Page 1 of Ashes of Saints

CHAPTER ONE

PARKER

I smirk as I lean against the open door and think of the woman I accidentally bumped into today on the street.

Aurora Whitlock.

The stunning redhead, trapped in a web she doesn’t know she’s in.

Like a tiny little fly.

She doesn’t remember me, but I see hints of familiarity that she can’t quite place deep inside her eyes. It’s a knowing she can’t quite access.

Something I’m too fucking familiar with.

At least I didn’t kidnap her like Maddox did with Kyra. That shit was messed up.

Still, Aurora isn’t going to run from me. I saw the way her pupils dilated, her nipples hardened, and how flustered she was as I towered over her.

I pulled out all the moves.

I crowded her, smirked as I gazed into her globes like she was the juiciest fucking burger I’d ever seen. My mouth watering.

I wouldn’t say I charmed her, but I’d put money on her pussy being soaked when I walked away.

Good fucking money.

Depending on who this woman really is, Aurora is probably fantasizing about me being her dream man. I’m going to keep letting her think that for as long as I want to play with her.

While I need her.

Then, depending on her level of involvement in the depraved world we both came from, I will break her.

Fuck it, I’ll break her anyway.

I owe her nothing.

I blow out the smoke of my cigar—a habit I need to give up—and stub it out in the ashtray I keep on the balcony of my NYC penthouse. It’s well after midnight, and as I take a few more steps outside, I watch the boats on the Hudson while gazing around Manhattan.

Money doesn’t make you happy, but it empowers you with choices other people don’t have. There’s no waiting or asking permission.

Sometimes I wish I could go back to those days, in the dark alleys of our boarding school, where we spent nights pummeling one another in our own version of Fight Club.

Girls wouldn’t understand.

We’re different from them at the core of our essence. Boys are filled with testosterone and frustration. I’m not sure we’re suited for society, even in these modern times. Is it really all that different from two hundred years ago when men walked through an old English town in a suit pretending to be a gentleman? Restrained by society and law.

We’re still pretending not to be the animals we are.

Pretending to be what’s expected of us.

Pretending not to be mad at something that our parents, the government, our neighbor, our spouse, the markets silently demand. Even the person in the car in front of us in traffic. That fucker.

Or maybe we’re just angry at fucking everything.

So, it might not have been appropriate for a group of young men to be running our own club with the pure intention of punching the fuck out of each other. But we did. And we spent most nights there. Kids came again and again.

No one was ever forced.

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