Page 24 of Saint Valentine

“It’s a long, tortuous story, but it starts with me convincing Dillinger and his son to stay over so they could apologize to you,” Saint told me, his tone light, like he was discussing the weather.

He brought his hand up, presenting me with the older Dillinger’s head. The skin was pale, the eyes open in a lifeless, vacant stare. Blood dripped steadily from the severed neck, pooling on the hardwood floor, dark and thick. My breath caught in my throat, but I didn’t scream. I didn’t even recoil. I’d seen dead bodies before. Hell, I’d made a few of them myself. But this—this was something else entirely. This was… this was… I didn’t have the words.

Saint twisted his fingers into the man’s mouth, jerking it open like a macabre puppet. "I’m sorry," he said, his voice calm, eerie, using the lifeless lips of Dillinger to form the words. The blood dripped faster.

I should have been terrified. I should have been screaming, running, doing something. But I was for now sure there was something wrong with me—something deeply, irreparably broken—because the fact that he’d killed this man for me was… endearing. I hated myself for it, but I couldn’t deny that what he’d done gave me a little tingle.

“Why would you?” I wanted to hear him say it. He did it for me.

“He shouldn’t have talked to you like they did. Would you like the boy to apologize too? He has a few bullets in his head, so it might not be as understandable as his old man’s?” He said it like it was normal to hold a severed head in your hand and make jokes.

I shook my head, my throat too dry to speak again.

Saint dropped the head with a sickening thud, his eyes never leaving mine. He stepped closer, his boots squelching in the blood. “You see, Aria,” he said, his voice low and steady, “see what I’ll do for you? That I’ll destroy for you.”

“Oh.” Was all I could manage to say.

“Now that that’s settled, I need a shower.” He held up his bloodied hands. “You should shower too. Meet me in the kitchen. There are clothes from your home in your closet now.”

I didn’t argue. I wasn’t about to do anything but what he said right now. I turned and walked back upstairs, my mind racing. It wasn’t until I was behind the locked bathroom door, with the water running hot over my skin, that I realized what he’d said.Clothes from your home.He’d been in my house. My sanctuary. My safe place. The Dillinger’s were quickly forgotten. Rage bubbled up inside me. I wanted to hit his ass again. I forced the urge down, remembering he said I was on my second strike, and after what I’d just seen, I didn’t want to know what the third one would earn me. I took my anger out on my skin. I scrubbed it like I could wash it away, and wash away the twisted affection I felt for him suddenly. He had killed for me; how could I not be affected by that?

When I came back downstairs, the head and the blood were gone, like they’d never been there. Saint had changed into a pair of slacks and a black button-up. He was leaning against the kitchen counter, his arms crossed, watching me as I walked in.

“You went to my house,” I said, my voice tight with anger.

He nodded, unfazed. “I needed answers, and I could find them there. And I wanted you to be comfortable. Do you even live in that place? There was nothing really that screamedyou.”

He was right. I had only been there a few months; I hadn’t poured myself into it. But still, he had no right.

“What fucking answers? And you could hav—” I started, but he cut me off.

“Let’s talk about our wedding,” he said. “I know you’re planning to get out of this, and I’m telling you now, it’s a waste of time. Instead of you doing that, I’d like for us to plan it.”

“Plan a fake wedding? No, thank you,” I shot back, crossing my arms over my chest.

“To me, it’s real,” he said, his eyes narrowing. “And I don’t think you object as much as you say. You still haven’t removed my mother’s ring.”

I glanced down at the ring on my finger, the one he’d given me all those years ago. He was right—I hadn’t taken it off. But that wasn’t because of him, not him today. It was because it meant something to me. It was a reminder of the boy I’d tried to save, not the monster he’d become.

I changed the subject. “Are you really letting my friends go if I go through with this?”

He nodded. “Yes. Scout’s honor.”

“You weren’t a fucking Boy Scout,” I said, rolling my eyes.

He laughed. “Aria, I wish you would drop the hard girl act and just go along. As you can see, I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make you my wife. I’m not exactly sure why I have to marry you instead of just keeping you. But I do,” he shrugged. “You can make it easy on yourself. Go along, we get married, and you do your thing, I do mine, and then we live together, go to bed at night, we fuck, have kids, life’s great.”

“Except it isn’t that easy,” I rebutted. “I have a life.”

“Yes, it is,” he said, his tone firm. “In our world, a man with as much power as I have, who’s willing to steamroll anybody and anything to get what he wants, creates the reality.”

He was right. That’s how his world worked.

“And who’s to say I don’t marry you and just kill you in your sleep?”

“I’ve already thought of that. You’ll die the soon after and be buried right next to me,” he shot back. “Death won’t even part us.”

My mouth gaped. “You know this is crazy, right? You’re crazy. You have someone prepared to kill me if I kill you?”

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