Page 32 of Saint
“Your wife? That woman was one of Javier’s favorites. Hijo de puta. I never thought he’d stoop as low as involving himself with a married woman. The hits have already been contracted out, Ángel. You have my word that I won’t come for her, but you know as well as I do that once the agreement is made, it can’t be canceled. You’ll have to take care of that on your own.”
“Nah, you’re going to get your men on it, too,” I instructed. “How many?” I asked, seeking to quantify how many contracts he’d taken out on Victoria’s life.
“Dos. Just two.”
Just two. As if that were nothing. As if Victoria were nothing.
“How much?” I gritted, annoyed by what I was hearing. Including the man now snoozing in the stall in front of me, there was another threat lurking against Victoria.
“Fifty each. Half paid already.”
Depleted of words, I gritted into the phone before disconnecting and dropping it into a toilet.
Victoria
In an instant, Saint was on his feet and trudging toward the back of the shop behind another man. They both headed to where the bathrooms were. He returned minutes later, looking slightly disheveled. The man that entered before him had yet to resurface.
“No. I just… like the beach,” he offered, returning to his seat and the conversation as if it hadn’t been interrupted.
“Are you okay?” I asked, noting the way he sighed.
“I’m good, Beauty. Come on with your twenty-one questions.”
“Okay,” I laughed as our food arrived. “What’s so special about the beach?”
“It’s my happy place. The rest of the world is loud and fast. The beach is slow and calming.”
“What else makes you happy?”
“You when you’re not interviewing me…
“I make you happy?” I gushed with my cheeks hiking upward. I don’t know why that bothered me the way it did. Our relationship was strictly physical, but knowing I made him feel that way was gratifying.
“So far, Beauty. Yeah.”
Okay. Moving right along.
“…And sex with you,” he smirked, lifting his fork and knife. “Our bed chemistry is something to be studied.”
“How did you manage to slang dick like that and not get tied to a woman? No girlfriend… ever?”
He just… shrugged. Then, he positioned the fork into the sandwich and began slicing into it.
“Aw. Come on, Saint. You can do better than that,” I fussed. “And are you really about to–”
Yes.
Yes, he was.
Yes, he did cut the sandwich with a knife and eat it with a fork. He stuffed his face to the point that he couldn’t speak between bites. Having watched him for the past few weeks, I knew he wouldn’t speak when eating. Once he’d cleared his plate, he neatly folded the napkin he was using, set it on the plate, and pushed his plate aside.
That was… interesting.
“So, are you just going to continue to ignore my question?”
“A perk of being a wallflower,” he shrugged, motioning for the waiter.
“You? A wallflower? No. You’ve gotta be shitting me.”