Page 49 of The Fall of Sin (The Sins of Saint 2)

Her eyes narrowed, and she reached for her purse, pulling out the stack of cards.

I frowned. “You carry them with you?”

“Of course. You never know when you may need them,” she replied with a wink.

She pulled the table closer and settled it between us. “The cards guide us by giving us an insight of our past. Our present. And our future.” She positioned the deck of cards in the middle of the table. “Now, I need you to close your eyes. You need to focus. Think about everything that’s going on right now, about how you feel. Think about your family. Your mom who you’ve never met. Marcello. Let your energy guide you while you cut the deck into three.”

I closed my eyes, my mind a minefield of memories, good and bad. Memories I thought were long forgotten. I thought about those endless nights I used to cry myself to sleep wishing I had a mom who could tuck me in and whisper how much she loved me. And then Saint was there. His face. His presence. It dominated each and every other memory, pushing them to the farthest corners of my mind.

I reached for the deck of cards and gently split it in three.

“Good. Now, open your eyes.”

There was a slight twinge of nerves in my belly as I watched Elena reach for the top card of the pile on her left and turn it. “The Three of Swords.”

I licked my lips anxiously and stared at the pierced heart.Surely that can’t be good.

“The Moon,” Elena said softly as she turned the second card.

She reached for the third card and glanced up at me with reassuring eyes. Her fingers hovered over the third card. “This one is your future card.”

I swallowed and watched with anticipation as she slowly turned it, then her eyes shot up to mine.

“The Empress.”

I let out a laugh. “Ironic, since this yacht is called the Empress.”

Elena didn’t smile. In fact, she hardly seemed amused.

“So,” I shrugged, “what do the cards say?”

She pulled her hair back over her shoulders, and it was hard to miss how uncomfortable she came across. It wasn’t assuring at all.

“Well, the Three of Swords is your past. And hardly surprising since it means heartbreak. Division. Betrayal. It makes sense since…well—”

“Since my parents gave me up.” It still stung, the reality of it. I always thought the reason my parents had to have had for giving me up would change how I felt about it. Possibly redeem them. But not even a decades-old debt had the power to make it less painful.

“The second card. The Moon.”

“My present?”

“Yes.” She looked up, her eyes soft with compassion. “It’s a warning.”

My stomach turned. “A warning of what?”

“That everything isn’t as it seems.”

I shrugged. “I guess that makes sense in this current situation I’m in.”

“It’s also a message, Mila. A message for you to trust your intuition. Trust your instincts to look past the illusion of lies and deceit.”

It was like someone had poured concrete into my stomach, Elena’s words laden with warning.

She glanced at the third card. The Empress. “You need to be careful, Mila. Especially since—”

“What the hell is going on here?”

Elena shot to her feet and Saint’s large frame casted a shadow over the deck of cards. “I was just—”

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