Page 93 of No Saint

“No, no I don’t. I don’t care what you do to him but I need you now.”

His shoulders sag and then he turns to me, grabbing me. He pulls me right to his chest, his face burying into my hair, “No one willeverhurt you again, you hear me? I will never let anyone hurt you. I will never hurt you.”

“I know.”

“I’ll kill anyone who dares.”

“I know Gabriel.”

He gently pushes me back, staring down at my face and then my body. I try to cover myself, but he stops my arms.

“Don’t hide from me,leonessa, do not hide.”

There was no judgement in his face, nothing there to suggest he didn’t like what he saw. He reaches for a scar on my stomach, a small one, brushing his thumb softly over it. I didn’t look at myself often, I didn’t like what I saw but Gabriel, he looks at me as if he’ll drop to his knees and worship me right here.

“Sei Bellissima,”he murmurs, “You are beautiful.”

36

It’s long after the day has ended, and my wife sleeps soundly next to me. She was emotionally drained after what happened this morning, the panic attack and then her speaking to me, reliving her trauma so I knew what had happened to her.

I’d managed to contain my rage, bottled it all up but it now sits inside of me, festering like a rotten wound. She wanted me to stay with her, I would but I couldn’t sleep and in the background, I had Enzo and Devon looking up her stepfather, finding out every last detail about him.

The fucker was a drunk and an addict, he pissed his money up the wall every night or snorted it up his nose and lived in a decaying trailer down near the edge of the city. His buddies weren’t any better.

I wished I’d had the time and the mental capacity to count every scar on Amelia’s body, every wound that bastard inflicted so I could give him just as many cuts but I couldn’t, so I was going to guess.

Slowly so I don’t wake her, I climb from the bed and dress, keeping my clothes dark. I would be doing this alone.

Enzo meets me outside the bedroom, nodding and taking position to keep an eye on her and her son while I was gone. My shoes clip through the silent house, echoing down the halls and I don’t stop until I’m climbing into the car, pressing the button, and waiting as the garage doors open. The dark seas stretch out before me, the crash of the waves loud, even from within the car as if the turbulent waves were a representation of my mood.

Thundery. Loud.Violent.

My hands itch to destroy.

Maim and torture andend.

Her panic, the terror I saw in her earlier and how she had a literal nightmare right in front of me, all because of what that fucker did to her.

He drowned her.

My fingers tighten on the steering wheel, white knuckling until my fingers cramped. The drive through the city, while quiet, does nothing to the rage burning through, growing hotter and hotter still. Pristine buildings turn to rotting shells, but it isn’t long before my tires crunch over the gravel in front of his trailer.

All alone out here, I think, killing the engine and climbing out. I had a single gun on me. No other weapons. I wanted to feel his death on my hands.

The trailer was dark, the door still ajar after he, no doubt, stumbled in hours before. I don’t know what he was doing now he didn’t have Amelia, and from what she told me he got off on her pain.

I do a quick scan of the trailer and then head to the door, carefully opening it and shutting it behind me. Inside smells like stale beer and rotting food, piss and sweat fumes leaking from the stained walls. Was this where Amelia was raised?

Discarded needles and old bottles litter the floor and there were still lines on the cracked glass table in front of the TV.

He wasn’t in the living room section but beyond here, there was a door that I guess leads to the bedroom.

It was almost too good, too easy but I’d met men like this before, been around them my entire life. They were predictable. They believed they were the biggest predator in this game.

They were wrong.

I don’t head through immediately, instead I head back outside, finding the bucket I’d walked past earlier and fill it using the outside tap, remaining quiet so I don’t wake him. Back inside, I keep that silence until I’m standing over his naked ass body.

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