Sinners & Saints (Sinners & Saints #1) (22 page)

           
I
glance at his coke. “Hopefully not too soon, but nevertheless I have a job for
you.”

15

JULIET

I freeze in the middle of the foyer
when I see a blonde boy standing, staring at the pictures over the fireplace.

“Hello,” I say.

He turns around. He’s cute but pale
looking. He looks ill. He sniffs and wiggles his nose while his eyes rake over
my body. Slowly he licks his lips. His pupils are the shape of olives and his
eyes are bloodshot. Clearly he’s high. I think about the picture and the boys.
Already met Noel. Gabriel’s dead. This is Chad Michelson.

           
“How
do you do?” He walks toward me.

           
I
extend my hand out to him. “Juliet Spears.”

           
“Chad
Michelson.” He grabs my hand. His hands are sweaty and clammy. He’s wearing a
worn out grey t-shirt with a small hole on the sleeve.

           
“I’ve
heard of you,” I tell him, letting go of his hand and rubbing it on the back of
my jeans.

           
“Hopefully
not all bad things,” he says still staring at my body. “You have an exquisite
pair of legs.”

           
“Wow,
that was not creepy in any form whatsoever.”

           
He’s
taken aback by my sentence and points his finger at me, shaking it. “You’re
interesting.”

           
“I
get that a lot.”

           
“Trust
me, its a compliment in this house full of cards.”

           
“And
you used to be one of them.”

           
“Yes,
it was during my prime. Now I am a tragedy, they say.” He steps a little too
close. “You are really, really beautiful.”

           
“Yeah,
well you are really, really too close for comfort.” I step back and his
sinister smile appears.

           
“What
the hell are you doing here?” I turn around and see Hugo glowering at Chad.

           
Chad
laughs. “Well looky here, if it isn’t the prodigal minion. Look at you, you
gotten all manly now.”

           
“And
you’ve gotten more deplorable.”

           
“Hugo,”
Chad pouts playfully. “Always sensitive.”

           
“Juliet,
leave us,” Hugo orders me. I don’t take orders.

           
“Yes,
Juliet,” Scarlett comes in. “Why don’t you give us all a moment to catch up?”

           
“You
invited this parasite?” Hugo asks her.

           
“Parasite?
Really?” Chad arches his brow.

           
“A
person that receives support without giving anything useful in return. In other
words, a mooch, a freeloader.”

           
“A
trust fund baby, which is
—
well, we
all have to admit
—
all of us,”
I interject and Chad laughs while Hugo’s eyes grow with fire.
 

           
“I
really like her,” Chad says pointing at me. “But I did you a favor, if it means
anything.”

           
“What
is he talking about?” Hugo looks back at Scarlett.

           
“We
can discuss it once we go to your room,” she says.

           
“My
brother will freak out,” Hugo tells her and Chad chuckles.

           
“Aw,
is the retard still scared of little old me?”

           
Hugo
begins walking towards us and Scarlett grabs his arm, but he yanks it away. I
jump in front of him without thinking, pressing my hands against his chest.
“Hugo.” He finally looks at me. “I’ll keep August busy. Make sure he doesn’t
come to your room, yeah?”

           
He
takes one last look at Chad before looking at me. He steps out of my way.
Scarlett is shocked and so am I. Hugo not only let me calm him down, but I
think he too trusts me with August.

HUGO

“Well, I’ll be damned.” Chad’s eyes are
filled with gleam once we get to my room and he starts to laugh. “Scarlett, is
that leash on him tight enough?”

           
“We
don’t have time for your childish taunting today, Chad,” she says placing her
purse on my couch and sitting down with her arm stretched out on top and her
legs crossed.

           
“Oh,
I’m only observing that history might be repeating itself,” he says.

           
“What
the hell are you talking about?” I ask annoyed and sit down next to Scarlett.

           
“Well,
you know, she lost Gabriel.” He shapes his hand into a gun and points it to his
head, cocking his head to the side. “Maybe she could lose you.”

           
“Why,
because some girl stopped me from kicking your ass?”

           
His
eyes narrow on me. “You know you used to didn’t show this much emotion.”

           
“Enough,”
Scarlett says. “Can we please get to important matters instead of you two having
a swinging dick competition? Hugo, please calm down.”

           
I
square my jaw, grinding my teeth. Scarlett gently combs her fingers through my
hair, soothing me down.

           
“Aw,
so cozy.” Chad shrugs. “So, I followed your daddy to Tribeca.”

           
“Who
the hell lives in Tribeca?” Scarlett asks.

           
“His
wife’s little cousin. Remember her?”

           
“Janet
Eaton,” Scarlett answers. “We went to school with her. She was a year above
us.”

           
“Yep
and she is still quite the little slut,” Chad says as he pulls out the photos
from the envelope and tosses them on my lap.

           
I
see the first picture of my father in a very compromising position with Janet
Eaton.

           
“How
the hell did you get close enough to or even the equipment to take these?” I
look up at him. “Didn’t daddy cut you off?”

           
“Our
girl here is supplying me with income.”

           
“So,
your dad is sleeping with Kelly’s cousin. That’s very naughty.” When Scarlett
says naughty, it isn’t as sexy as when Juliet says it. Fuck me. I’m comparing
them again. Then again this probably isn’t anything. Juliet’s British so
technically everything she says is sexier than any American, Scarlett included.

           
“Hugo.”
I’m not noticing that Scarlett is saying my name repeatedly.

           
“Yeah,
well it’s not a surprise,” I say like nothing’s wrong. “When he was married to
my mother, there were several rumors that he slept with her cousin and her best
friend.”

           
“You
still have a talent for voyeurism, Chad,” Scarlett compliments him.

           
“I’ve
always had an eye for the dirty,” Chad smiles proudly.

           
“So,
we have our evidence. Let’s show Kelly and get this over with,” I say.

           
“No,”
Scarlett shakes her head. “We need to truly break her.” She smiles to herself.
“To get the full experience of the show, you should always have a front row
seat. She needs to see it in action because we need to move quickly. We need to
slap her in the face with it. She won’t see it coming and because of that she
won’t waste time running to you.”

           
I
smirk at her, our eyes lock. We’re having a moment. We always had a moment
during heinous planning.

           
“So,
what do I do?” Chad asks, clearly envious of our little moment.

           
“You
wait for us to call you,” Scarlett tells him.

           
He
frowns. “My money.”

           
“Pass
me my purse,” she instructs me and I do.

           
She
pulls out a thick white envelope and holds it out. He snatches it from her as
she smiles and stretches her arms out.

           
“You
two have a lovely fucking day,” he says then storms out.

           
He
slams the door and Scarlett laughs diabolically, her head falling into the
crook of my neck. I smirk at the feeling of her arms around me and the smell of
her perfume. I sigh and place my hand on her arm and lay my head against hers,
closing my eyes. She lifts her head up at me.

           
“Those
eyes,” she says softly. “They have so much in them. Kelly is going to become so
enchanted by those eyes that she won’t even see the lion behind them coming out
to eat her alive.”

           
Maybe
I’m tired? Maybe I’m not feeling good? All I know is that looking into
Scarlet’s dark grey eyes does nothing but detach me from my sole purpose of
what I’m doing. It even causes me to question.
Why am I doing this?

           
I
want to make the doubt go away so I kiss her. I take what is mine, devour every
dark thing about her and feed it to my own soul. That’s all it needs. It just
needs to be fed.

           
“I’m
not supposed to be doing this, remember?” she moans as I kiss her neck, sliding
my hand under her skirt.

           
I
say nothing. I rise up from the couch.

           
She
unbuttons my pants and pulls them down, getting on her knees. This is all I
need. Scarlett is all I need.

But if Scarlett is all I need, why am I
picturing Juliet in front of me? As Scarlett gives me a magnificent blowjob,
Juliet pops in my mind. Her smile, her blue eyes, her brown hair
—
it all comes to my mind. The kiss and
the way her lips tasted of mint, oranges, and strawberries and the electricity
crawls up my skin. The blare of her bothersome words and her sublime laughter
make it impossible to hear the moans coming from Scarlett’s mouth.

           
My
grandfather once told me at my mother’s funeral that women are the number one
cause of a man’s downfall. I’m beginning to see that he’s right.

JULIET

“Ugh, Chad was here?” Jordana asks in
disgust.

           
I
was just telling her, Cody and Poppy after I left August. He was busy drawing
so I left him once it was clear he was in deep concentration.

           
“He
was very eerie,” I say.

           
“Don’t
even get me started,” Jordana says. “He used to watch me and Poppy and not in
an ‘oh I have crush’ way or even an ‘oh I want to fuck you’. It was borderline
rape, stalker shit.”

           
“Yeah,
he used to give me the heeby sceebies,” Poppy says shivering.

           
“Hugo
definitely wasn’t fond of his arrival,” I tell them.

           
“What
was he even doing here?” Cody asks. “Ms. Eleanor doesn’t keep in touch with
him.

           
“Scarlett
invited him. She, Hugo, and Chad had some meeting. My guess is they are
planning something ruthless,” I inform them.

           
“If
it’s those three, they definitely are and I bet it involves pictures. That’s
what Chad is good for. He should just start his own private eye firm or some
shit, but he’s too lazy and self-loathing,” Jordana says. “He’s bisexual, ya
know?”

           
“Men
can’t be bisexual,” Cody objects while I gape at Jordana.

           
“The
hell they can’t.” Jordana smacks her lips. “But there is also a possibility
that he’s just gay or a sadist. Chad is a sadistic male who likes to have sex
with women, but when he has sex with women he likes to hurt them. He likes
doing that because really he wants to bang guys.”

           
“I
don’t believe it,” Cody says.

           
“Girls
always left here crying with some bruised wrist or marks on their backs when
spending the night with him. I heard the rumors. Girls say he would start off
sexy and sweet, but then he would get too rough and I started to believe them
because my room was next to his and I heard the screams and trust me they did
not sound pleasurable.”