Page 68 of Lethal Saint

The day after he gave me Sparrow and Serenity—or as I called them, the twins—I woke up after my nightmare to find a stack of cardboard boxes in the middle of the living room that Rose had found downstairs with my name on them. Mine, not Damien’s.

It was immediately apparent why they were addressed to me when I opened the first box and found soft, expensive lace in fifty different shapes, patterns, and colours. The rest of the boxes contained the same, a thousand in total.

It hurt to look at them then. Strange, twisted grief tormented me over my brother’s and dad’s deaths. Theirmurders.Even as a part of me was relieved they were gone, I couldn’t breathe without choking on grief.

It took me two weeks to realise it wasn’t loss crippling my chest but guilt. I didn’t miss them. I didn’t feel sad. I wasgladthey were gone. And what kind of monster did that make me, that I was relieved they’d been killed?

“He’s gone again, isn’t he?” I sighed to Serenity, her sister noisily slurping water from her bowl.

I pushed down the hurt, pasting a smile onto my face when Serenity butted me with her massive black and tan head. Her face was pretty much square, full of pure strength and drool, but her eyes were soft and sweet. Just like Damien, minus the drool.

I sighed heavily. I seemed to be doing that a lot lately. I was safe, and cared for, and I wanted for nothing. But my husband was keeping me at arms length, his work was creeping increasingly into our home when his friends Jonathan and Eli came over, sometimes accompanied by Damien’s brothers, and…it was like he was putting a wedge between us on purpose. He was as kind and careful as ever, and every bit as generous with his money and time. I loved it when he held me to his side as we watched films on the TV, the twins laid on the rug in front of us, but—he didn’t touch me first, didn’t initiate sex at all, and it laid heavy on my heart.

Even as he told me I was beautiful and sexy and dangerous, the truth was there in his distance and hesitation.

“Shall we go to the pool?” I asked the twins, and Sparrow snapped her head up so fast that two trails of water flowed from her jowls. “I’ll take that as a yes,” I said with a soft laugh.

It wasn’t like I had anything to stay in the flat for anyway. Damien wouldn’t be back for another hour. He left at the same time every night—five p.m. sharp and came back at ten past seven. Always the same.

I tried not to let it fester, tried to quell the poison spreading through my mind, but it ran wild as I got up and changed intomy swimsuit, throwing a long red coat over it so no one got a good look at me on the way down to the pool.

Sparrow trotted after me, leaving a dark splotch on my coat. I glanced down at her, scratching her ears. “He leaves every day. He doesn’t want to touch me. He won’t sleep with me.” I shrugged, like it didn’t kill me. “Because he’s sleeping with someone else.”

Sparrow answered by making the stain even bigger by rubbing her head against my hip.

“It’s okay,” I said in a small, painful voice. “He only married me so Armand Finch couldn’t, and—and it’s f-fine.”

He might have agreed to a real marriage but that was before he really knew me, before he saw all my imperfections.

You’re only good for your pretty face and what’s between your legs, don’t ever forget that.

Look at you, look at the filth on your face and that wild hair and the bruise on your jaw. You know, if you didn’t push me so much, I wouldn’t have to correct your behaviour and you wouldn’t be covered in ugly bruises. Now, go fix your hair and we’ll forget this happened.

“No wonder he’s gone to someone else,” I whispered to Sparrow, pressing my lips flat when they wobbled.

You’re safe,I snapped at myself.He doesn’t hit you, doesn’t threaten you, doesn’t call you an endless stream of cruel names.

I just needed to put everything in perspective and kill the stupid idea that I was going to live happily ever after, that I could ever be enough for a man like Damien Marshall.

“Okay!” I said brightly, choking back everything else. “Are you ready, girls? It’s pool time.”

It wasour one month anniversary, or whatever you called something without theannfor annual. One monthiversary?

Damien had held me close at breakfast, a table of to-die-for food set out for breakfast and all of London spread out beneath us. He’d groaned and surrendered when I kissed him, his hands wandering across my body, and I thought he’d finally stop holding back. I thought he’d let me be his wife the way I wanted to be—wholly and all-consumingly—but the backs of his fingers brushed the faint trace of my bruise, like he’d memorised its placement, and he drew back.

Now he was in the office down the hall arguing with Stefan, his golden-haired, ever-smiling younger brother, and even though we hadn’t made plans, his absence on our monthiversary cut deep. He’d probably go see his mistress later, too. I wasn’t enough for him. I was never enough.

I might have been able to handle that if he didn’t let me believe otherwise, if he hadn’t been soperfect.And maybe I was at fault too for how I handled him killing my brothers. But I only pushed him away that first night. Now we'd been like this forweeks.

I wanted my husband back. I wanted him to stay home instead of disappearing to screw someone else. Mostly I wanted her dead, whoever she was.

I thought about it almost as constantly as I thought about the way Damien looked at my bruises. I’d imagined killing her two hundred different ways, all of them graphic and bloody.

I got up off the sofa where I’d been sketching—since I had no idea what my hobbies were, I was trying every single one inexistence—and walked down the hall, past Damien and Stefan’s voices, and into my room.

I had nothing better to do, so I took my time exchanging the gorgeous red dress I’d worn to breakfast for black jeans and a dark green blouse with tiny sunflowers all over it. It wasn’t like I needed the celebration dress for anything now.

The blouse reminded me of Rose and her yellow flower keyring. Tomorrow, she’d come to clean the house and I’d finally have someone to talk to about all this. She swore up and down that Damien would never be unfaithful, but I thought the same thing and yet he left every single day. And he wasrepulsedby me.

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