SAINT (Boston Underworld Book 4)

by A. Zavarelli

  She’s massaging my cock in her hand now. Looking up at me. There’s mascara running down her face and her lipstick is smeared from kissing me. She’s never looked as owned as she does right now.

  “Do you know what I would do to you if you fucked me over?” she asks. “Do you know what happens when you break a deal with the devil?”

  She squeezes my cock, and what she means is if I fucked someone else.

  I tell her I won’t, and I mean it.

  Words are empty and Scarlett doesn’t believe them. So I kiss her and fuck her up against the shower wall until neither of us can move and the water is cold.

  We stumble to her bed in a mess of towels and tangled limbs, launching ourselves beneath the blankets in a heap.

  Her room is quiet and black. The building is a hole, but this is a sanctuary. It smells like her and her blankets are soft and her skin is against mine, warm. Our feet are wrapped together and her face finds my chest beneath the blanket, burrowing against me. Her arms hang at her sides awkwardly while her teeth clack together, so I do what she can’t. I wrap her arm around me and I hold her.

  The darkness is pervasive and I can’t see her face. But her heart is hammering against me, anxious. She’s the first to break the silence.

  “Do you like bedtime stories?”

  This feels pivotal. Like whatever I say or do in the next moment will determine the course of the cease-fire we seem to have called. Her voice is too soft, and it’s no coincidence she’s asking me in the cloak of darkness.

  “I live for them,” I tell her, and it’s the right answer.

  “I know a good one,” she offers.

  She isn’t herself. Her voice is different. Nervous. And she’s warm now, but she still isn’t pulling away.

  “I’m all ears, baby doll.”

  She tucks her head beneath my chin and keeps it there, her lips murmuring against my throat when she speaks.

  “Once upon a time,” she says. “And this is the way they all start, so just get over it… there was a girl named Tenly. All the world was her oyster. But most especially, the Upper East Side of New York. Her kingdom was filled with more gowns and finery than most girls could ever hope for.”

  “Tenly didn’t really care about those things, but she played along for the sake of appearances. She went to boarding school in London and learned different languages. She spent summers in the Hamptons and winters traveling abroad. She was privy to all the advantages a silver spoon could offer. Cotillions, secret societies, the holy trinity of Ivy Leagues. She’d been preparing her whole life for them. Everything was laid out for her already. The rules had been written, the board designed. It moved in one direction, with the allotted stops and notable milestones along the way.”

  She pauses and I squeeze her.

  “She was destined to marry a prince,” she goes on. “He was a good prince. A fine prince, from a respectable family with all the fine jewels and castles that money could buy. Tenly did not care so much for him at first, but in time, she grew to respect him.”

  “It was difficult for her, to pretend all the time. By day she practiced and rehearsed her every word, and by night she lost herself in books and dreams of other worlds. A world where she could be herself and nobody would care. Her mother told her these dreams were impractical, of course, and she should count herself lucky to have such a fine life before her.”

  “So Tenly did what she was told. She blended in and performed. She moved along the board and surpassed every expectation laid out for her. But it wasn’t enough. It was never enough.”

  Her hair falls against me, tickling me, but I don’t move. I don’t even breathe as she whispers her confessions in the dark. In the only way she can. Her voice grows distant while she speaks of the way she was raised, and she’s too in the moment to know that I’m here at all now.

  “The thing about secret societies is they wouldn’t be coveted if they let any old Jack or Jill in. You need to be special. You need to earn it. Some people though- like Tenly- are supposed to be shoe-ins because of their lineage. She knew she would get in no matter what, even if the girls didn’t like her. Even if they didn’t want her there. And they didn’t.”

  “So, on the night of her initiation into the Birds of a Feather, she was betrayed. Not only by the Birdies, but by her prince too. She was the sacrificial lamb offered up for slaughter. The prized toy that the prince and his friends would use to earn their way into their own order. And use her they did. Ruthlessly stealing her virtue and leaving her for dead in the middle of the forest.”

  “Scarlett.”

  I want to tell her to stop. I’ve heard enough. But it’s a selfish request, and she doesn’t hear me. The secrets spill from her lips freely.

  And I know that come tomorrow, there will be more blood on my hands.

  “She couldn’t bear to go back there. To face the prince and his friends. So, she let them all think that she was dead. She fled the kingdom and never looked back. She was alone, but she was happy.”

  “Was she though?” I whisper in her ear.

  “Stories are supposed to end in happily ever after,” she answers.

  “But maybe the story isn’t over.”

  She sighs.

  “You’re right. The story is still being written.”

  “Tell me how the rest goes. The part where she meets her new King. Because fuck princes. Tenly needs a King.”

  She nods into me and continues.

  “Okay. So, she meets this King. He was a good King. A fine King. A strong King. And all over the land, panties dropped for him whenever he smiled at the maidens.”

  I snort, and she smiles against my shoulder.

  “He was charming and funny and brave, and everything a good King should be.”

  “But…” I say.

  “But,” she answers. “The thing was that for all the King’s good qualities, the princess had none.”

  “Bollocks,” I tell her.

  She is quiet for a while after that, lost in thought. I don’t press her, and eventually she comes around on her own.

  “Rory,” she whispers against my skin.

  “Aye?”

  “I think she might’ve given him her heart. If she still had one to give.”

  “The story isn’t over,” I remind her.

  She nods and allows herself to relax into me, breathing me in the same way I do to her.

  “Tenly.”

  She doesn’t answer, and I don’t expect her to. So I just tell her what needs to be said.

  “They’re dead, sweetheart. They just don’t know it yet.”

  Twenty

  Scarlett

  Some people are nobody's enemies but their own- Charles Dickens

  I still recall quite vividly, the discussion we had in our English Lit class that fateful day. We were reading Hamlet. The topic of discussion was how he had sacrificed his relationship with Ophelia in favor of his descent into madness.

  It is exactly this thought that I wake up to. Tangled up in Rory.

  I have my own descent into madness to pursue, and sacrifices will need to be made.

  There are only two days now.

  Two days and I have not told Rory about Alexander.

  Nothing I do is without intention. I was not vulnerable last night. I was prepared to sacrifice. Sometimes the truth is better motivation than a trick.

  And it was with intention that I told Rory that tale. He volunteered to avenge me, just as I knew he would.

  That’s when things took a left turn.

  The trap had been set. All I had to do was tell him about Alexander AKA Agent Royce.

  A girl like me doesn’t ask for help.

  She sets it up in a way that someone offers instead.

  Rory did offer, in his own way.

  I know that I can’t take down Royce by myself. He’s well aware of my modus operandi, and I don’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of drugging him. A physical altercation is out of the question because I
’m not Mack and I can’t take him down alone.

  Adding to that is the fact that he’s a federal agent. Which means he needs to disappear without a trace. Literally.

  No DNA. No blood. No breadcrumbs leading back to me.

  I don’t have the resources for something like that, but Rory does.

  All I have to do is tell him.

  But the nagging voice inside my head won’t shut up.

  Royce isn’t just an ex-boyfriend.

  He’s FBI.

  FBI and mafia don’t mix.

  This could mean trouble for the syndicate, and no doubt about it, Lachlan Crow would not sanction a risk like that for me.

  Rory would probably do it, anyway.

  And I am torn.

  There are two voices in my head now, at war.

  Don’t drag him into this, the first voice says.

  All the while, the other is telling me we don’t give a fuck and let’s just do this already.

  Moral dilemmas aren’t my forte.

  I’m paralyzed with indecision when Rory wakes up beside me.

  He kisses the mangy looking hobo that I am sans makeup and doesn’t blink an eye, and this does not make it any easier.

  “Gym?” he asks.

  “Oh.” Right. “Sure.”

  We shower again. Together, again.

  And everything’s becoming too comfortable. And I feel like I can’t fucking breathe.

  It only gets worse as the morning progresses.

  Once my hair is braided and I’ve got makeup on, Rory walks up behind me and snaps a picture of us with his phone.

  “Did you just take a selfie with me?” I ask, horrified.

  “I did.” He smirks. “Get used to it, Satan. I want lots of pretty pictures of you on my phone.”

  As if that comment weren’t bad enough, he introduces me to ‘the lads’ at the gym as his girlfriend.

  “You want to put a collar on me while you’re at it?” I ask. “Property of Saint?”

  “Not a bad idea.” He grins and flashes me the fucking dimples, and I tell him to put them away because that shit doesn’t work on me.

  “Alright.” He tosses me some hand wrap thingies and says, “let’s do this.”

  After showing me how to wrap my hands, he dives into professor mode. But professors aren’t supposed to be like Rory and he’s too close and he keeps cracking jokes about how he’s coming for my ass and my tits or whatever. He gropes me and I’m not learning anything other than I’m not capable of learning when there are hormones involved.

  I have no focus.

  I shouldn’t even be here with him right now, wrestling around on mats and listening to his dirty talk/self-defense.

  I should be at home, determining how to take down Alexander. Because it’s evident that I’m not going to tell him. That for once in the last decade of my life, I’m going to do right by someone.

  And I have no fucking clue why.

  “Sweetheart, ye aren’t even paying attention,” Rory says. “I’d have killed ye about three times by now if this were real.”

  “Just show me what I need to do to inflict the maximum damage,” I insist.

  He frowns and then says the worst thing he could say to me.

  “Scarlett, what’s wrong?”

  I glance around the gym, and people are staring at us. At me. Like I’m an uppity bitch and I shouldn’t even be here.

  I know they’re right.

  I just wish Rory would figure that out.

  “I have to go,” I tell him.

  He follows me out the door and stops me.

  “Why do ye always have to do this?”

  “Do what?” I snap.

  “Ye’re always trying to pick a fight with me just when something good happens.”

  “Nothing good has happened,” I argue. “Since you’ve come into my life, everything is fucked up. It’s all wrong.”

  “Fine, Scarlett,” he sighs and turns away from me. “That’s just fine. Go on and run along then. Do whatever it is ye need to do to convince yourself that this is wrong.”

  “I will.”

  I turn to go, but he grabs me by the arm. And I know he means what he says this time.

  “And next time ye want to come and play with me?” he says. “Don’t.”

  He slams the door in my face and leaves me standing out there on the street.

  Alone.

  And as it turns out, I’m not broken and some things do change.

  I feel.

  I feel like hell.

  Whiskey is in his own special sort of mood today, following me down the hall and meowing incessantly.

  “I don’t have time for your shit too,” I tell him. “It’s bad enough that I’ve caught feelings for one asshole. I don’t need you on that list as well.”

  He doesn’t care, apparently, because he’s a fucking cat, and so the keening continues.

  I give in and pet him before telling him to bugger off. Still, he persists. All the way to my door, berating me in cat speak. I’m not fluent myself, but even I know when he’s pissy about something.

  I tell him to join the club before I open the door to my apartment and gesture him inside, but he won’t go.

  “Fine, suit yourself,” I say. “All you men are the same.”

  And then I shut the door behind me.

  Only to have my head slammed into the wall.

  Twenty-One

  Rory

  I find myself at Slainte, the way most of the single lads do in their down time.

  The whiskey is flowing, and the girls put on a good show up on stage, and everything’s the same as it always is.

  Only I’m restless as fuck.

  “Got anything for me, boss?” I ask Crow.

  “Nah, mate,” he answers. “Why don’t ye take the night off.”

  I’d much rather be bloodying up my knuckles to take the edge off, but I don’t say so. Niall was quick to warn Crow I could be hot headed, and I don’t need him second guessing me now.

  Least of all over a woman.

  My eyes land on Conor and something else occurs to me.

  “Come with me, lad,” I tell him. “I need your help.”

  “Can’t, mate,” he says.

  “Since fucking when?” I bark.

  He nods across the bar and there’s the same blonde he had eyes for at the fight. Ivy. The one I brought home to torment and test him.

  I like the lad, and he deserves to get his kicks too, every now and again.

  He hasn’t been with a woman since his last girl went and overdosed on him. So even though I’m in a cunt of a mood, I’ve no intentions of ruining his night as well.

  “Go on then,” I tell him. “Get the fuck out of here.”

  “Catchya later,” he says.

  And then it’s just me, and Crow, who’s giving me the side eye again.

  “Thought I gave ye the night off.”

  “I need to speak with that Russian fella. Alexei. Can ye give me his number?”

  “I could,” Crow says. “But he’s out of the country. So whatever business ye have with him will have to wait.”

  I half suspect he’s bullshitting me, because he knows this is about Scarlett. But before I say anything I might regret, I grab a bottle of Jameson from the bar and head towards the VIP lounge.

  “I gave you the night off,” Crow calls after me again.

  “Ye did,” I answer back. “And I’ve every intention of enjoying it.”

  Twenty-Two

  Scarlett

  Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once- Shakespeare

  My head throbs.

  Broken brain cells flutter around like confetti as I shift from side to side. Something gurgles, and I think it might be me.

  Memories are a funny thing. The way they play tricks on you.

  I smell pine.

  Logic tells me I’m indoors. Tied to a chair. The binds on my wrists and ankles are tangible, and yet
my mind has transported me somewhere else.

  Gravel digs into my back. Sticks and dirt and cold are upon me. Heavy.

  I’m alone.

  Until I’m not.

  The acrid odor of metal invades my mouth.

  And the memories shift.

  The radiator, the butcher, the knife.

  Blood. Blood is everywhere, even when I open my eyes.

  But it is not the butcher in front of me today.

  Or even the five faces from my nightmares.

  It’s only one.

  Alexander.

  And a more recently familiar face.

  That of Kylie’s friend Katie.

  The one who told me about that crescent shaped scar on Alexander’s lip. The one who confided in me that he hurt Kylie and she feared he would hurt her too.

  I told her that wouldn’t happen. I told her I would get to him first.

  But her fears were right, and I am as wrong as I’ve ever been.

  He’s hurting her now.

  The violence and brutality of his depravity is on display, and it’s worse than any memory. He’s choking her with his cock. Squeezing her throat and dragging her around the floor.

  Tears fall down her cheeks with streaks of black mascara, and hope has abandoned her.

  I am powerless to do anything but watch the scene unfold before me. The way he spits at her and degrades her.

  My binds are unbreakable. Unshakeable.

  I can’t move.

  But I can’t give up, either.

  It isn’t often that I give my word and mean it. But I meant it with her. This girl is still so young. And she isn’t like me. There’s good left in her.

  She told me about her dreams. How she wants to leave the street life behind and go to beauty school. I offered to help her, and I meant that too.

  The offer still stands, and I refuse to believe that this is the end for her.

  Alexander’s eyes find mine across the room, and he groans with pleasure when he realizes I’m awake.