CHAPTER FIVE
976 Words
SAINT'S POV
I heard a feminine cry somewhere outside.
Distant at first. Then getting louder which meant whoever it was, was getting closer.
It was night.
I needed my sleep. I needed to f**king rest.
I was in my sweatpants, the ones that made my d**k bulge... no shirt, bare chested, lying on my bed staring at the ceiling trying to switch my brain off.
All I wanted was to lay there and not think about my business. The fking police. The fking feds. How to clean this money without getting caught. The
And now there was crying outside my door.
A knock came.
I groaned.
I stood up and pulled the door open.
Rico was standing there with a girl thrown over his shoulder. Her long black hair was hanging down covering her face completely so I couldn't see who she was. His two dumbass bodyguards stood on either side of him looking like they always looked, useless and decorative.
"What is this Rico."
It wasn't a question. My voice came out flat and I stared at him the way I stared at everything that wasted my time.
The girl on his shoulder lifted her head slowly.
Our eyes met for exactly one second before she dropped her head back down.
I barely had enough time to see her face properly.
"Why are you in my house. With a crying girl on your shoulder." I could feel my jaw tightening. "What the hell is wrong with you."
My voice filled the room and everything else went quiet. Even the crying dropped to a soft sniffling sound that somehow managed to be even more irritating than the full crying had been.
"Boss so you know Reggie right?" Rico started. "The addict that always comes to buy and never has enough money—"
"Save me the speech." I cut him off. "You are wasting my f**king time. What is going on. You know I hate repeating myself."
"Boss." Rico shifted the girl slightly on his shoulder. "Her husband owes me 3k. Which means I'm owing you." He grinned. "And I know you like them petite."
He laughed.
I didn't.
None of this was funny. Not even slightly.
"So what's your aim here." I looked at him hard.
"Because you still haven't told me why there is a crying girl in my f**king house at this hour crying like a baby who couldn't get enough milk from her mama."
"She's collateral." Rico said it simply. Like it was the most reasonable thing in the world. "You hold onto her until her husband pays what he owes. Simple."
I looked at the girl.
I expected her to say something. Argue. Fight back. Anything.
She said nothing.
The tears on her face just kept falling. Silent and steady like she had accepted whatever was happening to her and had no intention of doing anything about it.
I hated that.
It genuinely pissed me off.
The world was cruel. Everyone knew that. The least a person could do was fight, fight for themselves, for what they wanted, for what they deserved. Laying down and accepting whatever life threw at you wasn't surviving. It was just dying slowly with extra steps.
And since she clearly wasn't going to fight for herself, i was going to give her a reason to.
"Put her down." I pointed at a spot close to where I stood.
Rico dropped her to her feet.
She stood up on both legs and I got my first proper look at her.
Her face was swollen. Dried tears stuck to her skin. Her black hair was a mess around her face. She was shaking.
She was so f**king short
I shifted closer.
She stepped back.
I shifted closer again.
She stepped back again until her back hit the wall and she had nowhere left to go. I bent down to her level because there was no other way to meet her eyes given the height difference.
She was looking at the floor. Her hair falling forward covering her face again.
"So you can stand and walk?" My voice came out dry. "For a moment there I thought you were paralysed."
Nothing.
"Look at me when I'm talking to you."
I put one finger under her chin and lifted her face up.
And that was when I saw them.
Her eyes.
Blue. Deep and restless and more beautiful than anything had a right to be on a face this scared.
I had never seen eyes like that before.
"I'm sorry." Her voice came out shaking and small. Like she wanted to disappear into the wall behind her or the floor beneath her, whichever one opened up first.
I hated it.
And I liked it.
Both at the same time and I didn't know what to do with that so I filed it somewhere and moved on.
I pulled her hand and brought her closer to my bare chest. Close enough that she had no choice but to feel every inch of the height difference between us.
I bent down and spoke directly into her ear.
"Are you going to die now that we're this close. Huh. Doe."
She stammered. "No. Ye--s."
The tears were still falling.
Still annoying.
"What are you. Five?" I straightened up and looked at Rico. "Take her to the basement. I don't want her tears spilling all over my expensive carpet."
I watched Rico lift her and throw her on his shoulder. Even from across the room I could still hear her crying. Soft and continuous and completely unbothered by the fact that I had asked it to stop.
The basement was where I kept things I didn't want. Things that were useless. Things that irritated me.
And right now, she was irritating me.
She was going to ruin my entire night.
I already knew it.
- Writer
