The Dirty Saint (Dirty #1)

11. Chapter Eleven

11

Chapter Eleven

After

EZRA

Max Porter is staring at my tits.

Nasty prick.

He should feel lucky that the bell hasn’t rung yet. Because, in about two seconds, his blood is going to be all over my knuckles and I’m gonna kick his dick in.

Morton looks at me. “You ready?”

I send my opponent a quick smile. “Let’s do this.”

I told the ass hat to take all his best shots. He laughed in my face.

Hell, he won’t be laughing much longer.

Not if I could help it.

“You sure you wanna do this, Maya,” Max asks. “I’d hate to mess up that pretty face of yours.”

“You scared, Porter? Feel free to back out now. No one would blame you if your balls ran away and hid themselves inside your ass. It would make sense that they would be cowards,” I grin. “They’re just like you.”

“You talk a big game, Maya, but you’re nothing. You couldn’t beat me if my eyes were closed.”

“And you couldn’t beat me if I was missing all my limbs and was simply a torso.”

Like, who the fuck do you think you are?

“Go, Max,” a woman shrieks.

I turn around.

“Is that your lady?”

He grins. “I’ve got you, baby.”

I turn back and snort.

“What’s so funny, Maya?”

“I just feel so bad for that woman. There is simply no way your micro-cock can satisfy her. Tell me, Max, do you even know which hole to stick it in?”

He growls.

“That’s what I thought.”

“I swear to god, Maya, I’m gonna b—”

With a ring, the bell goes off, and without having time to think about my move, I wind up my left fist and jam it straight into Max’s face as hard as I can. He falters backward before bringing his hands up to cover his face.

Blood drips down his nose.

“That was a lucky shot,” he snaps.

“Hey, it’s still one more than you’ve got on me.”

As we circle around each other a little bit more, I catch myself a bit off balance, and Max uses that opening to send a gnarly uppercut to my midsection.

Fuckin’ A.

I grunt. “Is that all you’ve got? A pussy hit to my ribs? If so, just end the fight right here, right now, and stop wasting everybody’s time.”

Max rolls his eyes. “What, you can’t handle a little competition, Maya? Your time in captivity not toughen you up?”

My teeth clench with ferocity, and my fingers curl so tightly into my palms that I have to suppress a wince.

“Excuse you?”

My opponent laughs.

“I said, did your time in captivity not—”

Without being able to finish his sentence, I sucker punch Max in the head as hard as I can, watching as he falls straight to the floor.

I stick my foot on his scalp and press down.

“You don’t know anything about what happened to me, you sad sack of shit.”

I press harder, and he grunts.

“So stop acting as if you do.”

I release him.

“And by the way, if you’re going to bring people to cheer you on, make sure you’re worth it.”

Max sits up, propped on his elbow.

“I will defeat you, Ezra Maya,” he shouts in my direction.

“Yeah. Yeah. That’s what they all say,” I throw back.

And look where it’s gotten them.

“Max, get up,” The woman yells. “Get up! ”

A muffled groan escapes him.

“Show her who’s boss, Max! She’s a little bitch . Kick her ass.”

So much for women supporting women.

“Hey, lady,” I holler. “Do you want to get in this ring? I’ll show you up just like I did your man.”

She doesn’t say anything further.

Smart.

I only have so much energy for stupid people. Myself included.

“Did you really knock a guy out at the gym,” Aurelia asks.

I nod.

“I also threatened to knock his girlfriend out, too, but she was intelligent enough not to pursue that.”

Briggs looks at me while Aurelia rolls her eyes.

“Ez, you really aren’t being very smart. I mean, you were only rescued a week ago.”

“Lia, that isn’t fair,” Briggs chimes in. “Ezra is doing the best she can.”

“I understand that, but as her family, we need to be able to have a mature conversation with her about the decisions she’s making.”

I throw my hands up. “I’m right here. Why are you acting as if I’m not?”

“Ez—”

“No. You can say it to my face. What’s wrong with what I’m doing?”

Aurelia and Briggs exchange a quick glance.

It’s like I’m invisible.

“I think you’re struggling. Deeply. And you need help.”

“I am getting help,” I say. “And in terms of my struggling, how else should I be? Fine? Should I be walking around all happy and grateful because I didn’t die? Would that be better?”

“Ezra—”

“The only thing I’m grateful for is that my son at least has a parent who will be around to watch him grow up,” I say. I then shake my head. “You just don’t get it. You don’t get what it’s like having survived when you know so many others haven’t.”

Sure, did some bad people not make out? Yeah. But I’ll bet there were innocent people who lost their lives at the hands of the same men who wanted mine.

Look, I don’t want to act like the victim. But when you start judging the way I choose to heal, that’s when I have issues.

“I just don’t want to watch you kill yourself,” Aurelia whispers.

“Then you need to let me figure stuff out on my own.”

Once my sister leaves, Briggs stays to help me clean up dinner.

“You know Lia’s just trying to help you, right,” she says as she dries the plates.

I press the switch on my dish disposal and slam it shut.

“Of course I know that. But still, I’m sick and tired of her trying to parent me. I’ve been fine on my own all this time.”

Briggs rests her back against the counter, a flash of remembrance littered in the blues of her eyes. “When I was rescued from my situation, the last thing I wanted was for people to tell me how I should live. I had spent so long allowing others to dictate my decisions, and I simply couldn’t do it anymore.

“But that’s inevitable, especially in situations where people don’t know what to say or how to act.

“Look, Ez, I am not here to defend Aurelia. Believe me, she needs to back the fuck off. But she means well; I know she does. And she just wants you back.

“But what she doesn’t realize is that you’re already gone.”

I stop in my tracks, bracing myself on the corner of the island.

“Ez—”

She’s right. Everything she just said is true.

“I should have killed them all,” I let out. “I should have hurt them just as badly as they hurt me.”

Maybe then I’d know what it would be like to heal.

“Come here.” Briggs pulls me into her, and I lay my head on her shoulder.

“We’re gonna get through this,” she whispers to me.

I nod my head in understanding.

“We’re gonna be alright.”

I let out a sigh.

God, I hope so.

During

JOEY

The first woman I ever loved was a woman named Zin.

She was in my class at school, and I found her to be the most captivating person on the planet. She had jet-black hair that went past her shoulders, and she always wore dangly pink butterfly earrings.

It was no secret that I was infatuated with her.

But she didn’t feel the same way about me, and when I found her and Killian Morago making out in the library, it broke my heart.

After that, I swore off deep, meaningful relationships. Forever. No girlfriends. Or wives. Just casual fucks that satisfied me at night and left me in the morning.

I know that I have zero business thinking about Ezra, not after everything that I have done.

I tilt my head back as I down the tequila shot at the bar.

“Wow, Joey, take it easy, man. I don’t feel like hauling your drunk ass out of here.”

I roll my eyes.

“Just pass me another one.”

“Hey, are you sure that’s a good idea—”

“Pass me another one,” I snap. “Now.”

Rico lifts his hands up in surrender.

“If you puke, I’m not cleaning it up.”

“Yeah, well, I have places to be after this,” I say. “So the only thing you’ll be cleaning up is someone’s jizz off the bathroom walls.”

I leave without saying another word.

* * *

I find Ezra lying in her cell with a pair of panties lying near her feet. Her eyes are closed, and her head is propped up against the small pillow in the corner.

Damn, she looks so beautiful.

I sit down next to her, stroking her cheek with my fingers. I watch as her chest heaves up and down, her eyelids fluttering.

I never noticed just how long her lashes are.

“Shush, Ezra, go back to sleep,” I whisper.

Immediately, she jolts back.

“What the fuck,” she barks, “Are you doing?”

I prop myself on my elbow, my brown hair falling over my blue eyes.

“Ezra, put the rock down,” I insist, wrapping my hand around it, trying to move it away from my head.

“Then explain why you were stroking me in my sleep?”

I smile.

“You just looked so gorgeous that I simply couldn’t help myself. Every single man that works for me has gotten a taste of you. I thought I deserved one, too.”

Ezra, eyeing me with such rage, slams the rock onto my hand. I howl as the pain catches up in my brain and runs through my veins. She then proceeds to send a right hook flying to the side of my jaw before kicking the back of my kneecap. I hear a loud pop before she goes straight for my shoulder, wrapping her arm around it and twisting as hard as she can.

Hot damn, she’s got some strength in that body of hers.

“That should teach you a valuable lesson,” she hisses. “Don’t fucking touch me again. God, what the hell is wrong with you?”

I cradle my bloodied hand.

“I just,” I breathe. “I just wanted to see you.”

“My god, are you drunk?”

I nod.

“Very.”

She places the rock down on the floor, right near her panties.

“I felt your body next to mine,” she says. “I could feel you watching me.”

I nod again.

“Why would you do that,” she demands.

“Because,” I cough. “Because I am not a good man.”

Her eyes stare me down, and I can sense the fury radiating from them.

“Why did you do it,” she asks.

“Because he watched you touch yourself,” I whisper.

“What?”

“Because he watched you touch yourself.”

“How the hell do you know that,” Ezra demands.

“He’s my man, isn’t he? After all, who do you think told him to check on you that night?”

“Did you also tell him to rape me,” she asks. “Because that is what he was coming to do to me until I stopped him.”

I imagine Tono getting off to the site of Ezra stroking herself, circling her clit with the tips of her fingers, fighting so hard not to fall apart at her own touch.

It makes me outraged.

But Ezra just rolls her eyes.

“Tell me what I should have done, huh,” she snaps. “Let him rape me. Touch me. Feel me?”

“He enjoyed it,” I growl. “So much so that he asked for a fucking raise when he reported back to me that night.”

“Glad I put on a good show for the guy.”

I shake my head.

“You took the coward’s way out.”

“Oh, fuck you,” she barks. “There is nothing cowardly about fingering yourself in front of a man who would shove his dick inside of you without consent, given the chance. Gosh, you think that you are so high and mighty, so above all of this. When, really, from where I’m sitting, you are nothing but an egotistical dickhead with a shitty fucking god-complex.”

I stand up, running a finger along the side of Ezra’s jaw. She shivers at my touch, and she tries to shy away, but I pull her back, forcing her to look at me.

“He watched you touch yourself, Ezra.”

“Yes,” she whispers. “He did.”

“Why would you let him do that?”

She shakes her head.

I sigh. “Ezra, please.”

“No.”

“Damnit, Ezra, just answer the que—”

“I didn’t want him to touch me instead, okay! I didn’t want to feel his hands on my skin or his breath on my neck. I wanted him to leave me alone. You have no idea what it has been like these past few days having men watch your every fucking move, just waiting for you to screw up so they have an excuse to beat you. I spend my every waking moment stuck in this piss-smelling hellhole, and I didn’t even do jackshit to get here, but it sure doesn’t look like anyone’s letting me out anytime soon. So you don’t get to tell me how I am to survive the place that you put me in.”

“Ezra—”

“I need you to go,” she whispers.

I twirl a strand of her hair around my finger.

“Joey, stop,” she says, pushing me away from her.

“Ezra.”

“Just stop!” she screams. “Please. You need to let me breathe. You cannot be here right now. I can’t do this. Whatever this is. You are messing with my head, Joey. And you aren’t even in the right frame of mind. You don’t know what you’re saying or doing. You just expect me to engage in your fantasies so that your feelings can feel justified.”

Ezra inhales deeply.

“You are not my savior, and attempting to get to know me isn’t going to erase the guilt you feel.”

I press my lips to her forehead softly. “You do things to me,” I grumble. “Things that I cannot even begin to explain.”

“Joey, you aren’t going to remember this conversation tomorrow. So whatever you think you feel for me— it, it isn’t real…You should go,” she says, a sharp pain ripping through her voice. “Before someone else comes and finds you here.”

“Let them.”

She shakes her head. “You’re talking crazy. How much did you drink tonight?”

“More than I should’ve.”

She sneers.

“Ezra, from the first day that I met you, you fascinated me to the point where, now, I can’t think about anyone or anything because you occupy every piece of my mind. I dream of you, day and night. I lose control of myself when I am not with you.”

“Joey, stop—”

“So you can tell me to stop or go away, but leaving you makes every bone in my body ache. Look, Ezra, I am not a good man. And I will die on that hill. And if I wasn’t so enamoured with you, I would kill myself for the pain I put you through. It haunts me. I hear your screams in my head. Your cries keep me up at night. And you’re probably right when you say that I don’t deserve any bit of your presence. But, my god, you are fucking beautiful. I hate that Tono got to see such a sacred part of you before I did.”

It drives me crazy knowing that so many other men have seen more of Ezra than I have. Other men have fucked her, felt her, and here I am, pining.

“You can’t have me,” she says. “Drunk or not, I cannot be yours. I am not a prize to be won.”

“I know you aren’t.”

“I am also not a prop or a toy or a trophy. I am a person. A worthy person.”

“I know.”

“And I deserve better than this.”

I know that, too.

“You can’t be doing this to me, Joey,” she shakes her head. “Because as strong as I am, I can’t stay this way forever. One day, I won’t be able to keep myself from giving in.”