There Are No Saints (Sinners, #1)

by Sophie Lark

Cole smiles. He likes being called “master.”

“I loved my father,” I say coldly. “The day I lost him was the worst day of my life.” Cole smiles. “The worst day so far.” What. The. Fuck.

“Why are you so combative?” he says. “Have you ever tried cooperating?” “In my experience, when men say ‘cooperative,’ they mean ‘obedient.’ ”

“Then have you ever tried being obedient?” “Never.”

All I learned is that no amount of submission is good enough for a man. You can roll over, show your belly, beg for mercy, and they’ll just keep hitting you. Because the very act of bre...

She’s very good at fooling people for a while. By the time he realized, they were already married.” “Realized what?” “That she’s a parasite. That her only ambition is to latch onto people and bleed them dry.” Cole nods slowly. “Including you,” he says. “Especially me.”

“He cut your wrists. Left you for dead. No . . . worse than that. Left you as a mockery. A fucking joke. He didn’t even finish killing you, that’s how little you meant to him. He didn’t even stay to watch you die.”

A righteous angel in the face of a demon.

“Evil men always want to justify what they do,”

“And it’s not by telling you all their reasons. No . . . they want to push you, and bend you, and break you until you snap. Until you do something you thought you’d never do. Until you can’t even recognize yourself. Until you’re as bad as they are. That’s how t...

“I missed you too, sweetheart,” she says. Then she kisses me on the mouth.

But in this moment, I don’t care. The only thing I think is this: I fucking did it. I made art.

I wanted death. I wanted HIM.

This is the deal with the devil. He owns me. He controls me.

In that moment I realize this whole thing has been a performance. She knew I would watch. She’s been fucking him for me, at me. To get revenge on me. And I realize . . . she’s everything I dreamed of and more. More vengeful. More strategic. More effective. More fucked up.

She fucked on that painting, and then she hung it on my wall. I’m struck anew by the absolute insanity of this girl.

destroyed it on impulse. Something is happening to me. Something is taking me over—twisting me, changing me. I’ve been infected. And Mara is the disease.

“I’m no one’s fucking boyfriend,” I snarl. “She belongs to me, she’s my property. And you put your disgusting inky hands all over something I own.

My back burns. I bet her ribs are burning too. I like that we’re feeling the same pain at the same time. I like that I marked her, and she marked me.

“What if I took it off? And you didn’t like what you saw underneath?”

“I shouldn’t like you now,” she says. “But I do.” I shouldn’t like her, either. But I do.

“The things she’s said to me. Always in that soft, sweet, voice . . . She poisoned it, like she poisons everything. I can’t even listen to a mom in a movie anymore. It makes me want to puke.”

“Fuck you, bitch,” the second guy sneers. I look him up and down. “Nah. I don’t do charity work.” It takes him a second to get it, but his friends’ howls tip him off that it’s definitely an insult.

“Absolutely I do. He disrespected you. Put his hands on you. I’d kill him for much less.”

I imagine her tied down, the way I’d secure any object before going to work upon it. What kind of machinery would I need for this project? What I have won’t do. No common drills or saws or sanders for Mara. No, she needs something special. Something custom. Something built just for her . . .

“An eternity of boredom sounds worse than death. And heaven sounds pretty fucking boring.”

”I filet people with precision. This guy does what I do BADLY. You have no fucking idea what I’m capable of.”

It’s addicting. All-consuming. It has a literal physical effect on me when I’m not near her, when I can’t see her.

Our only commonality is that we’re both predators. And all predators share certain characteristics. Our senses are heightened. We physically overpower. We kill and consume.

He trapped me in here with his latest kill. And I walked right into it, in the stupidest mistake I’ve ever made.

How can I be so afraid of someone, and yet I can’t bring myself to run? I don’t want to run from Cole. I want to stand still while he comes to me, and then I want to reach up and touch his face. I want to pull off the masks, one by one, until there isn’t any left. And then, whatever is underneath . . . I want to see it.

I learned early that some people have no kindness inside of them. No mercy. They’re broken and twisted and cruel, and they can’t feel anything but malice. My mother is like that. She’s the scorpion that would sting you, even if you were carrying her on your back. Even if it meant you would both die. She just can’t help herself.”

“You can’t possibly imagine what I know about you . . .” Cole says. “I know what you read, what you eat. I know how you touch yourself when you think you’re alone. And I know every song you listen to. All your favorites. I compiled a list and made an algorithm to search for exactly the type of song that carries you away . . .”

I’ve never felt such strong hands gripping me, manipulating me. It’s terrifying. I’m completely in his power. I’ve never let a man tie me up voluntarily, I never trusted anyone enough. Now I’ve put myself under the control of the most terrifying person I’ve ever met. It’s suicidal. His hands knead my muscles like he’s tenderizing the flesh. Preparing it for slaughter.

“Here’s what you need to understand Mara: it’s okay for bad things to feel good. You can take pleasure from whatever you want.”

The last orgasm is so much more than pleasure. It’s a detonation inside of me that blows me apart, shattering everything I used to be. I’m blasted to bits, la petite mort, the death of Mara.

“I don’t want to be taken care of,” she says. “I want to be seen.”

“Don’t you ever believe that, Mara. This is what gives us power: we always have a choice.”