Prologue
The Fight
Nico
Icould lie beside my son for hours and watch him breathe. His curly black hair is a wild mass on his head. His golden-brown skin is flushed as he sleeps with his mouth slightly parted. Noah is only five months old, but he is my entire world. My redemption.
I’ll make sure that the cruelty of the world will never touch him. The things I did to get to this point in my life were all worth it. All the lives I’ve taken, all the late-night deals I’ve made, all the money and the sleepless nights—he and his mother are my prizes. I didn’t deserve either of them, but I wasn’t letting them go. They brought out the human in me. A part of me I buried in a pile of ashes when I was only eleven years old. A part of me I lost to the hardness I’ve had to develop in order to survive.
The creaking of the bedroom door alerts me that my other half has entered the room. Without taking my eyes off my son, I speak to my wife.
“I swear I don’t care who says otherwise, we have the most handsome kid in the entire world.”
She’s silent for a moment. “I think you’re right….. Saint.”
The moment the name comes out of her mouth, my entire body goes rigid. Tiffany has just called me a name that was neversupposed to slip from her lips. Looking away from Noah, I turn to my wife.
Her beautiful face is flushed, and dried tears track down her cheeks. Her eyes are red and puffy. Clutched in her hands down at her side is her cellphone.
“What did you just call me?”
Although my voice comes out calm and collected, a fire is slowly coming to life under the surface. A fire that she was never to know about. One that I’ve learned to tame around her.
“I called you Saint.” My chest burns at her words. “That is your name, isn’t it?”
Slowly, allowing the simmering fire to die down a little, I roll away from my son. Getting to the side of the bed, I sit up, my feet flat on the ground. I roll my head around on my shoulders to ease the growing tension.
“No, that’s not my name. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I lie as I climb to my feet. “Come here, tell me what’s…” My words die on my tongue when I reach for her, and she takes a step back.
From the first day I met her in that club, she has never pulled away from me. The roaring in my ears has me closing my eyes and taking a deep breath. The anger and rage that always lie so close to my surface want to come out.
“Not now. Never around her.”I tell myself.
Once I feel I have successfully coaxed the beast in me back under the surface, I open my eyes. New tears are streaming down her face. The roaring in my ears grows louder, and my chest burns even more.
“How could you?” she sobs.
“Baby, I….”
She tosses her phone at my chest. I catch it before it can hit the ground. Looking at the screen, there is a still shot of mein my wedding tux, standing before a bound Marcus. Written across the image are the words. Let me introduce you to Saint.
My heart races, and the roaring in my ears grows louder. Before hitting the play symbol, I already know what this video will detail. Even knowing the outcome, I still press play. My voice comes through the speakers. Everything I admitted to doing that day is replayed. How I set Marcus up, how I hired the guy in the coffee shop, and even me changing out her birth control. All of my sins are recorded in this video. When I finally get to the part where I stand from my seat and point my gun at Marcus’s head, I stop the recording and shut my eyes. The moment I do, everything in me catches on fire. My fist is so tight down at my side that if I had nails, they would be embedded into my skin.
Who the fuck sent this to her? And who out here has this video? My brain is working overtime trying to figure out how to solve this bullshit problem.
Opening my eyes, I look back at my wife, not sure how to approach this with her.
“Before you—”
“—You killed him.”
Her concern for him has me gritting my teeth before responding. “He had another debt that needed to be paid. He’d offered you as collateral again, but this time it wasn’t to me.”
Admittedly, I didn’t know that when I killed him, but that shit doesn’t matter.
I can tell my response has shocked her, but she quickly shakes it away. She storms past me toward our closet. I follow behind her.
“Killing Marcus is not even half the problem.” She yanks her suitcase from the top rack of our custom closet.
