Page 122 of Saint

I can’t.

If I don’t at least make an appearance, people will talk more than they already are.

“Do you?”

Kole wraps his arm around my shoulder. “I’m not leaving you.”

Looking around, I watch everyone take their seats. Oliver Westwood makes his way in with the priest andthe mayor. They’re standing at the front, and I wonder if anyone else sees behind the veil of this charade of politics and religion.

My gaze moves to Jesus hanging on the cross behind the priest, and my stomach turns at the judgment these walls press upon me.

“What do you think happens when you die?” I ask Kole.

He hums, looking from me to the cross at the front of the church. “I think the earth takes you back to where you came from.”

“So no heaven? No hell?”

Kole glances down at me, his gaze roaming over my face. “No.”

“You don’t believe in God then?”

“Do you?” He tosses the question back to me.

Do I?

Faith used to feel more present and less like an imaginary friend. More tangible, and less like tossing a coin in a fountain and making a wish. Somewhere along the line, it stopped being belief and started being selfish. Something I only relied on when I needed to think there was something else out there that cared—that would help me out.

It’s hard to grasp feeling powerless. Faith used to be comforting. Now, it’s what keeps me up at night.

The unknown.

The emptiness.

The void.

“I did when I was younger.” My fingers knit together in my lap. “But when my heart stopped beating, I didn’tsee anything but darkness. So now, I don’t know what I believe in. I’d just like to think there’s something bigger than all of this. Peace at the end, at least.”

“Even if they don’t deserve it?”

“Do any of us?”

He watches me, not answering my question, tracing the line of my jaw with his fingers before tipping my chin up.

“You don’t need God, Violet.”

“Why not?”

“Because no one is allowed to judge you.”

“Is that why you do what you do?” My eyebrows pinch. “You have no fear of moral consequences?”

“Maybe. Or, maybe I just don’t care as you like to remind me.”

Kole turns his body toward me, slipping a hand between my thighs. I’m wearing jeans, but it doesn’t stop him from grabbing me between the legs so hard my pussy throbs.

I look around, but no one is watching. And with where we’re seated and how his body is positioned, they can’t see what he’s doing.

“Is that why you’re thinking about this at your dead boyfriend’s memorial?” Kole rubs my pussy again, and I’m gripping his wrist, trying to bite back a moan. “How I’m the one who painted the road in his blood. Do you want to save my soul?”

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