Page 9 of Sinister Savior

“Perhaps sometimes, our penance is imbalanced for our crimes and we carry too much weight around with us. Maybe the weight of the world isn’t meant to rest on the shoulders of one man.”

I know this. It’s something I’ve told many a parishioner in my days as a priest. I never went to seminary, never studied theology. I don’t know what holy texts say about a higher power or eternal being, but I do know if I were a father, I’d understand my child and know how to comfort them. This is how I have survived my years here. This is why the parishioners in this congregation trust me and come to me for advice and absolution.

This woman disarms me in less than ten seconds with wisdom that outshines my rationalizations and excuses. It reduces me to the man I am, weak and fragile, vulnerable. As if I need reminding. Life has a way of doing that on its own all the time. But Alice Darling is fresh and new, a tangible omen of hope for a better life, a different life. My urge to touch her and pour out the affection I’ve been storing up for years almost consumes me. She is so pure and humble, attempting to help her helper.

“Such wise words from a woman in so much pain. You know, I often find that pain is what makes us wise. Maybe you’ve had too much pain in your life, and it has made you wise beyond your years because of the way you’ve had to fight for yourself.” I reach out and touch her elbow. “You don’t have to fight anymore, Alice. It’s okay to let me fight for you.”

Her bright green eyes stare up at me with reluctant hope, the type that against all odds continues to believe the best—a tender shoot still pressing through the ashes after the fire. Her tongue draws across her bottom lip before she bites it and with a pained expression says, “Father Clemmons—Mario—you are fighting a demon too, one you thought you had beat a long time ago. And maybe I’m your angel in disguise, sent here to tell you to let go.”

I’m certain she means my past as a made man, running from police, hiring cleaners to erase my mistakes, washing the blood from my hands. She sees it in my body language, my expression, and the rigid way I have to protect her. She senses it, but she doesn’t know what it tis. This intuition is beautiful, especially delivered the way she presents it. But that’s not the only demon I am fighting.

The man inside me—raw and primal, lustful and hungry—he wants out to enjoy everything she is, everything I’ve witnessed about her. My body stirs and my heart races, but I lean in and cup her cheek. Maybe the saving glory of this place, the reason I’ve been chaste for so long, is because there are no women. Maybe Alice is nothing, and she’s simply a temptation sent to make a mockery of my supposed penance. Maybe this is a test sent by God himself to prove my motives and willpower, and maybe I’m failing.

Or maybe I’ve found a connection in a most unlikely place and this is the reason I set out on this path to begin with. Maybe Alice was always in my future, waiting for me to arrive at this very moment. Maybe even without her husband’s murder or her flight from my family, I’d have found her, a kindred spirit.

It makes sense and at the same time it makes no sense. All I know is I’m falling, crashing into her in a powerful way. I lean in, watching her eyes as I do, hoping for the consent only she can give to such a strange action by a priest. Hoping she doesn’t shy away and think of me as a predator. I am anything but. I’m her salvation from the predators.

“Mario…” she whispers, but she doesn’t pull away at all, and then her hand lands on my chest, splaying across the white button-down shirt I wear. The heat radiates through the fabric, and I tense. Longing floods my body, and I feel myself swelling.

“I’m going to kiss you now,” I tell her, but she’s not surprised. Her eyes fall shut and her lips part as her chin tips upward.

The kiss is sweet and soft, not too aggressive because I hold the beast back. I haven’t touched a woman, kissed a woman, in so long. I want to unlock the cage and be free, but I can’t. My conscience is seared. I am a holy man, obligated to myself and to God, and this is wrong.

When I pull away and her eyes flutter open, I see that her cheeks are red, her lips still rosy, her eyes hazed over by lust too. I linger only inches from her for a moment, but I have no words for her. It’s enough that I am close. I use my self-restraint to back away.

“I have to go now. We’ll leave first thing in the morning. I have a few things to handle tonight. I need you to go to your room and lock the door. Don’t open it for anyone, and if anyone tries to get in, leave through the window. If that happens, hide. I will find you.”

Alice says nothing. She nods at me and watches as I walk out. I don’t know what was going through her mind, but I know what was going through mine.

Am I a man of the cloth as I purport to be? Or am I a pretender, a traitor to my family and a denier of the truth? The animal inside me is screaming, beating itself against the iron bars used to imprison it for so long.

I am a cold-blooded killer, a con artist, a master of deception. I am Mario Gatti, son of the late Lorenzo Gatti, leader of the most infamous and powerful criminal organization in Los Angeles, and I’ve been moonlighting as someone I’m not.

I can’t keep pretending. My thirst for sex and violence is inbred. It’s in my blood, and I don’t know how to fight it. I thought I could. I thought it was possible for a man to repent and change, but maybe I’m wrong.

Or maybe Alice is doing this to me—luring me back into the death grip of the devil himself. Or maybe there is someplace in the middle where my need for retribution and justice meets my desire for change and absolution.

Or maybe I’m just going crazy.

Only time will tell.

7

ALICE

Iwake before the sun as Father Clemmons told me to. It’s not even dawn yet. The birds are chirping in expectation of the sun’s first rays, and I listen to the sound of the shower running, imagining with a filthy mind what the priest looks like without his clothes as he washes himself this morning. That kiss was so tender, but it lit me on fire. I felt the corded muscles beneath his shirt, the way they tensed under the heat of my touch. I wanted him. I still want him.

Which is why I take my cup of coffee and walk out to the garden. The single light overhead, mounted above the windows on the east side of the rectory, is enough to spot a bench near a rose bush. I sit there to drink my coffee and clear my head. Far enough away from the sounds of the shower running that I can’t hear it, but close enough that I can return at a moment’s notice if needed.

Father Clemmons—I have to call him that even in my mind because if I don’t, then I will have to go to confession all over again—isn’t a normal priest. I’ve known that since the first night I stayed here. He knew how to handle himself with that man at my home. He wasn’tshocked by the state of destruction we encountered. He fought like a banshee in the church sanctuary yesterday, and that kiss. Wow.

I sip my coffee and listen to the chirping. The birds know today will be a fierce day, not only because we have to find a new place to hide, but because the break in weather after days of rain means they can come out and feast. But only for a few hours. Later today is supposed to be more torrential rainfall. Flooding is at its peak, and it will drive them all back into their nests later. Similarly, I enjoy the respite from being cooped up.

I wonder if Father Clemmons feels the same way—cooped up. It wasn’t just his lips that betrayed his oath of celibacy. I noticed the sizable bulge in his pants as he walked away, which I can only imagine is a very large package that I’d love to have delivered to my doorstep. But even thinking that makes me feel like a heathen. I need to boil my eyeballs in bleach and do a lobotomy as punishment for thinking this way about a priest, but my God, is he hot.

Does he hate it, the celibacy? Refraining from sexual contact with others or indulging in worldly pleasures? I couldn’t do it. Human contact is essential to survive, and for me, especially. I feel alone and disconnected without it. Hugs, holding hands, kissing, sex—they’re all part of what makes us human and helps us feel a sense of belonging. While he’s not been shy about hugging me for comfort, I get the sense that he, too, feels guilty about that kiss.

A twig snaps somewhere behind me, or maybe it’s a nut falling from the hickory tree growing only a few short strides away from the bench. It makes me jump. I’m still on-edge, maybe even more so now that I know the Mafia knows Father Clemmons is here and who he really is—Mario. Though I don’t know Mario’s last name. I doubt it’s Clemmons. I just know it’s not safe at all now, and I don’t know where he’s taking me in a few minutes when he’s clean and ready, but I know we’re leaving.

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