Page 301 of Vicious Saint
Pain flickers in her gaze, and I feel bad, but not enough to accept the hypocrisy. “You said it yourself, Hendrix…he’s troubled.”
“What happened to ‘everyone has their issues’, huh?” I cross my arms. “What about mine you still tiptoe around? That had little me enjoying choking the mean girls, and adult me enjoying slicing their faces?”
My most recent violent outburst is still a sore subject for us, even after what happened to me outside the club. I can tell Mom is scared of me going back to my old ways, of how much harderit would be to control myself, and how harder the punishments may be if I don’t.
She has a right to be too.
Because I may not be proud of what I did to Annalie, but I don’t regret it for a second.
“Another reason Saint’s not good for you, Hendrix. You’re both ticking time bombs waiting to explode.”
“Yet you and Vic trust him to be around me? Protect me?”
“Hendrix…”
“No.” I point a finger at her. “You don’t get to make the decision for me not to be with Saint. Not after you didn’t even consider talking to me before deciding to marry his fucking dad.”
“This is different, baby.”
“The fuck it is! We love each other. Just like you and Vic.”
Mom’s mouth opens, then closes, then opens again when she says, “You…love him?”
“Yes,” I grit harshly through my teeth. “And if any one of you try to break us apart, I can guarantee those time bombs you mentioned will no longer bewaitingto explode.”
38
Saint
“I’m done with the secrets…Hendrix needs to know what’s going on.” I pace my father’s office.
He shakes his head from behind the laptop screen, looking through some new footage we got from inside the club. “Not yet, son.”
“This could’ve ended a lot fucking worse than the Italian putting two bullets into that piece of shit.”
Dad flinches with the mention of what he believes to be only Carlo’s doing…because, yeah, he might be caught up in this fucked up world by default, but the ideologies he swears by don’t exactly stand alongside murder.
“You’re absolutely right.”
“We could’ve lost her.” My fist slams his desk. “I could’ve fucking lost her! Do you get that?”
A drawn out sigh pushes past my father’s lips as he leans back in the chair. “Of course I do, Saint, but we spoke about this and agreed it was safer to keep Hendrix in the dark.”
“That shit changed the second I caught that motherfucker in the alleyway with her. And if that bouncer didn’t end up throwing Carlo and me out from the front of the club, he would’ve succeeded. Then what? Huh?”
He tightens his jaw but doesn’t get the chance at a rebuttal because I’m not done.
“Me, you, the Salvinis. We fucked up and you know it.”
“I agree, we may have underestimated Nikolai Ivanov.”
“May have, my ass! I’m telling her.”
Dad shoots out of his seat, holding up a hand.
“I think you’re letting your feelings for Hendrix cloud your judgment here, Saint.”
Feelings he only found out about days ago.
