SAINT (Boston Underworld Book 4)

by A. Zavarelli

  She doesn’t come here often, if ever.

  Her eyes move straight to me and the baby in my lap before she swallows like her mouth is full of glass.

  “Of all the gin joints in all the world,” she says.

  Crow invites her in, but she declines.

  “You got a minute, Mack?”

  “Sure.”

  They step out into the hall, and Crow gives me an odd look. He’s probably wondering the same thing I am.

  When Mack comes in a few minutes later, she scoops Keeva up from my arms.

  “She’s making a fast getaway through the back,” she tells me. “You better go if you want to talk to her.”

  I don’t want to be so bleeding obvious about it, but they’re both just staring at me like they already know what I’m going to do anyway.

  So, I go after her.

  Right through the back and into the dressing rooms, which I know she thinks is forbidden territory.

  “There’s a cock in the henhouse,” I tell the ladies as I walk through. “Better cover up what ye don’t want seen.”

  “Not like you haven’t seen it before,” Selena says as she parades butt naked through the room.

  I don’t even spare her a second glance because I’ve only got one arse in mind. And I see her glancing back over her shoulder at me as she finds the door on the opposite side of the room.

  She’s in heels, as always, and Christ she’s fast for such a wee little thing, but I catch her just outside in the parking lot before she can get away.

  “Where ye off to so fast, Satan?”

  She smiles up at me, and her eyes are all flint. Beyond that, there seems to be an additional wall of armor that wasn’t there the last time we spoke, and I can’t figure out why.

  “Hey, Ace,” she says coyly.

  “If you keep looking at me that way, baby doll, I’m liable to catch frostbite.”

  Another smile.

  “Don’t you know the devil plays with fire, not ice?”

  “What are ye doing here?” I ask her again.

  “Just came to see Mack.”

  It feels like a lie, but almost everything the woman says is a lie.

  “Well ye’re here now, so come and have a drink with me.”

  “Not really my thing,” she says.

  “Then what is your thing?”

  “You looked cute.” She looks away. “With the baby. You’re good with them. Should have a few of your own someday.”

  “I intend to,” I tell her. “How do ye feel about three?”

  She’s horrified by the idea, and I laugh. It’s not often I can rattle this chick, but babies are the thing. She’s terrified of them, and I can’t figure out why.

  Her unsteadiness doesn’t last long. Scarlett never lets any man have the upper hand. She uses the best weapons at her disposal to throw me off balance by inching closer, running one of her hands over my bicep and down to toy with my fingers.

  “I’ve always wanted to do it in a dark alley,” she whispers, and her voice is all honey.

  “Sorry, sweetheart.” My own voice is too rough. “I’d need to take you back to my place first. Because once I got my hands on you, I wouldn’t want to stop.”

  “Nobody’s telling you to.”

  She smiles, but it’s all fucking lies.

  I wish that it was genuine want in her eyes, but the only thing there is destruction. And I won’t be another one of her games.

  “Scarlett?” I whisper in her ear as I reach down and cop a feel of her generous ass.

  “Yes?” she murmurs.

  “It’s time for you to go home now.”

  Five

  Scarlett

  One. Two. Three. Four. I declare a blood war.

  I need to scrub my eyes with bleach.

  Everything is blending together now. One giant sea of color and blurry faces. Voices and pieces of conversation. The Nasdaq. Relentlessly chic restaurants and is the raw food craze really over? Nanny problems and wife problems and shoe sales and yoga classes and…

  Jesus, there was a reason I left this behind.

  I don’t get it.

  Duke was supposed to be here, amongst all these faces, talking shop with a big fat cigar in his mouth. But I don’t see him, and he’s over an hour late now, and I’m the one with a big fat headache listening to this bullshit day in and day out.

  I want to leave. To go home and do like the normal folk do. Crawl into my jammies and read a good book and watch something that’s trending on Twitter and then send out one of my own unique thoughts on the same thing everyone else is already talking about.

  Because, pop culture.

  There’s a woman next to me at the bar and she’s carrying on a revolting diatribe that reeks of self-importance to what I can only presume is her date.

  She speaks six languages, she tells him.

  And she’s traveled the world, and it’s just such a romantic notion and she wants everyone to know it as she regales him with the many countries that ‘feel like home’.

  And it is obvious that she is indeed swept up in the fantasy of her own thoughts and words. And the love affair she has fallen prey to… is with herself.

  I can’t stomach another moment of it.

  But when I move to make my dash towards freedom, I’m struck by the presence of the man across the bar. In shadow, concealed in the dim, romantic light that people shell out small fortunes for.

  His eyes are on me and there’s something about him that is familiar, even in the darkness. A shiver moves down my spine and I rub my arms, certain it’s the cold and not something else.

  My instincts are telling me to go.

  Only I can’t. Because I’m self-destructive. The mouse who craves the cheese in the trap and something doesn’t seem right but it moves for it, anyway.

  It’s all so well-rehearsed, the way he steps out of the shadows and into the light. He’s been preparing for this grand entrance for a while now. It’s good. It’s perfect. And it’s terrifying, exactly the way he intended it to be.

  My hands are clammy and my spine is steel and I’m trembling.

  It’s happening.

  The air in my lungs is gone and I can’t breathe and he isn’t even anywhere near me yet. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. It’s been too long. I’ve had years to stitch the broken parts of myself back together and now the thread feels weak and worn and tangled even as it wraps around my heart and squeezes.

  There he stands. The nightmare within a nightmare. Polished and clean and all grown up. He’s different, but the same when he smiles. He likes my eyes on him and he always did love to be the center of attention.

  Storm was right. Cop or not, Alexander has been looking for me.

  All this time I’ve been hunting him. Plotting and planning and scheming behind the curtains, only to find out that I’m the one who is a fucking puppet. Surprise was supposed to be on my side. It was mine, and I made it mine, and none of this makes any fucking sense.

  What else could he possibly want with me after all these years?

  It isn’t atonement.

  It isn’t regret that I see in those eyes either. The eyes that roam the curves of my body like he still owns that right.

  You’d never guess that his family lost everything. He still dresses the part. Expensive trousers and a polo shirt he’ll probably only wear once. Loafers and a silver watch. He’s a walking, breathing cliché and his desperation stinks.

  And that’s the thing. The trigger that slaps some sense back into me and reminds me who is in control here.

  Now there’s only one question on my mind.

  To play or not to play.

  I toss a shy smile in his direction and shrug, as if to say I’ve been caught, and what now? He takes the bait and gestures his drink in my direction.

  Want one?

  There’s a moment’s hesitation before I concede and move in his direction. He wears the same cologne, and it makes me sick when I smell it, but I take a se
at at the bar and hold my breath. Up close, his face is more angular than I remember and his eyes darker. But beneath the surface, he’s still the same boy I used to know. Refined. Smart and observant and razor-edged. Everything my mother always praised about him is on display right now. His best traits. The perfect match for me, she’d said.

  My hands are in my lap and I need to let go of my rage and get a grip and not think of anything but making him my bitch. I will handle him incrementally. In five second intervals. And this time, I will win.

  These are my streets. My territory. And my game.

  He might be a cop, but he doesn’t know how things work here. He never could. He hasn’t immersed himself in this world the way that I have. He hasn’t lived it the way that I have.

  I observe him cautiously and run through the list of questions in my mind.

  Is he the one who hurt Kylie?

  And what does he want with me?

  These things are important. I need to know them to win.

  He gestures to the bar, and there are already two fresh drinks there. One for him, one for me.

  “I’ve played that game once before,” I tell him. “Didn’t work out so well for me last time.”

  “That was foolish of me,” he says. “I could order you another one.”

  “Or you could get to the point.”

  “I’m Royce.” The words roll off his tongue like honey. “What’s your name, beautiful?”

  I laugh.

  He glares, and I laugh some more. People are staring and he’s embarrassed, but I’m not the debutant anymore and he needs to know it.

  “So, that’s how you’re going to play it, huh? We’re just a couple of strangers, meeting in a bar for the first time.”

  “That’s the way it usually goes.”

  His face is devoid of humor or sarcasm and I have no idea what his angle is here, but I won’t let it rattle me.

  I’m tempted to make up something as ridiculous as Royce, but I don’t. I give him my street name, which I have no doubt he already knows.

  “Scarlett.”

  “Like Scarlett Johansson,” he remarks. “You look like her.”

  “Cute.”

  He used to say that all the time. Bragging to his friends about his hot celebrity look-alike girlfriend. And then they’d ask if he was banging me yet and I’d let him lie about it because he wanted to save face.

  His phone rings, and it annoys me that he considers anything else worthy of his attention at this moment. As if he hasn’t been hunting me. As if I’m going to sit here and wait for him the way that I used to.

  “Scarlett.” He taps the bar with his hand as if he’s speaking to a dog. “You have my apologies, I need to take this. I’ll only be a moment.”

  “Sure, champ.”

  Fucking asshole.

  He walks away and disappears from the room and I’m trying to strategize when there’s another voice inside of my ear a moment later. A different voice. A husky voice.

  “What’s the craic, sweetheart?” Rory asks. “You planning to fuck up that douchebag tonight or what?”

  “What the hell are you doing here?” I hiss.

  He nods towards another guy across the bar. An unmistakably Russian guy who I’ve seen before.

  Alexei.

  He’s sitting with two other Russian guys and since when do the fucking Vory do business here?

  My paranoia is ripe and I’m annoyed and nothing is going the way it should right now.

  “You need to leave.” I tell Rory. “Now.”

  Instead, he sits down beside me. In Royce’s seat. And Royce is a fed and Rory can’t be seen here with me right now and… fuck.

  “Sweetheart?” he asks. “Are ye alright? You’ve gone pale as a sheet.”

  “No, I’m not alright,” I bark at him. “You need to leave. Now. You’re fucking everything up.”

  He grabs my stool and yanks it closer to him, pinning me between his legs.

  “I don’t want ye doing this shite anymore,” he says.

  His voice is low, the usual humor absent. It isn’t the first time he’s tried to get me to stop. But Rory doesn’t know me. He doesn’t know anything about me. And even if he is one of the few people I can actually deal with in small doses, right now he’s about to screw us both.

  Alexander has always been the end goal. The culmination of my efforts and my revenge. I’ve waited for this opportunity. I’ve sacrificed and bled for this opportunity. And he’s about to destroy everything with five seconds of stupidity.

  “If you aren’t going to leave.” I stand up. “Then I will.”

  He grabs me by the arms and yanks me closer still, breathing me in. He gets high off me when he does that, and I’ll never understand it.

  “Quit being such a bitch,” he whispers. “Ye know I like it.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  The vein in his neck is pulsing and his biceps are tense, and that’s how I know he’s lying. But when I reach down and grab his cock through his jeans, it reaches a boiling point.

  “You fucking hate it,” I tell him. “You hate it so much that you’re sitting here with me pinned between your legs and your cock isn’t even hard. So, tell me again how much you like it.”

  He grabs my wrist and pulls it away from him before releasing me. And just as I hoped, I’ve pissed him off to the point of no return.

  “Go the fuck home, Scarlett,” he orders. “For once in your bloody life, think of someone other than yourself.”

  His words cut me, but I don’t let him know it. And when he walks away, my panic leaves with him. It doesn’t last long though.

  Because when I glance across the bar, Alexander still isn’t here.

  And I can’t see him anywhere.

  All because of fucking Rory and his misguided attempts to court me like an eighteenth-century romance novel.

  Fuck him.

  Fuck him all the way to hell.

  I snatch up my purse and scrap anything to do with this bar or my revenge or anything else tonight. There is nobody else that will satisfy the demon inside of me now. Not after seeing Alexander and having him slip through my fingers.

  I ride the elevator up to my floor and the room where I stashed my bag. I slip the key into the door and step inside, but then I stop.

  Something doesn’t feel right.

  The curtain is closed, the way that I left it, but the light isn’t on the way that I left it. My instincts are speaking to me again, and this time, I listen.

  Or at least I try to.

  I pivot on my heel and reach for my knife, but when I turn for the door, there’s a flash of movement beside me. Something reaches out and tangles in my hair and slams my head into the wall. Once is all it takes for me to drop the knife.

  Twice, and I’m out cold.

  When I wake up, I’m slumped in a chair. Legs dangling off the edge, heels haphazardly kicked off on the floor beneath me.

  My head throbs, and there’s something dry and crusty on my skin. Blood, I imagine, but I’m alive so it can’t be too bad. Still, every part of me feels like I’ve been punched with a brick and I’m nauseous, but my clothes are intact.

  When I slide a hand down my thigh, the knife that is always there isn’t this time.

  “Sorry, babe.” Alexander draws out the word in the way that only a douchebag can. “Had to take your toy away from you. At least for a little while.”

  His face explodes into my vision when he sits on the bed across from me. He’s too close and I can still smell him- that Armani cologne- and I really think I’m going to be sick.

  My eyes bounce around the room and I try to find comfort in the familiar surroundings.

  In this hotel room, I’ve always been in control.

  I need that control. I crave it.

  But right now, I don’t have it.

  Alexander smiles at me and tips the tumbler of scotch in his hand as a toast to the reunion. It’s crystal, and it’s fucking ridiculous because I know t
hat glass didn’t come with the room and I wonder what other props he brought with him tonight.

  He always was a try-hard.

  “Let me start by properly introducing myself,” he tells me. “I’m known by Royce now. Royce Carrington. And I’m an agent for the federal bureau of investigation.”

  He flashes a badge at me, which doesn’t mean shit to my blurry eyes, and waits for me to say something. He wants me to be impressed. Nervous. Intimidated.

  I am nothing because he hit my head so goddamned hard I can’t think straight. Spots fill my vision when I close my eyes and take a breath, and Royce sighs.

  “Nothing to say, Scarlett? Really? After all this time?”

  I blink at him and squint as my eyes narrow in on his face. He looks more like him now. In this room and in this moment. That boy that I once knew, so desperate for approval from those around him.

  He can flash his badge around and proclaim himself a different man with a different name, but he’s still that freshman boy. He’s still Alexander Carrington.

  It was set in stone before I ever had a chance to know him. Our parents decided our fates long before we could, shoving us together. My mother told me were destined to marry. And I was fourteen, and I didn’t know what my favorite kind of ice cream was, let alone what I wanted in a future husband.

  I wasn’t on board with it and I told her I’d never be on board with it.

  But like all things concerning my mother, I came around, eventually. Alexander put in the work. He did everything right. He escorted me at cotillion. He carried my books and said everything that I wanted to hear. He spoon-fed me bullshit, and I ate it up like the stupid girl I was.

  Until that night. Until the night it all went horribly awry.

  “I see the questions in your eyes,” he says. “I’ll save you the trouble, Ten. It’s me. Your eyes are not deceiving you. However, I have to tell you, I thought mine definitely were the first time I saw a photo of you. I couldn’t believe it. Not until I saw you in the flesh. But it really is you. You’re really alive.”

  The smile on his face is not full of fond memories. It’s twisted and dark and a carbon copy of the same smile he wore that night. When he and four of his society brothers altered my life irrevocably. I wanted to believe it was the drugs. Or the alcohol.