…Vic lied?”
“More like bought out a building near the treatment center so he wouldn’t have to.”
Hendrix laughs again, but this time with less guilt. “Sounds like something he would do.”
A long stretch of silence passes between us, giving me enough time to develop a sense of relief for coming clean to Hendrix. Even if I wasn’t able to completely.
“Hey…can I ask you something?” Hendrix says with caution, now residing in front of me on the bed as the little spoon.
I’m exhausted, half asleep, and not at all in the mood for more talking. But I’m also a sucker for her…
…and the tits she’s letting me squeeze.
“Hm?”
“I was talking with Archer earlier…”
Motherfucker.
No good questions ever come from Hendrix after talking with Good Guy Archer. Therefore, I already know the little shit’s about to get his teeth knocked out.
“And?”
“And…he mentioned there was an accident in The Pit a few weeks ago…shortly after we ended. With Gunner’s cousin getting set on fire or something.”
This. Fucking. Guy.
Can never keep his self-righteous nose out of everyone’s business.
I could pretend to fall asleep…but what’s the point? The question I know is coming will just be waiting impatiently for me to answer tomorrow.
“What about it, Jimi?”
Hendrix’s swallow can be heard from all the way from behind her neck. “Did you…uh…have something to do with it?”