Page 6 of Saint Valentine

Then I saw it.

The ring. My ring.

Gleaming, right next to her trigger finger.

It was the ring I’d stolen from my mother’s jewelry box and given to her. I got my ass beat brutally when my father noticed it was gone. But it was worth it.

Aria Heart.

Of all the places to find each other again... the world was bringing us back together in the worst way.

I had only met her twice as a child, but those moments were burned into my memory. I had never stopped thinking about her. I had always wondered what had happened to her.

“You gave me a gun once,” I said. “Now you have one drawn on me. Oh, how times have changed, Aria.”

She squinted, her eyes narrowing as she took a step closer, her voice dropping to a whisper.

“Saint?” she breathed out.

I didn’t move. I didn’t say anything else. I couldn’t.

The gun was still trained on me, but I could see it in her eyes—everything had shifted.

I was not a man of myth, but this felt like the moment where fate decided it was time to push us together again.

Chapter two

Aria

Saint.

The boy I had met only twice but had thought about at least once every day since. He was the last person I expected to lay eyes on.

I kept the gun aimed at him, my fingers tight around the grip. He wasn’t the boy from the past anymore. I had heard about him. I had inquired about him. His name was whispered in the darkest corners of society now.

They called him Il Santo, the Patron Saint of Death.

He was his father’s sottocapo and enforcer. Saint now carried out his father’s deadly decrees, killing without remorse. The softness I remembered had been stripped away, replaced by a man molded by violence. I could see it in his eyes—the emptiness, the coldness.

His daddy had broken him, twisted him into an image of himself. They looked nothing alike, but Saint dressed like him now.

His father was known for his suits. He was always in these expensive bespoke creations, his slick, greasy, dirty blond hair perfectly in place. He was the kiss-the-ring type, with big, gaudy jewels gleaming on his fingers.

But where his father had been polished and put together, Saint was rougher, rawer. Tattoos covered his skin like a second layer,ink creeping up his neck and his hands—his appearance more chaotic.

I knew his daddy was a bad man the first time I saw him, even at that young age. Not just because he was a criminal—my father was one too—but he wasn’t like Donato.

My father had a sense of loyalty, a code he lived by. He didn’t beat children. He didn’t kill women. He didn’t destroy just because he could.

I knew Saint’s father had done both.

I used to listen when my father talked about the men he dealt with—even when he didn’t know I was listening. I knew all the secrets he tried so hard to keep from me. I was a sneaky little girl, always watching, always listening.

And after a while, he stopped even trying to hide them from me. And he started teaching me how to use the information he possessed.

As I stared at the new Saint, a knot twisted in my chest. I couldn’t help it. I felt sad for him.

I ignored his comments.

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