Page 71 of Savage Saint
He goes still, his breathing shallow. For a moment, I wonder if I've said too much, crossed some invisible line.
Then his hand cups the back of my neck, bringing our foreheads together. "Don't make me into something I'm not. I've done things that would give you nightmares."
"I already have nightmares."
"Not like these." His voice drops lower. "I've tortured men until they begged for death. I've made examples out of traitors that would turn your stomach. I've burned down buildings with people still inside."
Each confession should repulse me. Should make me pull away. But instead, I find myself drawing closer, as if the darkness in him recognises the darkness in me.
"The things I've done..." He trails off, then starts again. "My brothers, they have lines they won't cross. But me? I crossed them all a long time ago."
I think about the man in the woods, how Angelo beat him without mercy. How I wasn't afraid. I was fascinated.
"Why are you telling me this?" I whisper.
His fingers tighten in my hair. "Because I need you to understand what you're getting into. With me. This thing between us—" He breaks off, struggling with the words. "I'm not built for gentleness, Butterfly. I'm built for war."
I press my palm against his chest, feeling the steady beat of his heart. "I'm not afraid of your darkness, Angelo."
"You should be."
"Why?"
He's quiet for so long, I think he might not answer. When he does, his voice is barely a whisper. "Because it wants to swallow you whole."
I close the tiny distance between us, my lips brushing his. "What if I want to be swallowed?"
A groan tears from his throat, half desire, half despair. "Then God help us both."
His kiss is like drowning, deep and consuming and inevitable. There's nothing gentle about it. Nothing restrained. It's hunger and need and raw desperation.
When we break apart, we're both breathing hard.
"I can't save you from what I am," he says, his hands framing my face.
"I don't need saving," I tell him. "I need understanding. And maybe... Maybe that's what you need too."
Something shifts in his eyes, a flicker of vulnerability. "No one understands this. What it's like to be made of violence. To see the world as targets and threats."
But I do understand. Each memory that slips back carries with it the weight of what I was. WhatI am. A weapon. A killer. A monster wearing a woman's skin.
"I think Jerzy made me into a weapon," I say, the words bitter on my tongue. "I was trained to kill without feeling. To obey without question."
His thumb brushes across my cheek, wiping away a tear I didn't know had escaped. The gentle touch is at odds with the blood still drying on his knuckles, with the darkness he's just confessed to me.
"You're not a monster," he says, his voice rough yet somehow soft. The contradiction of Angelo Santoro in four simple words.
I want to believe him. God, I want to. But Jerzy's voice slithers through my mind, cold and cutting.
"Weakness is not tolerated, Kasia. To feel is to fail."
"I'm weak," I say, hating how small I sound. Like that little girl again, trembling as Jerzy circled her, pointing out every flaw, every hesitation.
Angelo's eyes harden, not at me but at whatever he sees crossing my face. His hand slides to cup my jaw, firm enough that I can't look away.
"Far from it. You're my Butterfly."
I blink at him, confused. "Butterflies are weak little insects that only live a day."
