No Saint

by Ria Wilde

My brother’s body would never be found. But his secrets, they hadn’t been buried with him.

The child in that photo belonged to my brother, he became a father sixteen months ago. He knew about the child and chose to keep it from us, leaving the mother to raise the child alone with the child holding the wrong last name. The boy belonged to the Saints. He was the next generation. And I would have him.

“I’m not here to hurt him, leonessa.” Lioness.

“From now, leonessa, you are mine. No one looks at you. Touches you. Even speaks to you without my permission. Mine. Are we clear?”

But it was only a moment later when I saw her, dressed in white, in a dress I did not select, plucking petals from her bouquet as she walks, dropping them to the floor beneath her feet.

“Where is the rest of the dress?” He hisses.

The twins were unnerving. Atlas had a looming presence, it was hard to miss him, and he held a lot of anger, a lot of hatred in his eyes.

His brother however, Asher, he had more character, more charm I supposed. He made conversation even if they were awkward.

And Colt, he was just a puppy. He was the type of man to fall easily into friendship with, light, made jokes. If I’d met him anywhere else, I would have liked him.

“Oh, you’re really enjoying this aren’t you,” I snap, grabbing the plate of pasta, “Wife this, wife that, how about you take that word and shove it straight up your ass!”

I tuck it back into the book and place it on the bed before crouching and pulling out the box beneath. Opening the lid, I find a stack of sketchbooks and pencils along with aged watercolor paints and pens. I flip through the first book, seeing the countless dresses she’s designed, some bright and pretty, others dark, short, the sketched models wearing them drawn with ease and perfection. I flip open the next one, finding lingerie and nightwear and the one after that is shoes. The girl was an artist and an aspiring designer if these were anything to go by.

Being a single mother isn’t pretty. It isn’t cuddles and giggles and happily ever after. It’s work, hard work, it’s fighting day in and day out trying to put food on the table and heat in your house. I would die for my son but there had been nights, lonely, stormy nights where I wished it never happened.

“Ah, my wife, the kind of feelings you stir may be considered a sin but trust me, my thoughts on you are so far from hell I may as well be in heaven.”

I needed Amelia to be mine. In every single way imaginable.

The thought makes my eyes sting. Gabriel didn’t know me and yet he knew me better than anyone else. It was sad really.

“Enough!” Someone yells. That voice though, I recognized it. I knew it but in my panic, in my grief and my fear, it was a blurred mess inside my head. But I knew it, oh fuck, I knew but who!? Where did I know it from, “Let’s go.”

“There’ll be another time,” there was pure conviction in that tone, in that familiar voice, “she won’t escape me.”

But I stay beneath that desk, cradling my son, rocking him until he falls asleep against me and then I silently sob. I cry for myself, for my past, for my nightmares and my pain, I cry for the men dead or dying beyond the door and I cry for my freedom. I cry for the freedom I don’t have and never will.

After all of that, I needed him.

“Leonessa mia. La tua forza mi stupisce.” Her brows twitch in confusion. My Lioness. Your strength amazes me.

Something about Amelia’s reaction had warning sirens blaring inside my head. Why had she reacted to Atlas’s voice that way? Looked at him like he had answers to questions she wouldn’t voice.

Because when I do, she will be mine. Mine to please and fuck, mine to punish and worship.

He looked like the devil, and he tasted like sin so perhaps it was fitting.

It irked me more than anyone could ever understand that a simple movement exposed all my weak points. That a raised hand pushed deeply buried memories right to the surface, forcing me to remember every time it happened, forcing me to relive the pain of every strike from every male that had ever laid a finger on me. There were many. For a long time.

“Are you listening, Gabriel?” the voice says, muffled and staticky, “I’m coming for your city. For your throne. One piece at a time.” A gurgled cry joins the sound next, accompanied by the familiar squelch of flesh being torn, “I will take it all. Your city. Your Power. Your pretty little wife.” The voice laughs, “You don’t deserve that seat you sit on. We are just getting started. And as for you, you’ll soon be reunited with your beloved brother. See you soon, Gabriel.”

Something in the back of my head sparked at the familiarity of it but with the static on the radio and the purposeful way they lowered the tone, I couldn’t place it.

“I’m not letting you go,” I remind her. “You’re mine.” “Okay,” she breathes, “I’m yours. Your wife.” “Cazzo,” I groan. Fuck. My Wife. “Moglie mia.”

Pausing, I drop down until my mouth is at her ear, “marito, husband, Gabriel, call me as it is Amelia. It’s me here, not God. Your husband.”

Words have as much power on a person as actions. They cut just as deep and twice as hard. A physical trauma hurts the flesh, but words, they hurt the soul.

My scars made me feel ugly and he looked at me with so much passion and desire I thought if he saw them that feeling would fade. I was prepared to tell him as much until I found him covered in another mans blood, pounding a punching bag as if it had physically wronged him.

“I’m fine!” I beg Sierra with my eyes, watching her take in every angry scar, the slashes, and burns that mottled my skin., the small and the big. My back was the worst of it, the way my skin was raised, angry, like someone had dripped candle wax onto my skin and left it to dry. I had hoped as I grew, and they aged that they would become less noticeable but that hadn’t happened.

I hear footsteps thundering towards the pool room and relief floods through me. I turn to see who but before I can, something heavy and hard slams into the side of my head.

Internally, I am screaming, crying, lashing out but I know my body isn’t moving, it’s simply sinking as the blackness consumes my head. I glance up to the surface, seeing a dark, blurry shape looking down but then it all goes black, and I sink to the bottom of the pool.

“I installed locks.” I slump down into the chair, “Like she asked. Because Lincoln can’t swim but neither can she.”

“A hunch.” “So someone unlocked the door, and what? Threw the boy in.”

“It wouldn’t take much to coax a kid into ...

“Never again, Devon.” I curl my hand around Amelia’s much smaller one, covering it fully, “And when I find out who did this to her, to her son, I will tear out their heart.”

tune out their words, stuck in this vortex of panic that begins to well inside of my stomach. I didn’t just hit my head. I didn’t. Someone struck me. They tried to kill me. Drown me.

“I’ve seen a lot of shit, Amelia. I never want to see you hurt again.”

“Gabriel,” I thread my fingers into his hair, “You have me.”

I gently begin to lift Lincoln only Gabriel snaps awake, dragging him back and getting defensive, ready to defend my son. He stops as soon as he realizes it’s me but there’s a flash of hurt in his eyes when he notices I’m taking my son.

“Are you smelling me?” I whisper. “As intoxicating as any drug, mondo mia, but twice as addictive. There is not a part of you I do not crave.”

“You’re going to sit on my face, leonessa,” He orders, “You’re going to take what you want.” My eyes go wide, “I can’t do that, you’ll suffocate!” He chuckles, “I don’t need fucking air when I have your delicious cunt in my mouth.”

“Sit,” he demands, “I said sit on my fucking face, not hover,”

Their abuse of me knew no bounds. My mother, while she wasn’t the best mom, she never hurt me and she wouldn’t have allowed them to but after her death, the courts ruled my stepfather my legal guardian and he was a mean bastard. The abuse started the same day we put my mother’s body in the ground.

Enzo appears besides Gabriel, staring at me, head cocked, brows low as if he could look right inside my brain and pluck out these thoughts.

“Who did this to you?” He asks. I don’t move and then realize why he could now see the scars. The marks that litter my skin across my back and arms and stomach.

“Amelia?” He growls out, “Who the fuck hurt you?”

“My stepfather.” His jaw tightens, “Is he still alive?”

“No one will ever hurt you again, you hear me? I will never let anyone hurt you. I will never hurt you.” “I know.” “I’ll kill anyone who dares.”