Page 86 of My Fallen Saint

“What else do you know?”

“That your father took you from her.” I look at him. “Do you remember that?”

He shakes his head. “I learned about it later. And that he killed her. Drugged her. Got her behind the wheel of a car. Made it look like an accident.”

I sit shocked. I had no idea about that.

He rubs his temples. “She was rich. Fell out with her parents before she met Daniel Lopez. Ran away, got caught up in his net. He fell for her, so maybe that made her lucky. Maybe it didn’t. And she had me. Ran when I was about a year old. Went back to her parents.”

“Your grandparents?”

“Dead now. Another accident. Right after my father took me to Nevada. I can’t prove it, but I’d lay a solid bet my father arranged that. Punishment for keeping him away from her money.”

His smile is thin. Murderous. “Their fortune—and it was massive—was managed through trusts. Ultimately, my mother’s and my grandparents’ assets ended up in the trust they set up for me when she brought me back to LA. It was rock solid. Still is. My bastard of a father tried to break it, but never managed.”

He shrugs. “That’s the money I live on now. Clean money built up through generations of hard work and solid investments.”

“And your father’s money? My, um, source says you inherited it. He says you’re running your own syndicate now.”

He almost laughs. “Does he? Well, he’s wrong, if that makes you feel any better. I shut my father’s business down the moment I inherited, and I did everything I could to shut down the networks and pipelines he used and to get his lieutenants on the government’s radar.”

He draws a breath, his expression hard. “I’m not my father, and woe be to anyone who suggests that I am. I’ve spent a lifetime trying to escape from that man’s shadows, to make up for just a portion of the bile he pumped into the world.”

He tosses back the rest of his drink, then slams the glass onto the coffee table before standing up. “So no. I don’t have my own syndicate. Unless you want to call the Devlin Saint Foundation a syndicate, because that is the only thing my father’s money has ever, ever been spent on. But the purpose of the DSF is to help people. To try to sweep up some of the shit my father spread through this world. Fuck.”

He lashes out and kicks the table. I make a grab for the decanter, steadying it before it topples onto the floor.

“Sorry. Fuck. Sorry.” He stalks across the room to the glass doors that open onto the canyon, the lights from dozens of streetlights flickering below, the twinkle of stars shining above. I can see his reflection, and I watch his face as he says, “I’m not the man you knew, Ellie. Back then, I thought I could completely avoid the path I was born to walk. I was wrong.”

He turns to look at me, as if gauging my reaction, and I do my damnedest not to show any emotion on my face. I don’t know what he’s telling me, but I know him well enough—his vocal cues, his mannerisms—to know that whatever he’s saying is important.

“This man,” he continues, indicating himself with an air of disgust, “this philanthropist. He doesn’t exist. He’s an illusion. Pulled out of the air like a magic rabbit. Because I promise you, Ellie, this body? This blood? It’s tainted. And it always has been.”

My heart squeezes, and I stifle the urge to go to him. To try to staunch some of the pain that flows off of him in waves. “You just said the foundation is legit. Like laundering your father’s dirty money for good.”

He actually laughs at that. “Yeah, well, I guess that’s one way to put it. But don’t try to paint a halo on me. I’ve done things I’m ashamed of. Plenty of things.”

“What are you saying? Were you helping Peter? Selling drugs?”

“No.” The word is both harsh and heartfelt. “That was my line in the sand with my father, and he caved because he was more interested in me learning the business side. How to cook the books. So, yeah, I helped that way. But I never touched the drugs, and I never will.”

I pour myself another drink. “Have you killed people?”

He hesitates, then meets my eyes. “Yes. In the military. And—and when my father made me.”

I swallow, and my voice is shaky when I ask. “You shouldn’t be telling me this. It’s dangerous.”

He meets my eyes. “Is it?”

Heat flows through me. Not sensual, though. This is something richer. Something deeper. I lick my lips, no longer sure what to think, much less what to do. Finally, though, I ask the one question I have to ask. “Did you kill Peter?”

He closes his eyes and shakes his head. “No. And though I had no choice, I’ll never forgive myself for running like I did.”

“Then why did you?”

He paces the room, pulling his hair back with a tie from his pocket. “Because I might have been next. Because I saw an out. That was the night I ran from everything. You. My father. My past.”

“Oh.” I lick my lips. “You couldn’t take me with you?”