Page 8 of Lethal Saint

“I’m going to take you home with me, Vasilisa,” the Saint said when I stood, finding my balance on the mattress and shrieking when Olivier’s cold body rolled into my leg, smearing me with more blood. “Your father won’t find you with me, and even if he did, he wouldn’t dare cross me. Ihaterapists and abusers,” he said as if he could see every question on my face. “They make my fucking skin crawl and my blood boil. None of this—what happened to you tonight—was okay. Not a single goddamn minute of it. So I’m getting you out.”

Yeah, until he got me home and did all the things these men had been planning to do. He was no better than them. But he was right that Dad couldn’t reach me with him, and it wasn’t as if my fiancée was safer than the Saint. He was worse. He wouldn’t have given me a gun, I knew that for certain. And I could tell by the weight, it was loaded.

I made my decision in a heartbeat, or maybe I made it when he gave me the gun and made sure I knew how to take the safety off. The Saint was the lesser of two evils. I’d rather spend a lifetime with a man who armed me than a single night with my fiancée.

I found my balance on the mattress and stumbled onto the dais a safe distance from the Saint, not daring to look him in the eye again. But—my attention was stolen by the ballroom around us, consumed and destroyed by the sight. Holes were blasted in trails all along the walls, the chandelier had been entirely shot down, now shattered and gleaming with blood, and the door across the room hung open, like people had fled through it. The ballroom floor was covered, end to end, in the dead bodies of my dad’s friends and colleagues, not a square metre free of bloodshed except for around the dais.

I choked on a cry and froze in place, my breathing racing out of control. Everyone was dead. Every last one of them. How many had escaped? Ten? Three? Just my father?

Oh, god.

I staggered back, my hand shaking around the gun.

“Every single person in this room would have hurt you or gladly watched you be hurt,” the Saint said while I shook and stared and choked on every breath. “If I’d walked away, or stood by and done nothing, I would have been complicit in your assault too.”

I couldn’t move. Could only stare at the ballroom full of murdered people.

I flinched when the Saint swept my legs from under me, still frozen when he gathered me into strong arms and carried me off the dais. He didn’t knock the gun from my hands, didn’t tell me to drop it.

“I’m not going to harm you, and neither will anyone else. You’re under my protection, little queen. You’re safe now.”

CHAPTER 4

DAMIEN

The entire goddamn world stopped when Vasilisa met my eyes. Not just because she was beautiful or because they were a rich chocolate flecked with purest gold, so gorgeous they were unreal. The world stopped like it always did when a killing calm came over me, because there was blind terror in her eyes. Worse, its edge was dullened by pure resignation.

She had no fire, no fight. And judging by the white scars visible all across her body, she’d had any fire beaten out of her. What did she look like under the makeup on her face? Black and blue and bloody? Like Mum and Willow when we found them, raped and beaten to death in a seedy fucking shithole as a message to the family?

Vasilisa Ivanov had accepted her fate, but there was no way she was okay with this. She might not have known it, but looking at me with those empty, suffering eyes was a call to arms. Amatch thrown on an ocean of petrol. In a heartbeat, my rage ignited.

I hadn’t been fast enough to save Willow and Mum, but I was here now, watching another innocent girl be led to death, and neither I nor the semi-automatic under my jacket were going to stand by and watch. This night might not kill Vasilisa physically, but her spirit would die. And judging by the vacancy in her eyes, the emptiness in her smile—like she was terrified what would happen if shedidn’tsmile—her soul was already halfway dead.

A single glance at Jonathan was all it took to know we were on the same page.

The calm that had washed over me turned to buzzing rage when the Gent proved exactly what kind of a predator he was by touching up an innocent, unwilling girl. Jesus fucking Christ, how old was she? Eighteen? Younger? Rage burned in my throat and tasted like vomit. The fury buzzing between my ears grew louder.

Vasilisa shouldn’t be anywhere near a place like this, and protectiveness choked off my air, stopping the snarl I would have thrown at my uncle. All my emotions about my dead mum and sister got tangled up in this girl, Vasilisa Ivanov, and I knew without a doubt I’d do for her what I wished someone had done for Willow and Mum that night.

Another glance at Jonathan. He nodded.

I dragged a breath through my teeth, dropping deeper into that rage-induced calm. Images overlapped with every blink I took. The mutilated horror I walked into when I found my family murdered. Vasilisa Ivanov being led up the dais to a bed where a room full of people would watch her be assaulted.

No one here was under any illusions she’d chosen this, that she was happy or excited or all those other things a girl should be during her first time. Fuck every single one of these monsters.I knew they were from money and powerful families, but their greedy eyes and worse smiles marked them for death.

The second Vasilisa lay back on the bed, the vile old man who’d bid on her leering down at her, I drew my gun and killed indiscriminately.

I killed them the way I would have if I’d reached Mum and Willow in time. No girl or woman was getting assaulted today, no one’s virginity was being stolen or fuckingbought.The whole transaction made me sick. I hadn’t wanted to come here, hadn’t wanted any part of this shit, but as bullets sprayed in a loud chatter and the screams began, I was glad I did.

“Damien!” Gentian barked, trying to grab my arm.

I ripped it out of his disgusting hands, met his black eyes, and said with every bit of cold rage in my heart, “Marshalls don’t hurt women; it’s against our code, Uncle.”

And I shot the bastard in the stomach. A swift kick to his kneecap and he was on the ground, moaning as a slow death curled around him. I couldn’t stop seeing his hands on Vasilisa, couldn’t stop seeing her flinch of pain, her big, hopeless eyes. My own flesh and blood had put that look on her face.

It was still there now, half an hour later, as she stood on the cold tiled floor of a hallway near the front of Ivanov Manor and warily let me drop my suit jacket around her shoulders. Her fingers never left the gun. I couldn’t think of a time I’d ever handed a weapon to anyone else, but if anyone needed it, it was the girl who’d been led to a room full of perverts and monsters eager to watch her lose her innocence.

A room now full of dead perverts and monsters. It had been a productive day after all. Maybe I should try my luck with Seb Castro again, see if he was up to confessing his secrets.

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