Page 36 of The Rise of Saint (The Sins of Saint 1)

“We’re not having a wedding. We’re just signing a piece of paper, and that’s it.”

“Mila,” she leaned her head to the side like she was staring at a bewildered little mouse, “like I said before, Marcello is a powerful man. There needs to be some evidence of a real wedding for the public to believe it.”

My eyes widened. “The public?”

“Marcello is one of Italy’s most eligible bachelors. If word gets out he has a wife, the press will be all over it. We need something to present them with once you go public.”

I felt ill, physically ill as bile made its way up my throat. Dizzy and confused, I sat down on the bed, staring at the carpet. “Public?”

Elena took a seat next to me, her tiny frame hardly making a dent in the mattress. “I know it’s a lot to take in. But things need to be done a certain way.”

A stray tear ran down my cheek, and I wiped it away as quickly as it appeared. “Why me? Why now?”

She placed a comforting hand on my shoulder. “A lesson I’ve learned very early on in my life is to never ask ‘why me.’ Rather ask, ‘why not me.’ That way, you’ll pity yourself less.” She got up and grabbed a brush from the dressing table. “Now, dry those tears and walk out there with your head held high. And like I said,” she grinned, her coral colored lips curved at the edges, “this is an opportunity, Mila. You just have to take it.”

My breath hitched as I inhaled, another tear stinging the corner of my eye, and I wiped it away, hating that I was crying again. Just like the little girl I comforted the last time I visited the orphanage.

The little red-haired girl was sitting in the corner crying because she wanted to paint, but the children before her had used all the paint. And even though she was crying, I could see the anger glinting in every tear, her lips pursed and eyes narrowed. I remembered her telling me that she was angry at herself for crying, that she didn’t want to waste her tears on others. It was the only part of her she could keep for herself, her tears. No one else deserved them.

And while I sat on the bed, my head downcast as I clutched the sheets between my fingers, I pretended I was that girl. I imagined I was the one who refused to give my tears to anyone else. No. Matter. What. Just like that little red-haired girl.

The red-haired girl.

Opportunity.

That’s it.

I lifted my gaze to meet Elena’s. “I need to see him.”

14

Saint

“Has he been taken care of?”

James slid his phone across the table toward me, and I looked at the image of a dead man hanging upside down from the ceiling.

I moved his phone back to him. “Seems like it ended painfully for him.”

“Extremely painful.”

“Good. No witnesses?”

“Of course not.”

I should have known it was a stupid question to ask in the first place. James had been my right-hand man ever since I walked out of my father’s house. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for me, no line he wouldn’t cross if I asked him to. I trusted him with my life, trusted his loyalty. We became friends at a young age, his mother working as a maid in my father’s mansion. But my father was a cruel man, demanded respect in the most inhuman ways, and treated others like shit.

The day I decided to leave, James took his mother and left with me. They both worked for me ever since, but his mother had passed away six months ago. We never talked about it, yet I knew the kind of grief he carried. The sympathy I had shown him was hidden in a single pat on the back, and the occasional drinks we’d share without a single word of conversation at midnight when we couldn’t rest.

I rubbed the back of my neck. There was a certain edginess brought by this new path I had chosen to venture on. It wasn’t part of the plan, but for some reason I couldn’t stop thinking about it and found it was something I just had to do. It was a few wrongs that needed to be made right, and I had to be the one to make sure it got done.

The ice in his vodka clinked as he swirled his glass. “I have to say, Saint, this is very unlike you, to change plans at the last minute.”

“I know.” I cranked my neck from side to side. “And I’ll admit, I don’t like this feeling of unease. But it has to be done.”

“Why now? You’ve known about her past long before we brought her here. Why are you doing this now?”

The answer to that question was simple.I didn’t know. But that was not the kind of response I wanted to give to anyone, which was why I made sure there was nothing but determination written in my expression. “What kind of husband would I be if I didn’t take care of this?”

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