Page 74 of My Fallen Saint

He strokes his beard as he sighs. “We’re not sleeping together. But we did, many years ago. Even before I met you.”

“Oh.” I cross the threshold, then look back over my shoulder as he lets the door shut behind us. “Oh.”

I see a flash of confused amusement on his face before I turn away and head to the sofa. I curl up in the corner, then pull a pillow into my lap. He still hasn’t said anything, so I just leap in. “She was your first, wasn’t she?”

He doesn’t say a word, but I know the answer. I can see it on his face. And the fact that I can still read him—even just a little—gives me an unexpected boost of confidence.

“She was,” I say. “And now you’re just friends?”

He undoes the tie that’s holding his hair back, then runs his finger through the locks, shaking them free. “Yes, and yes. We grew up together. Our fathers were friends. We spent a lot of time together, and neither of us were close with our dads.”

He pinches the bridge of his nose, and sighs. “She left for college and we lost touch. But I looked her up about a year after I launched the foundation. She was teaching high school social studies, but thought the foundation would make more of an impact on people, so she signed on. And here we are.”

“Here you are,” I agree. I sagged a bit. “Listen, I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For asking questions that are none of my business. It’s only that I—I guess I still want to know you.”

“I get it,” he says, his voice gentle. “But what’s the point when it’s all going to end?”

I hug my pillow tighter. “We could still be friends.”

His laugh is raw and desperately sad. “No, we couldn’t. And you know it as well as I do.”

I swallow, because he’s right. As sad as it makes me knowing that we’ll part ways for good when I go back to New York, I know that's the way it will be. For us, there are only two options, because there is no way that I can truly be “just friends” with Devlin Saint. I could fake it, maybe, but it would eat me up inside.

Where Saint is concerned, the best I can have is a rip-roaring good time before I yank the bandage off entirely and let the past scab over, making one more scar on my heart.

I toss the pillow onto the floor, then crawl across the couch to him, letting my hand rest on his upper thigh when I reach him. “You’re right,” I say. “This ends when I go back.”

“It ends after Vegas,” he says firmly.

I lick my lips, then slide my hand higher, so my fingers brush the bulge in his jeans. “In that case, I just have one more question for you. Do you want to sleep? Or do you want to fuck?”

I’m deliciously sore Tuesday morning, despite a hot shower—which I had to enjoy alone, as Devlin was on a call. Now I’m dressed and camped out on the living room sofa making a list of questions for the DSF’s Vegas staff as well as for the residents of the back tower.

I want to hear not only about their rescue, but about job training, rehab, medical and mental health care. Basically, I intend to cover it all, and I’m about to review the notes I took in the research room over the weekend when a notification pops up about the death of Lorenzo Bell, a known pseudonym for a human trafficking kingpin who’s been on ICE’s Most Wanted list for over a year and is known to work internationally. He’s been on my radar since Roger assigned me the DSF article, especially since many of the women in residence in The Phoenix’s back tower were believed to have been abducted by “soldiers” in Bell’s ring.

I follow the link to a short article reporting that the assassination occurred at just before midnight last night in front of the Everest Hotel & Casino on the other end of the Strip from the Phoenix. Bell attended a concert with a local prostitute and without his usual contingent of bodyguards. He’d altered his appearance for the outing through the use of a wig along with a fake beard and mustache.

The prostitute had tried to slip away, but had been surrounded by some bystanders and then interviewed by the police. The photo shows a young woman, obviously unnerved, with curly blonde hair and huge, deep-set eyes. According to the caption, she saw nothing and didn’t realize until after Bell went down that he’d been shot.

Apparently, he and the woman were in the midst of the thick crowd leaving the concert. Someone got close enough to shove a pistol under his ribcage. He was taken out with a .22 caliber lead bullet that burst into his kidney, ricocheted in his gut, and killed him almost instantly.

I have a mental picture of the assassin. Someone tall, with his head down, his purpose clear. He might have had a team helping him to spot Bell. He definitely had advance information—not only that Bell would be at the concert, but how he’d be disguised.

Once the assassin tagged Bell, he’d waited, then fallen in step behind Bell, covered by the crowd. He got in close, jammed the barrel of the gun in hard. Fired—then melted away in the crowd as Bell fell to the ground.

The first people to respond assumed he’d fainted until they saw the blood. No one had heard the gunshot. Not surprising. A twenty-two would have barely sounded like the pop of a soda bottle being opened.

I’m thinking of the shooter as a man, but he could just as easily be a woman. Whoever it is, he’s cool and confident and wildly self-possessed. That kind of close-range kill takes nerves of steel and government or paramilitary training.

My spinning mind immediately jumps to the gun in Devlin’s drawer. But it’s a random, foolish thought. The shooter used a relatively silent twenty-two. Devlin’s Glock is a very loud 9mm. And why on earth would a philanthropist like Devlin Saint be wandering the streets of Vegas taking out wanted men?

I shake my head, dismissing my random thoughts. Honestly, there are times I think I’d be better off writing fiction.

As for my actual career, I’m pulling up my old folder of research about Bell when my phone rings. It’s Millie, and I answer it before the second ring. “Hey, how are you?”