“Who said you had a choice?” We face off for a few minutes, and I give up first on purpose.
“Fine.”
“You’re so much prettier when you agree.”
I flip him the bird, grabbing my gun from my purse and stuffing it in the back waistband of my jeans. I feel heated eyes on me, and I look up. All four guys are watching me intently—even grumpy-ass Galen. “What?”
“You sucking that gun is permanently etched into our retinas,” Caz says, earning a sharp look from his leader. “That was so fucking hot.” He adjusts himself in his jeans. “And now, I’m hard as a rock. Great.”
“Maybe Saintly will be nice and let me blow you later.”
“Be a good girl and do what you’re told, and I just might,” Saint says.
“Are we getting out or what?” I ask after a couple minutes of silence.
“Not yet. We’re scoping out the place.” Saint looks over his shoulder. “Well?” he asks Theo.
“Four heat signatures. One of them is McKenzie.”
Saint rubs his hands together. “This night just got even better.”
“Who’s McKenzie?” I inquire.
“A lowlife scumbag who deserves to die a slow and bloody death.”
“I’m sorry I asked,” I murmur, wondering what the fuck I’ve gotten myself involved in.
We sit in the car for another half hour, all quietly observing the house, and not talking per the domineering asshole’s instruction. Just when I’ve decided I’ll probably die from boredom, Theo speaks up. “They’re in the back room now. I say we make our move.”
“Agreed.” Saint gets out of the car and opens the trunk.
I climb out at the same time as the others, watching them distribute some serious hardcore weapons. Caz hands me a rifle, but I back away. “Yeah, no.” I pat my waistband. “I’m good.”
Like hell I will carry one of their weapons. I’ve no gloves with me, and I’m not giving them my fingerprints on one of those things.
Caz shrugs, swinging a duffel bag over his shoulders and sauntering across the road with Galen, both of them making zero effort to conceal their movements. It’s dark out now, but it’s still brazen as fuck. I watch with reluctant admiration as they stick blocks of explosive to the exterior walls of the house.
Saint closes the trunk. “Let’s move out.” He grabs my hand. “You stay with me, princess.”
Adrenaline flows through my veins as we creep around the side of the house and around to the back. The guys line up at the rear right-hand-side window, standing a good distance back. The wooden blinds are closed, obscuring our view of the room inside, but Theo confirmed there were four people inside, and things are about to get real.
An ominous sense of foreboding washes over me, and I’ve a real bad feeling about this.
“Get ready for mayhem, baby.” Saint winks, releasing my hand and steadying his finger on the trigger of his rifle before nodding at the others.
The four of them open fire in sync, sending a barrage of bullets flying through the window. The glass shatters explosively, scattering broken shards all over the patio. The noise is deafening until Saint raises his hand and the shooting stops. Shouts emerge from inside, followed by the sound of running footsteps and the slamming of the front door. The guys grin at one another, looking pumped up and ready to shoot more rounds, while Theo pulls his cell out of his jeans. “It’s clear.” I guess he has the same tech on his phone as his tablet.
Saint lowers his weapon and grabs my hand, and we stride with urgency around to the front of the house. “We’re good here?” he asks, and Galen and Caz nod.
“It’s all set.”
“Perfect.” Saint tows me back toward the Land Rover, pointing his gun at a few brave neighbors who risk popping their heads out to see what all the commotion is about. As soon as they take one look at his face and The Sainthood emblem on his leather jacket, they hightail it back into their houses.
“What if they call the cops?” I ask while Theo removes his tablet from the back seat and starts tapping away on it.
“They won’t,” Galen says, taking the rifles from the others, placing them carefully in the duffel bag, and putting it back in the trunk. “They’re too afraid of retaliation.”
“What’s in that house?” I ask though I’ve already guessed.
“It’s a meth lab. The main one supplying Lowell High,” Saint clarifies.
I nod. “The competition. Right.”
“They had a choice,” Saint adds, nodding at Theo when he looks to him for direction. “And like Finn, they chose poorly.”
Theo presses a button on his tablet, and the house detonates as each block of explosive blows a hole through the dilapidated property. Plumes of smoke billow into the dark night sky, contrasting with the bright red flames licking a line around what’s left of the place.
A shot pings over our heads from behind, and the sound of approaching footsteps has me reacting on autopilot. I whip the gun from my jeans, turn around, and fire off a couple rounds without stopping to think. It’s an instinctive reaction to a threat;—one I’ve been trained for.
A body slumps to the ground, and my stomach drops to my toes. “Shit.” I step forward to investigate, but an arm wraps around my waist before I can round the front of the car, stopping me.
“Careful, princess,” Saint whispers in my ear, dragging me back. “Let Caz and Galen check first. He might only be injured.”
Please just be injured, I repeat over and over in my head like a mantra, as Caz and Galen approach the prone body from either side of the car with guns elevated and pointed at the shooter. They disappear for a few seconds, and my heart rate accelerates.
“Clear,” Galen shouts, and Saint lets me go, clasping my hand in his again as we round the car and move to where the guy is bleeding out on the ground.
“Fuck,” I exclaim, watching the pool of blood under his head grow bigger. His eyes are open, staring vacantly up into the sky.
He’s dead. I just killed a man.
“Nice shooting, princess,” Caz says, admiration lacing his tone. He leans in closer to examine the shot in his skull and the second one embedded in his chest. Switching the flashlight on his phone on, he starts pointing it around, narrowing his eyes as he scans the area surrounding the body.
“Hand me some gloves,” Galen says over his shoulder to Theo, and Theo pulls out a pair of clear plastic gloves from his pocket.
Mental note to self—start doing that.
I watch as Galen digs his fingers into the bullet wound in the guy’s chest, rooting around in his damaged tissue, until he retrieves the bullet. He holds it upright in the air, his hand and the bullet soaked in the dead guy’s blood.
“I’ve located the second one,” Caz says, pointing at a spot just off to the left of the body. Galen stands, grabbing the second bullet and dropping both of them into a clear plastic bag Theo holds out.
Saint is talking on his phone, putting in a request for a cleanup crew, and awareness dawns on me. I grab Theo’s arm. “I’ll take those.”
“Afraid not, angel,” Galen says, smirking. “We’ll be holding on to the evidence.”
Saint ends his call, snatching the gun from my hand before I’ve had time to process the movement. He hands it to Theo. “Put that and the bullets into lockup. You know the drill.”
“You fucking assholes set me up.” I can’t believe they outmaneuvered me.
Saint holds up his palms. “I’ll admit I brought you along so you were an accessory, but I’d no way of knowing one of the guys would hang around.”
“And no one forced you to shoot him,” Galen adds.
“One of us might be nursing a bullet wound if she hadn’t,” Theo says, locking the evidence into a secure briefcase.
I’m not buying Saint’s explanation, because it’s too convenient. I wouldn’t put it past him to have paid the guy to shoot at us, not expecting me to be such a good marksman.
“Who was he?” I ask.
I mash my boot into the dead guy’s crotch, kicking him a few times, hoping he feels it in hell. “I don’t feel so bad now,” I admit even though it’s still a fucked-up situation because the assholes are keeping the proof I committed murder, and no doubt, they intend to dangle it over my head to ensure I do their bidding.
“Asshole deserved it,” Caz says, unbuttoning his jeans.
Saint grins as he drops my hand and joins his buddies. I’m not sure what it says about me, but I watch with begrudging amusement as the four guys piss all over McKenzie’s dead body.
_______________
The house is empty when we return, but that’s not a huge surprise. Mom is rarely at home anymore. “Everyone, shower and meet in the basement,” Saint commands, and I salute him.
He pulls me into his body, squeezing my ass. “I’m going to enjoy this so much, baby.” I drill him with a “fuck you” look. “We’ve got leverage now, princess.” He squeezes my butt harder. “We completely fucking own your ass.”
“Like hell you do.” I plant my hands on my hips and tip my chin up. I’ve given this a lot of thought on the journey home. “So what if you have a gun with my fingerprints? It’s unregistered and can’t be traced back to me. And if the cops were to ever question me, I’d feed them some bull about how you tricked me into holding your gun. We do live together, remember?”
“That gun committed murder, baby.” Saint’s smug confidence grates on my very last nerve.
“If you turned it over, it’d implicate The Sainthood.” I return his smug look with one of my own. “You think anyone in this entire town would believe your word over mine?” Although some might question my morals and my judgment over the tape, I’ve never been in trouble with the law, and what happened to me as a kid garnered plenty of good will. “I’m a model student, a model citizen, and a bereaved daughter who was once kidnapped by the very same organization accusing me of murder. Get fucking real. That evidence is worth jack shit, and you know it.”
“What the hell did you just say?” Theo asks from behind, and I turn around.
“You heard me.”
Galen, Caz, and Theo share puzzled expressions before looking to their leader. “What’s she talking about, Saint?”
He steps forward, closing his eyes briefly and rubbing at his temples. “Shit.”
That’s all I need to know to confirm the others aren’t clued in. He never said anything, and it’s obvious that bastard Sinner didn’t either. I’m not sure what to make of that or how it changes things, if at all, but I park those thoughts for now.
Saint opens his eyes, watching me with that intrusive lens of his.
I cock my head to the side. “Do you want to tell them or shall I?”
CHAPTER 23
SAINT INSISTS WE shower before talking as we’re all covered in blood and reeking of smoke. He also insists on watching me scale the drainpipe and climb through my bedroom window, telling me if I end up falling to my death he’ll have to explain it to my mom.
He’s an idiot if he thinks I believe that.
Douche just wants to ogle my ass some more.
As I’m leaving my room after freshening up, I make a mental note to install the other padlock I bought to the front of the door because climbing in and out of my window is getting old real fast.
I saunter into the basement in a cloud of perfume, the musky, sensual tones of jasmine, vanilla, and sandalwood mixing with spicy dark fruits, swirling around me in an alluring haze. My freshly blow-dried hair is tumbling down my back in soft waves, and I love how each of the guy’s gazes roams my tiny denim shorts and the off-the-shoulder short-sleeved black and silver top I’m wearing.
I’m slowly reeling them in whether they realize it or not.
I’m in my bare feet, and I know my legs look super long and slim and that the edge of my sheer, lacy purple bra is evident on the side where my shirt hangs low. Even dickhead Galen can’t tear his eyes away. I swipe a beer from the bucket on the table and sit on the couch beside Saint, trying not to gloat. I purposely sit close enough that our thighs brush together. The other guys are on the leather couch across from us, their eyes glued to my body, as I get settled.
I bring the beer to my lips, tipping my head back in slow motion and savoring the glide of the cold liquid down my dry throat. I feel the guys’ heated attention, and blood rushes south, making my core pulse with need.
Sexual tension is thick in the air, and my nipples pucker, poking through my flimsy bra and the thin material of my top. My eyes meet Caz’s penetrating gaze, and he looks seconds away from pouncing on me. I lick my lips, tracing the tip of my finger along the rim of the bottle, and his Adam’s apple bobs in his throat while he stretches his thighs out to accommodate the growing bulge in his jeans.
Saint clears his throat, eyeballing Caz. “I thought you wanted the truth.”
“We do,” Theo says, cutting through the heated atmosphere and refocusing our collective energies. His eyes dart to mine. “You told me you didn’t know who kidnapped you. That they kept you blindfolded and they used initials for names.”
“That was all I knew back then. It was only much later I discovered the truth,” I admit.
“And how is it you know?” Galen asks, jerking his head at Saint. “I thought there were no secrets between us.”
Saint scoffs. “Don’t talk out your ass. Every person in this room is hiding something.”
“It’s not as if it matters much,” I say, crossing one leg over the other. Four pairs of eyes greedily follow my movement. “It’s in the past.”
“Of course, it matters!” Galen yells. “It fucking matters a lot.”
Why? He fucking hates me. I frown, wondering what else I don’t know.
Galen scratches the back of his head as he shares a pointed look with his cousin. “How long have you known?”
Saint flexes his arms, glancing at me as he says, “I’ve always known.”
“Explain that,” Theo grits out, and I’ve never heard him use that tone with Saint before.
Saint ignores Theo, holding me prisoner with his intense gaze. “Am I the reason you figured it out?”
I stare into his hypnotic blue eyes. “It wasn’t really one thing. It was a bunch of pieces slotting into the puzzle all at once.”
“When?” he asks.
“About two years ago.” After me and Theo were over.
“Can you stop talking in code and fucking tell us what the hell is going on?” Caz asks with a pout.
“I was kidnapped on my way home from school,” I say, beginning to explain. “I was only three blocks from my house when a van drove up onto the sidewalk and a strange woman yanked me inside. She put tape over my mouth and a cloth bag over my head.”
I take a sip of my beer as I relive one of the worst days of my life. “We drove for what seemed like ages. I couldn’t breathe properly, and I was gagging, almost choking, before she removed the bag and the tape. She threatened if I made a sound she’d cut my tongue out. I was too frightened to disobey. When I was taken out, we were at an abandoned warehouse in the middle of nowhere. A few cars and trucks were parked out front. The woman walked me up to the entrance and forced me to face the other way while she argued with some man.”
“Dad didn’t know I’d snuck into the back of his truck,” Saint interjects, picking up the story from his side.
I’ve always wondered how he came to be there.
“I was thirteen, and we’d just started getting more involved with the business, but this night, he said I couldn’t come with. I was pissed and stubborn, and I went along for the ride anyway.”
Caz rolls his eyes. “Not one bit surprised.”
Saint flips him off. “Sinner had only been inside the warehouse a few minutes
, and I was about to get out and spy through the window when a van pulled up. I watched Dad’s latest piece of ass drag a girl out of the van.”
He peers deep into my eyes as he speaks. “I could tell she was scared. She was trembling all over, but she never said a word. Didn’t scream or protest. Just looked around, taking in her surroundings, knowing it would be futile to call out for help.”
He brushes a stray strand of hair off my face, and his touch ignites a host of fiery shivers across my skin. “I wanted to rescue you,” he says, lowering his voice. “I didn’t know you or why you were there, but I just knew I needed to get you away. I was trying to work it out in my head when you spotted me.”
“I never forgot your face,” I whisper, my mind lost in the moment, trapped in the past, reliving those few seconds that bonded us instantly. “I saw the fear and determination in your eyes, and I silently begged you to help me.”
“I know.” He cups one side of my face, lost to the past in the same way I am. “And I wanted to, but he saw me. Just before the door closed after you went inside.”
“What did he do?” Galen asks, his tone somber.
“He beat me bloody. Told me to forget I’d seen her. Said she would be released once her dad paid the ransom. He threatened if I told a soul, he’d kill her and then me.”
“I fucking knew there was more to it!” Galen jumps up. “I remember that time. You could barely fucking walk for days. When I asked you why he’d been so savage, you told me you’d thrown shade at him while he was drunk.” He looks at me, and for a brief second, there’s no anger or hostility in his gaze. “I remember him throwing up when the news reports came out after the fact. He was distant and troubled for months.”
“Galen.” Saint silences him on the spot.
Galen swings his gaze to his cousin. “You should’ve told us.”
“I wouldn’t risk her life like that,” Saint says, and my stupid heart swoons at his words.
For so long, I’ve been confused over that moment. Wondering if it was all in my head. If it was one-sided. If I’d imagined the troubled boy with the piercing blue eyes and messy blond hair. And when I figured it out, and I realized who he was, I wondered if he’d been a part of it.
The Sainthood : A Dark High School Romance (The Complete Series) Page 20