Page 51 of The Sins of Saint (The Sins of Saint 3)

“Which is that she committed suicide?”

He rubbed his temple with his forefinger. “He doesn’t want to accept the truth because he can’t handle the thought that his mother left him alone in this world by choice.” His cheeks flushed, his blue eyes flashing with past torment. “He kept screaming and shouting and coming at me, trying to hurt me. His eyes, they were dark with so much hate while he cursed me, calling me a murderer.”

“Are you?”

“A murderer?” He seemed shocked I had even asked. “I’m no saint, Mila, and my hands are stained with the blood of others. But I assure you, my dead wife isn’t one of them.”

“Then why is Saint so convinced it’s murder?”

He shrugged then thanked the bartender for refilling his glass. “Like I said, it’s easier to deal with the thought of someone taking his mother from him rather than living with the fact that she left him intentionally.”

“No.” I shook my head and bit my lip. “That can’t be it. Saint is a lot of things, but he’s not naïve. There had to have been something to convince him. Clearly, he knew you had motive since he thought you were having an affair. But it has to be more than that.” I gnawed on my thumbnail, trying to think what it could it be. Saint was a strong man. Bold and intelligent. To accuse his father of murder, there had to be signs of some sort of foul play that convinced him. Here I thought I would find the last piece of the puzzle tonight, but now it felt like I had more pieces missing than before.

I leaned back in my seat and stared out in front of me, trying to picture a teenage Saint filled with grief and consumed with hatred. I couldn’t imagine how broken he was after losing his mother. Just the thought brought tears to my eyes, thinking about the pain he carried inside him for so long.

“Losing his mother broke him,” I mumbled, more to myself than anyone else. “And for the last twenty years, he channeled that pain into his hatred for you.” I glanced at Mr. Russo. “And you allowed him to.”

“Yes, well…after witnessing him fall apart that night, screaming about the pills not being hers, frantically searching the room for a goddamn key—”

“Wait.” I sat up straight. “What key?”

He pulled his hand through his salt and pepper hair, his sharp widow’s peak giving away his age. “Marcello and James broke the door down because, according to him, it was locked. But there was no key in the lock, which meant—”

“That it was locked from the outside.” I gazed out in front of me as the puzzle slipped perfectly in place. “Someone locked it from the outside.”

“Marcello searched that entire room, turning it upside down trying to find that key. But we never found it.”

I reached out and grabbed his arm, my heart about to leap out of my throat. “What did the key look like?”

His gray brows drew together as he glanced from where I touched him to my face. “I’m not sure. It’s a long time ago.”

“Was it a vintage brass key?”

“I can’t remember, Mila. Why?”

“Shit. I have to go.” I grabbed my purse when I heard a voice behind me.

“What in the name of Christ is going on here?”

I froze, my spine nothing but ice. “Saint,” I whispered and turned, only to shudder under his angered glower. Blue sapphire eyes burned with the flames of hell, rage radiating from his strong form.

“Care to enlighten me as to what the fuck is going on here?”

I glanced over his shoulder at Viktor, who stood a few feet away looking like a stray dog who got caught stealing meat from the butcher’s back door.

“Saint, we were just talking.”

His death-stare was aimed at his father. “You have fucked with me one too many times, old man.”

19

Saint

The note,I could have believed. It was Mila’s handwriting, her excuse for not wanting to bother me in my office plausible. Of course, the fact that she left without asking permission ticked me the fuck off, but then I remembered the night we spent on the deck. The night I proposed. I vowed that I’d do my best to stop wanting to control her. That she was no longer my captive, but my wife. My equal. So, after a few breathing exercises, I managed to calm myself.

But then Viktor called, said Mila requested to be taken to some fashion boutique two blocks east from us while the tracking device I had placed in every one of her goddamn purses and handbags showed that my wife was, in fact, on the other side of town. At an Italian restaurant, to be exact.

It took me twelve seconds to threaten the truth out of Viktor, and I was outside the restaurant within seventeen minutes.

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