A Sinner’s Saint (De Bellis Crime Family #4)

Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

T oday has been fucking great. The more time I spend with Cammi, touching her, talking to her, the more I feel at peace. My head isn’t weighed down by the nightmares. I don’t even feel the urge to light up.

That good feeling dissipates when I get a text message from my brother Gabe, asking me to meet him at the front of the school. Whatever he’s here for, it’s nothing good. He never comes to school. None of my brothers come here just for the hell of it.

Walking towards the vehicle Gabe is perched against, I notice mine isn’t where it should be. “Where’s my car?” I ask my brother.

“I had Jimmy take it home. Get in,” Gabe says, walking around to the driver’s side of his blacked-out SUV.

I’m not stupid. There’s no point standing in the parking lot arguing with my brother. If he’s telling me I need to get in the fucking car, then I need to get in the fucking car. I don’t have to be happy about it, though. And I make it clear that I’m not as I throw my bag into the back before climbing into the passenger seat.

“Did someone die?” It’s the only reason I can think of that would have him collecting me from school.

“No. Well, not to my knowledge.” He shrugs.

I turn and stare at him as he pulls out of the car park. “Then why are you here?”

“I went to that house,” Gabe says before clarifying, “The address you handed over to Gio.”

I school my features. I knew what would happen. I knew what they’d find, and I knew they’d have questions. Still, I did it because I thought maybe they’d also find what they needed. After my father died, we discovered he’d left three million dollars to an unnamed beneficiary. My brothers have been looking for that person ever since, trying to piece together the reason behind the giant payout.

I guess there was also a part of me that wanted to get the burden off my shoulders. Not that I want them to know what happened to me, just that the house existed. I always planned to go back, to exact my revenge. For the past three years, I’ve been plotting, planning, and not acting.

I knew I couldn’t do anything while my father was alive. He’d kill me sooner than he’d let me interfere with his business. With his money.

But now Gabe knows… Because I can tell he knows. My pinkie finger taps along my leg, the only part of my body that moves.

“How did you know about that place?” he asks.

I focus on breathing evenly. I will not allow the memories to invade my mind right now. I lift a single shoulder. “Dad took me there a few times.”

“Why?” Gabe presses.

“Why did that fucking asshole do anything he did?” I snap.

I watch as my brother’s knuckles turn white while his hands grip the steering wheel. “Vin, did he… did you…” He shakes his head. “Why didn’t you tell one of us? We would have stopped it,” he says, his voice breaking.

Pity. Loud and clear.

I frown at him.“If I told any of you, he would have made you all do it too.” That was my father’s threat. He always said that if I told them, he’d take them there and make them do what he made me do. “I didn’t want that to happen.”

I can see the horror on my brother’s face. His eyes water. I fucking hate this. I don’t want to have this conversation. I don’t want the nightmare to touch any of my brothers. It’s bad enough I have to live with this shit. They don’t need it. They deserve better.

“I’m sorry… I didn’t know. I should have known.” Gabe’s words are choked out. There’s so much remorse in his voice. I can hear it. He’s the fixer of the family, now more than ever when everything feels like it’s falling apart. He will go to any lengths to fix whatever problem we have.

“You weren’t ever supposed to know,” I tell him, doing my best to keep my tone neutral, remain unaffected. “This isn’t your fault, Gabe. And I’d prefer if it stayed between us.”

“You know we need to tell Gio,” he says, which is the last thing I want to do. Our eldest brother has enough on his plate right now. He does not need my shit added to it.

“Why? What good will that do? He’s finally settling down, finding happiness. He deserves that. He does not need to take on burdens that are not his to bear. Neither do you,” I grit out.

“This… I think you should see someone,” Gabe suggests.

I almost laugh at the thought of sitting on a sofa, complaining about my life to some fucker with a bunch of letters after his name. “What? Like a head quack? Pass. I’m fine. I’ve dealt with it.” What I need is to change the subject. I haven’t had a smoke all fucking day. I’m way too sober to be dealing with this shit. “Did you find anything there? At the house?”

“You mean other than a fucking child brothel and a heap of sick fucks? No. Not a fucking thing,” Gabe growls.

“Where are we going?” I stare through the windscreen, trying to figure out where he’s taking us. It’s not in the direction of home.

“The warehouse. Marcel has that fucker Hamish hanging like the rotten pig he is,” Gabe says, and I can feel myself pale. I don’t want to be anywhere near the fucker who managed that house.

He never saw me. He didn’t know my father was taking me there. Something I knew for a fact after I overheard a conversation I wasn’t supposed to know about once. They were discussing Hamish—my father and someone else—talking about how they gave the old man the day off whenever it was my turn to make an appearance.

Does that mean I don’t want to kill the son of a bitch? Fuck no. He sells little kids to sick fucks, allows them to use and abuse children for their own pleasure. I want to slaughter him like the filthy pig he is.

“Why am I here?” I finally ask Gabe when he pulls to a stop at the warehouse.

“Because I thought you’d want to do the honours.” He smiles at me.

Does he really think he’s doing me a favour? I don’t want to face the man who benefited from the abuse of little kids. From my abuse.

I don’t respond. I silently follow Gabe into the warehouse. I learnt from a young age not to ask too many questions. It’s kill or be killed. Simple as that. I trust my brothers. I know they wouldn’t put me in harm’s way. But there’s always that little doubt in my head. My own father sold me to my demons, after all. What’s stopping my brother from doing the same?

The moment we walk in, I see him . Hanging from a rusty old butcher’s hook that’s hanging in the middle of the warehouse. I can’t be in this room. I can’t be around him, knowing what he’s done, who he is. It makes my stomach turn.

So I do the only thing I can do. The thing that will get me out of here the quickest. I pick up a pistol, aim it right at the fat fucker’s head, and pull the trigger. Then I turn back around and set the pistol on the table, knowing my brother will make sure any evidence I was here will never be seen again.

“It’s done. Can we go home now?” I don’t wait for an answer. I’m already walking out the door.

“Yep,” Gabe says, and then I hear his footsteps behind me. As soon as we’re in the car, he turns to me. “You good?”

Am I good? No. I’m not ever going to be good again. I will never get past this. I’ve accepted that. What I won’t do is bring others down with me.

“Yep,” I lie.

I can see he wants to push. He wants to continue the conversation. Thankfully, he gets a message telling him we need to get home. Santo is losing his shit. Again. Looks like we’re on babysitting duty all night. My brother is not coping with the grief of losing his fiancée. Not that I blame him, or hold it against him. I will do whatever I can to help. I just wish I could ease some of his pain. I know I can’t, though.

When we get home, I go straight up to my room. I need a smoke. I need to fog my mind as much as I can. Sitting out on my balcony, I light up a joint and scroll through my phone. There’s a message from Cammi.

Cammi:

So this is weird. For me anyway. I know you said I can call or message whenever I felt the urge. And, well, I feel the urge right now. Anyway, it’s stupid and I don’t even know what I want to say.

I smile and hit dial next to her name. She answers after the ringtone sounds out three times. “Hey.”

“Hey yourself. What’re you doing?” I ask her. Just hearing her voice calms me more than anything I could smoke.

“Homework. I have a geography essay due at the end of the week,” she says.

“Why are you studying geography?”

“I want to see the world one day, and I can’t do that if I don’t know where everything is, now can I?” Cammi says.

“I can show you the world. Name a place and I’ll take you there,” I tell her.

She laughs. I’m not joking, though. “I’ll keep that in mind. What are you doing right now?” she asks me.

“Sitting on my balcony smoking a joint, wishing I was in bed with you instead,” I admit.

“Maybe you should do something about that, then,” Cammi suggests.

“Yeah? You want me to come and pick you up?” I offer.

“My parents are out. They won’t be back until late. Why don’t you come here?”

“Be there in twenty,” I tell her. “And, Cammi?”

“Yeah?”

“Lose your panties. You won’t be needing them,” I say before cutting the call.

I stand, stub out my joint, and walk back through the doors to my room. I spray a shit-load of deodorant all over my body so I don’t stink like weed.

Then I walk into the bathroom and scrub my hands three times before I give up. They’re never going to be clean enough. I shouldn’t be touching her with these hands. The hands of a killer. If she knew, she wouldn’t let me anywhere near her.