Page 66 of A Sinner's Saint

“I know you have this whole martyr thing going on, Vin. But you gotta wake up and see that you’re only hurting yourselfand her. I might not have known the girl well, but the brief time I did spend with her, it was obvious how much she loved you,” he says.

“Loved, past tense. And I never once doubted that. It’s because of that love she was blinded to what being with me would really mean for her.” I run a hand through my hair. I need to get out of this car. “Pull over. Let me out here.”

“Here? Where the fuck are you going?” Marcel asks.

I pocket my phone and unclip my belt. “Out. I’ll have Marcus or Dash come get me.” We’re already in the middle of the city.

Marcel pulls over before turning his glare on me. “Don’t do anything stupid, Vin,” he warns.

“Aye-aye, captain.” I wave him off with a salute as I push open the door and step out onto the kerb.

I wait for my brother to drive off before I turn around and walk down the street. I know where I’m going. Ten minutes later, I walk into Marcus’s new ink shop. He bought this place two months ago, much to his parents’ disapproval. I love the joint, and he’s a great fucking artist.

“Do you have an appointment?” He looks up at me from his sketchbook.

“I don’t need one,” I tell him, making my way over to the chair. I strip off my shirt and lie down, getting comfortable.

“Make yourself at home.” Marcus chuckles.

“I need something.”

“What do you want?” he asks, coming over and standing next to me.

“The Eiffel Tower. Right here.” I point to a blank patch of skin on my left rib cage.

“You want the fucking Eiffel Tower?”

“That’s what I said,” I grunt.

“Fine. Give me ten.” He goes off and starts sketching my design.

I like living in the fantasy. When shit gets too fucking hard, I go back to that moment when I kissed Cammi under the Eiffel Tower as if she’d just said yes to my marriage proposal. What I never told her was that I fucking wished it were real. I wanted nothing more than for it to be real, for me to be able to make her my wife.

I pull out my phone and swipe over my GPS app. I haven’t tracked her location in a long time. The little red light comes to life, hovering right over her parents’ house. She’s so fucking close, yet so far away. I could easily go and climb through her window, pretend we’re back in high school, pretend that Paris didn’t happen.

Except it did happen. When I close my eyes, I see her underneath me, my hands around her throat.

Fuck, I need this tattoo.It’ll be a permanent reminder of everything I fucked up. And why I need to stay the fuck away from Cammi. I won’t risk hurting her again.

Marcus comes back over and holds up a sketch on a transfer sheet. “You ready?” he asks me.

“Yep, go for it,” I tell him. He places the transfer onto my skin before gesturing for me to have a look. “That’s good.”

He’s drawn the Eiffel Tower with a pile of skulls and black roses around the base. It’s fucking perfect. “Did you think it wouldn’t be?” He raises a questioning brow.

“Never doubted you for a second, bro.” I laugh. The sound of his gun whizzes to life, and I lie back and close my eyes, enjoying the sting of the needle against my skin.

Chapter Thirty

One month later

It’s the first day of classes and my second year of university, but as I park my car on campus, my anxiety sparks to life. I’m not nervous about the school itself or my course list. It’s him. I’m fucking petrified of seeing him.

What if he’s with someone else? Can I really handle seeing that? I wouldn’t blame him if he were. It’s been over a year since we last spoke. He could have been with a million women since then. Well, maybe not a million, but he’s a De Bellis. Those guys don’t exactly have to work to get women.

Just the thought of having to see him makes me nervous, while the thought of seeing him with a different girl leaves me feeling nauseated. I can’t see that, but maybe I need to. Maybe if I see that, it’ll be the final nail in the coffin, so to speak. The last straw. The push I need to be able to let go of him completely.

I like to tell myself that I’ve let go. That I’m over him. I’m not. How do you get over a love like that? I honestly thought I was one of the lucky ones. I found a guy who I thought loved me so intensely, so wholly, at such a young age. I thought we’d grow up together, and then grow old together.

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