Page 123 of Made for Saints

I’d gotten sloppy.

It wasn’t a realization that came easily. I prided myself on my control, my ability to see the gameboard from every angle and anticipate every move. But somewhere along the way, my judgment had been clouded. By the Russians. By the money. By her.

Emilia.

She was a storm, beautiful and relentless, and I’d been foolish enough to think I could weather her without consequence. But she wasn’t just a distraction—she was a weakness. My weakness. And in my world, weakness was a death sentence.

I ran a hand through my hair, the motion rough and frustrated, and leaned back in my chair. The room was dark, the only light coming from the faint glow of the city skyline outside the floor-to-ceiling windows. It should’ve been calming, the steady hum of the city below, the distant flicker of headlights weaving through the streets. But it wasn’t.

Nothing was calming anymore.

The money. The Russians. The betrayals. It was all connected, a tangled web of lies and deceit that I was only just beginning to unravel. And at the center of it all was a name I never thought I’d see on that list.

I should’ve seen it coming. The signs had been there for weeks— discrepancies in the books, whispers that didn’t add up. But I’d been too distracted, too consumed by Emilia and the chaos she brought into my life, to put the pieces together.

I’d let my guard down.

And now, people were going to pay for it.

I stood abruptly, the chair scraping against the floor as I moved to the window. The city stretched out before me, a sprawling maze of light and shadow, and for a moment, I letmyself get lost in it. It was easier than facing the storm inside me, the gnawing sense of failure that threatened to consume me.

My phone buzzed on the desk, the vibration cutting through the silence like a knife. I didn’t need to look at the screen to know who it was. Luca. He’d been calling me all night, no doubt wanting an update on the situation. But I wasn’t ready to talk. Not yet.

No one would know until I had formed a plan.

I ignored the call, my gaze fixed on the skyline as I tried to piece together my next move. The money trail was leading me somewhere I didn’t want to go, somewhere that threatened to upend everything I thought I knew about loyalty and trust.

And then there was Emilia.

She was a complication I couldn’t afford, a distraction I couldn’t resist. Every time I thought I had her figured out, she surprised me. Every time I thought I could walk away, she pulled me back in. And every time I thought I could control her, she proved me wrong.

I clenched my fists, the tension in my chest building until it felt like I might explode. She’d called me the devil tonight, and maybe she was right. Maybe that’s all I was—a monster masquerading as a man, incapable of anything but destruction.

But if I was the devil, then what did that make her?

The thought sent a shiver down my spine, a mix of fear and desire that I couldn’t shake. She was fire and ice, chaos and calm, and I was drawn to her like a moth to a flame. But I couldn’t afford to burn. Not now. Not when everything was on the line.

I turned away from the window, my mind racing as I tried to focus on the task at hand. The money. The Russians. The betrayal. I needed to stay sharp, to stay in control. Because if I didn’t, if I let myself get distracted again, it wouldn’t just be me who paid the price.

It would be her.

And that was something I couldn’t live with.

The whiskey burned on the way down, a welcome distraction from the fire raging in my chest. I poured another glass, the amber liquid catching the faint glow of the city lights outside. The bottle was half-empty now, but I didn’t care. The alcohol dulled the edges of my anger, but it couldn’t extinguish it. Nothing could.

I hadn’t slept. Couldn’t. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her. Emilia, standing there in the ballroom, her eyes blazing with defiance, her words cutting through me with surgical precision.I know why people call you the devil now. She’d meant to wound me, and she had. But what she didn’t realize—what she couldn’t possibly understand—was that she was right.

I was the devil. And tonight, I’d proven it.

The glass shattered in my hand before I even realized I’d squeezed it too hard. Shards of crystal scattered across the desk, glinting like tiny daggers in the dim light. Blood pooled in my palm, the sharp sting of the cuts barely registering through the haze of whiskey and rage. I stared at the mess for a moment, my breathing heavy, before grabbing a napkin and pressing it against the wound.

I let out a sharp breath, tossing the bloodied napkin onto the desk and grabbing another glass. The whiskey sloshed as I poured, the liquid trembling in my unsteady hand. I downed it in one go, the burn spreading through my chest like wildfire, and reached for the bottle again.

This wasn’t like me. I didn’t drink to excess. I didn’t lose control. But tonight, the rules didn’t seem to matter. Tonight, I needed the numbness, the oblivion, because the alternative was too dangerous to face.

You got sloppy. The words echoed in my mind, a bitter reminder of my own failure. I’d let my judgment slip. I’d let her cloud my focus. And now, people were dead, alliances were crumbling, and the foundation of everything I’d built was starting to crack.

I slammed the bottle down on the desk, the soundreverberating through the empty room. My chest heaved as I stared at the mess in front of me—the shattered glass, the blood, the scattered papers. It was a reflection of my own state of mind, chaotic and broken, and I hated it. Hated the weakness it represented.

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