Bane (Sinners of Saint, #4)

by L.J. Shen

“Crazy weather.” He chuckled, but it sounded so sad, the words cracking like an egg. “When I was a kid, I thought God was flushing the toilet every time it rained. Made leaving SoCal virtually impossible. It rarely rains here.”

Bane 💀

“What’s up?” She was talking to someone on speakerphone. Beck? “Nothing. Jesse and Bane are fucking against my door.”

omg storp. 💀🤚🏼

“But I’m here for you, Snowflake. I’ll be sitting on the sidelines cheering for you because you’re the strongest girl I know, but I’ll also be there if you need me. Needing someone wouldn’t make you any less strong, Jesse. It would just make you human.”

🧡

“You need to leave me with something!” she called out. “I am,” I said, yanking the door open. “I’m leaving you with the consequences of your actions.”

ooo nice comebackkkk

Because we all had crazy stories. I’d been raped twice. Born to a mother who’d never really loved me. Taunted and ridiculed in high school, manipulated by my own therapist. All those things were true, but while they had happened, so had other things. Great things. I was blessed in so many ways: Finding Gail. Finding a job. Finding literature, and words, and sentences that inspired me to be better, both to other people and to myself. Finding Bane.

Roman ‘Bane’ Protsenko was beautiful like a Pushkin paragraph. You could read his face a thousand times, and each time, you’d find something new to admire.

“I actually think that I’m done with creepers for this lifetime, if you don’t mind. Can I get the cocky bastard version instead?” Roman pretended to sift through an imaginary catalog in front of him, plucked a nonexistent page from it, and handed it to me. “Well, whaddaya know? It’s the only version of me that’s still in stock.”

💀😭

But with Bane, I felt fearless. The outliers. The rejects. We’re free.

“No, Snowflake. Where have you been before? When I was lost. When I was a monster. When nothing made sense. Where have you been all my life?”

“I was right here. Waiting for you.” I pressed my palm against his heart, smiling.

My Whole Life Has Been Pledged to This Meeting with You Bane. Roman. My sort-of stepbrother. A con, a liar, and a thief. He was there for me at the end, when no one else was. He was there for me when I needed him, and when I didn’t. And he was there for me, even though I constantly pushed him away.

And I thought that, if this was a fairytale, this is how I’d end the chapter: The princess’ sword was bloody. But she refused to tuck it back in. She wanted to leave a trail of their misery behind her, so they could always find her.

I couldn’t see someone doing the walk of shame out of my mom’s room without breaking both his legs on his way out.

aw bane 😭

“Hey, Roman, what’s the antonym of hate?” “Jesse.”

AHHHHHHH😭🧡

My heart felt like two pieces locking back together into something whole.

stop I’m gonna cry 😭

The darkness. The stain in their history. Not to be removed. Not to be forgotten. I would spread, and conquer, and be remembered, so that other women would not end up like me.

And I couldn’t help but feel that justice had been served. That the princess had won. And that somehow, she’d even gotten her prince.

Yayyyyyyy 😭🥹🧡❄️

My bank account still says that I’m a millionaire, but it is my soul that feels rich these days.

wow, that’s just- yea, wow, I love that..

Gail unlocks herself from her boyfriend Beck’s hug

CONGRATS BECKKKK 🥳👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

Gail shoves a box of condoms to my chest. “Use them. My boss is an asshole, and I don’t need more of him in this world.” Sonya shrieks in protest and waves her finger at Gail. I take the box and put it on the granite kitchen counter. I don’t have the heart to tell her that it is too late for that. That I haven’t taken my pills in months. Besides, it’s so early on, I’m not even nauseated yet. I’ve only missed one period, and I still haven’t told Bane. But yesterday, when I took the test and it came out positive, I stood in front of the mirror and smiled. My Whole Life Has Been Pledged to This Meeting with You

GAIL 💀 AND JESSE?! YOU’RE PREGNANT?!

I hug Gail, and she puts her palm across my heart and whispers into my ear, “I’d have given you a sword, but you already own one.”

awww 💗🥹

“You fucked my fucking mom.” I drum my fingers over the glass separating me from jewelry that costs more than a five-bedroom house in Fresno. Hale rolls his eyes inside their sockets and waves me off. “I didn’t know she was your mom. When you came in that day with Jesse, I was just as surprised as you were.” “I didn’t know it was you in the bedroom. I’d have killed you,” I say conversationally. This, by the way, is not an exaggeration.

NAH HALE YOU DIDN’T 💀

“I’m marrying this woman, and she is forty-four. We may have a kid. We may not. Either way, you’ll find out in the next few years.” So here is what happened: the day I came in with Jesse, my mom had decided to have a one-night stand with someone she had met at a bar the night before. Someone who had happened to be my business partner. She’d asked him what his name was. He’d said Johnny. He’d asked her what her name was. She’d said Ruslana. They both thought it would be nothing more than a one-time fling. Then I came in, in the middle of their…don’t let me spell that out for you, and she’d kicked him out. Well, Hale being Hale, he got super pissed. First, because of the unfinished business, but mostly because he’d messed with one of his best friend’s moms. He swung by her house later that day to confront her about her lying to him. She pointed out that he was lying, too. They told me the week after that they liked each other too much not to see where it would lead. They asked me, from a scale of one to killing myself, if it would hurt me if they pursued a relationship. At first I thought I was experiencing a heart attack.

no way 💀

With Jesse, I simply tossed Hale a look that said: break my mother’s heart and I’ll break your teeth. If everything goes according to this fucker’s plan, my business partner is about to become my stepfather in the next few months or so. Weirdest part? He is two months younger than me. But I promised I was not going to dwell.

Naur 💀

“Come on, buddy. The maze is fun.” I tug at the leash. “I did unholy things to your future mom there more times than I can count.”

pfftttt💀😭

I know what she is doing. She is reading one of her smutty books. I’ve grown to love them almost as much as the classics. Pushkin was the man, but recreating scenes from smutty books is far better than trying to recreate his. Dude was fifty shades of cray.

I can't with you anymore roman- 💀

I decide on the spot, despite my best intentions, to do the whole shebang. Get down on one knee. Produce the ring I bought for her a long, long time ago. And bow my chin down, playing humble for once in my goddamn life.

“I think we need matching ass tattoos,” I say. “Why? Do you have another cool story?” She grins into our kiss. I pick her up by the ass and wrap her legs around my waist. “Yeah.” I bite her lower lip and tug. Hard. “You.”

I REFUSE FOR THIS TO BE OVER, NOOOO I CAN’T, I LOVE THEM TOO MUCH 😭🧡❄️