Vow of Hell by Clara Elroy
Saint
“Alittle present for a successful launch by the three of us.” Eliana held out a funky-looking gift bag, neatly tied with a red silk bow.
“Oh my gosh, you didn’t have to get me anything.” Ariadne’s eyes lit up as we settled on a blue suede couch at Bella’s, opposite Leo, Eli, and Ares. “But thank you so much.” She gathered the bag in her hands, waiting until I sat next to her to open it.
I could’ve sworn the place looked different the last time I was here. Leo kept reinventing the decor every few years. With clubs and restaurants, you had to keep the customers on their toes, so they wouldn’t get bored. He was adamant about not letting this place fail, and it was going well for years now. Not that he needed the money, he was a fucking oil tycoon and probably wiped his ass with cash when he run out of toilet paper, but I knew there was sentimental value behind Bella’s.
We used to hang out here at least once a month, and I showed up religiously for the dancing performances they did where the girls wore next to nothing. There was one going on right now, but the only one my dick got hard for these days was Ariadne. Even the voyeur club was moot. I might’ve glanced at the couple once, maybe twice. It should concern me, yet I couldn’t find it in me to care.
“Are you kidding me? The site crashed, and you sold out in under ten minutes.” Eliana pouted. “I didn’t manage to grab anything for myself.”
Leo grabbed a bottle of Armand de Brignac from an ice bucket, pouring some for us. “She’s not lying. My finger almost fell off refreshing the page. It was a team failure.”
“You should’ve just told me. I’ll send you one of our leftover PR packages, we have plenty to go around,” Ariadne offered, her tongue peeking out as she struggled to untie the present. “Ina snatched two already."
“How does it feel to fuck someone smarter than you?” Leo slid a glass of champagne my way, and Aria coughed out a laugh.
“I’m guessing the same way it feels to fuck someone prettier and more talented than you.”
“Pretty fucking fantastic, huh?” His laugh turned into a cough when Eli side-eyed him.
She wasn’t bothered by her husband’s crude language but apologized to Aria, who wasn’t used to his shit. “Please excuse him. He's a special needs type of guy. No matter how many times we go over his training, he still manages to say the wrong thing.”
My girl took it in stride. “Don’t worry about it. Saint’s training just started, but he’s proving to be just as challenging.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but Ares beat me to it, shaking his head as he lounged back on the couch, his signature leather jacket on even inside the club. “I’ve never been more glad to be single than this very moment.”
“Don’t worry, honey,” Eli cooed, patting his cheek. “Your time will surely come soon.”
“Is this a… a…” I heard Aria stutter, and I turned to find her looking down at the bag with a frown on her face.
It took me a second to glance at the contents when staring over Ari’s head gave me a great view of her rack in her cardigan-like top. It looked like some weird mini glass sculpture at first. I pieced all its compartments together pretty fast. The mouthpiece, followed by the smoke chamber that led to a wide base, didn’t leave any room for doubt.
“A bong, really?” I deadpanned, eyeing the three of them.
“It was Eliana’s idea.” Ares ratted her out.
“Sure was.” She gave a proud nod. “Just a little something to get you to relax. I remember how stressed I was before and after opening my dance studio.”
“Epsom salts, a massage, a spa day.” I checked off an imaginary list. “There were plenty of other alternatives.”
“I love it!” Aria ignored me and subtly elbowed me when I chuckled. I bet she hadn’t even seen one live until now. “Don’t be mean. We’re cracking into this thing together as soon as you gather the rest of the supplies.”
“Are you asking me to break the law with you, Mrs. Fleur?” I crowded her, and her hand flew to my thigh under the table, a smile on her luscious lips.
“Seemed like she’s asking you to break the law for her from where I’m standing. Smoking pot is not illegal. Buying is, in Astropolis,” Ares ruined the moment.
Eliana clapped her hands, and it was almost inaudible over the Rihanna song pounding through the speakers. “Okay guys, you argue about that. I need to go to the bathroom. Aria, are you coming?”
Of course, she went. I didn’t know what it was with girls and going to the bathroom in packs. The guys didn’t wait long to bounce on my case when they left. “You seem pretty happy.”
“Why wouldn't he be?” Leo asked rhetorically. “He finally got the girl, and his revenge plan is in motion as we speak.”
“I didn’t finally get the girl. The girl has been mine all along,” I bypassed his last sentence, choosing not to tempt God by thinking about it. Everything was set up and ready to go. Now it was all on daddy dearest to take the bait.
“Right, and Ivana Trump really married for love,” Leo countered.
“We know you, Saint. The last time you were in a serious relationship was in two-thousand and never. It didn't take much to figure out Ariadne wasn't really your choice.” Ares emphasized Leo’s assessment, and I knew there was no fooling them.
“She's my choice now, asshats.” I gave in, knowing they wouldn’t shut up about it, and I didn’t want them mentioning it in front of Ari.
Spitfire walked into my life like she always belonged in it, broke down my walls, and made a competitive sport out of smoking out my demons. I was fooling myself by thinking I could stand watching her with someone else, letting some fucker touch all the parts of her that were uncharted territories before me, and not carve out his intestines like a sheep after slaughter. The mere thought sent my brain down a rage rampage.
I was throwing all of my worries out the window because the feeling of being with Ariadne trumped all the reasons why we shouldn’t be together. Yes, I was way older than her, so fucking what? She acted nothing like a twenty-one-year-old. Sure, people cheated. I’d cut off anyone the dick of any guy that came within a mile of her. And fuck, I wasn’t her first choice, but I would make sure to be her last.
“We can see that otherwise, you wouldn’t be sitting here while your daddy is about to get the shock of his life.” Leo brought me back to the present.
I only hoped she wouldn’t run screaming when I told her that my father was on his way to a hospital bed, and I was the reason why.
I primed my mouth to respond when a loud pop had me swallowing my words. My body turned rigid as everyone froze at the reverberating sound that reminded me a whole fucking lot of a gunshot. I leaned forward, my head doing a three-sixty to see if anyone was down, bleeding, or if someone had a gun on their hands.
Ari. Ari. Ari.
I couldn’t see her anywhere, and some of the tension between my shoulder blades ebbed away when I saw that she wasn’t anywhere near the culprit. But then… we didn’t fucking know where the culprit was. Fear mixed with adrenaline sparked in my veins, and the three of us stood up at the same time.
“What was that?” Ares voiced his concern, looking towards where the girls had left.
“It came from the back.” I realized, my brain working in slow motion.
“Eliana.” Leo went pale, and the same panic that gripped his face I could feel, squeezing my heart.
There was a collective quiet, and we stared at each other before scrambling to move. Everyone had the same idea, but where people were pushing for the exit, we were leading deeper, toward the bathrooms. My tall build allowed me to eat the distance faster, shoving people out of the way.
A sense of dejavu took over while walking to the place where Aria had seen me with another woman—I pressed it down, focusing on the matter at hand. Dread crept up on all four corners of the hallway when I latched onto the hole in the bathroom door. Rushing forward, I didn’t give a shit what might be waiting for me on the other side. I busted the door open.
Eliana was the first person I saw, trying to right herself on the floor. Leo was already storming in behind me, so I let my eyes search the room until I found Ari.
My blood ran cold when I saw her, a much larger body pressing hers to a stall, her feet swinging in the air and face red as she was held up by her neck. My brain short-circuited, and I flew toward the soon-to-be-dead man, hauling him off her by the shoulders. He tumbled to the ground, and Aria dropped to her feet, dry-heaving.
“Baby.” I lowered myself next to her, and her eyes flashed with warning over my shoulder.
I spun around, dodging a fist to my face, my control snapping like a rubber band when I recognized her loser ex as I slammed him against the tiled floor for a second time.
My pulse raced.
My eyes burned.
He groaned, and I needed to hear more of his pain. The pent-up anger, worry, and fear uncurled with a swipe of my muscles and I was on the asshole in seconds fully intending to tenderize his meat until I could cut him up and use his skin as decoration.
“Stop. Sto—” he gurgled, his voice bottoming out when I delivered a blow to his lips, blood spraying across my knuckles.
I took it in stride, enjoying how the red glimmered under the fluorescent lights, allowing myself to lose my train of thought in slamming my fist on his face until he was as bruised as Ari’s face had been when he was choking her. Welts on his skim bloomed purple like an opium poppy, and my ears rang, distorting all the noise around me.
All I could hear was the wet crunch of his skin and faded screams into the background that fueled my bloodthirst. I wanted to check on Aria but eliminating any threats against her got priority.
“The first time you went looking for her, there were no consequences for your actions.” I fisted his shirt, watching as his head hung limply in the air, before slamming his skull against the floor. “This time I won’t fucking stop until you’re unable to think her name, let alone speak it.”
“Virginal Ariadne isn't as good as you think.” He still fought even though I was an inch away from cementing him to the floor.
“I'm going to rip your tongue off if you don't shut the fuck up." Saliva mixed with his life source at the edges of his mouth as he writhed beneath me. “Or you know what? Make it harder for yourself. Struggle.”
He gave a few tired swings that were completely aimless; I doubted he could see much. His eyes were starting to swell. Something glimmered in my peripheral vision and I flicked my eyes there, seeing the weapon he intended to use on Ari. A black pistol sitting abandoned a few feet away.
He wasn’t here to intimidate her.
He was here with the sole intention of killing her.
My wife, the woman that pierced through the fog of my inhibitions a little at a time until the warmth of her sunshine had me shuddering at the thought of losing everything that came with her. And this motherfucker thought he could steal that away from me? Tough luck.
I reached for the firearm when he started speaking again. “Did she tell you she has a tape where she does all sorts of interesting things? Like suck my dick like a whore—”
I brought the butt of the gun to his forehead, and the thump that echoed ricocheted through the room. Everything sat deathly still, and all the background noises ceased.
What the fuck did he say?
My muscles shook with barely controlled rage as someone tried to shake me off from behind. I felt hands on my shoulders for the past few minutes now, but only now did they register as they clawed underneath my arms, Ari’s panicked voice breaking through the film in my ears.
“Saint, oh god, stop.”
“We're in public,” a harsher male voice whispered in my ear as he struggled to haul me off, dragging me to my feet. “You don't want to kill him while we're in public.”
“The police are on their way.” Someone else screamed in the background, but I wrote them all off, shaking the foreign grips off me, and turning to Aria, my body sore from the excessive violence that coursed through my veins.
“Are you okay?” I asked her, my fingers slightly trembling to touch her. The purpling marks on her neck and the handprint on her face had me gearing to beat the shit out of the moaning son of a bitch on the floor all over again.
She leaned against a stall door, looking fucking exhausted, but I didn’t get closer than need be. Her eyes were flighty, bouncing everywhere, forcing me to take in the room with her. The piece of shit was unconscious on the floor, bleeding underneath my designer loafers, Ares was talking to the security as they tried to evacuate the few brave customers that were trying to peek in, and Leo was holding a wide-eyed Eliana, who except for getting the shock of her life, appeared to be fine physically.
“I-I'm fine. He didn’t manage to hit me, or Eliana,” Aria said, hugging her stomach, and I stepped in front of the loser, so she wouldn’t have to look at him.
“I think I’ve seen him before.” Eliana pipped in; her eyes wide. “That day at the La Perla boutique. He was there the same time we were.”
The same day I popped her cherry and fucked her on the bathroom floor, with that damned bruise on her head. Things were unraveling, and I wasn’t liking the conclusions my mind was reaching.
A tape.
Nostrils flaring, I turned back to Aria, whose fire had distinguished. “What was he talking about?”
Her throat bobbed, the forming bruises on her skin dancing with the movement. “I promise I'll explain everything.”
You better, Ariadne or I don’t see this ending well for either of us. And most of all fucking Larry, because instead of unconscious, he’s going to be dead if I find out you’ve been fooling around behind my back.
* * *
"Saint, I'm sorry about tonight—"
I let the door slam shut behind us, cutting off whatever she had to say. I'd heard enough and nothing at all tonight. I wanted to know more, but I didn’t think I could escape the trip to jail. I hoped they locked me up with her loser ex, so I would finish the job I started.
The version she gave the police was that he was just a bitter ex that had trouble moving on and while that was true, I knew it was only part of the equation after putting two and two together. I kept my mouth shut, playing the mummy when she talked with the officers. A storm was brewing inside me, the words sex tape being carried by the whistling wind of the unparalleled envy and mistrust blowing past every logic.
"Were you even a virgin?" I bit out as I blazed towards the kitchen because obviously, my priorities were set straight.
But why the fuck lie? About everything.
She followed in my tracks, desperation rolling off her in waves. "I was. You know I was. You saw the blood."
"Maybe you were on your period."
"You’re reaching, and you know it." She raised her voice, and I searched the freezer for some frozen peas to avoid taking her over my knee to get her to understand what would happen when she lied to me.
I was teetering the edge between cracking my palm against her flesh for some behavioral lessons and licking her marred skin, so she felt better.
I was completely bipolar when it came to this girl.
"Fucking excuse me for reaching to conclusions when you tell me you're a virgin, but then turns out you have a sex tape." I dripped ice and menace when I turned around, shoving the bag to her chest.
Vulnerable eyes tracked my movements as I grabbed myself a whole bottle of whiskey, not bothering with glasses, downing a doppio when she sat on the counter, wincing as she pressed the bag to her neck.
"There was no penetration on the tape." She fumbled with her fingers, her eyes downcast. "I don't even know if you can call it a sex tape. He just had footage of me in a compromising position. I was, uh, giving him hea—"
Another wave of alcohol worked down my throat like medicine. "Spare me the details. When did this happen? Was it before you threw yourself all over me on Thanksgiving or while we were together? I might have to get tested for STDs."
My last comment was uncalled for, but my wings as I knew them were melting off, turned out they were nothing but an illusion she'd fabricated. I had to hand it to Ariadne. She had me believing that this was real.
"The tape was filmed before we were together. Harry broke up with me the day we played pool because I wouldn't put out." She didn't retaliate verbally, and that annoyed me. "He started blackmailing me in exchange for cash and his job back soon after that, though."
"And you didn't tell me when it first happened because?"
"Shame? Fear? Take your pick. It's not the easiest thing in the world to admit, and I handled pretty okay myself—"
"You handled it okay?" I let out a bitter chuckle. "What if Eliana goes to early labor because of this? Will you still feel like you handled it okay?"
I didn’t imagine getting shot at was healthy for the baby. She accepted Ari’s apologies, but Leo was close to tearing a hole through every wall.
"I meant I got rid of the footage."
"How?"
"I hired a hacker from the dark web."
"You what?" That made me wanna hurl the bottle to the wall, a few inches away from her face.
“It worked out, he wiped his hard drive, and Harry was left with nothing. I paid him extra to tip off the police that he was dealing drugs online, and I guess when he realized it, he came after me.”
"So let me get this straight." I paced the empty hall, ready to tear shit down for being so blind. "You went through all this trouble, spent your money, hired a hacker, lied to everyone about what was going on for months, and begged me to get him his job back with Ares, knowing full-well what kind of a cunt he was?"
Aria squirmed when I turned to her. “It sounds bad when you put it like that.”
My left eye twitched, and I couldn’t hold back. “It’s fucking horrible, juvenile, and stupid. You put all of us at risk today because you—”
“Because I what, Saint?” She hopped off the counter, squaring up to me. “Because I was blackmailed? Because I didn’t want anyone to see Harry’s revenge porn? I admit. I could’ve gone about it a different way. I could’ve talked to someone, but I am also a victim. There was no end to his daily threats, and I felt so fucking exposed, alone, and violated.”
Her words inspired a cloud of violence, blurring my vision. Guilt, thick and palpable turned my insides to slime until my breathing turned labored. “What else did he do? When you told me you hit your head while changing, was that true?”
She bit her lip. “Are you sure you want to know? You’ll be sent to jail too if you go after him this time. The self-defense excuse won’t hold.” A growl from the back of my throat burst forth, and she shook her head, wiping her hands on jeans. They were ripped at the knee, and I didn’t remember them being like that when we left the house this evening. “All right, all right, I’ll tell you.”
Maybe I should’ve heeded her warning because when she was done, I was clutching my hair in my hands, pulling so hard it hurt since the alternative was hurting someone else that was out of reach right now.
Car chases. Guns. I was looking at my wife through fresh eyes, not knowing her at all. At least she had the bare minimum of common sense and brought Nyx and Erebus along to most of her meetings, but the fact that he roughed her up three times, right under my fucking nose, would haunt me for the rest of my life.
“Fuck, Aria.”
“What are you thinking?”
“Whether I want to throttle you, drive to county jail and plummet the jackass’s face, or fucking lock you in a room where no one will find you and hurt you again.”
Her shock was audible at my last point, and I faced away when she neared, her hands going around my tense shoulders.
“You could just hold me.” She sounded so fucking breakable, I almost fell on my knees to give her what she wanted. I was conflicted, fucking torn on how to deal with the blatant lies she had no qualms about telling me with a straight face.
Through the haze of lust, flesh hitting flesh, and droplets of water on bare, tantalizing skin, I remembered how easy it was for her to fabricate an entire story because she didn't trust me.
I shrugged her off, moving away from the aisle. “And I’d love it if my wife hadn’t lied to me for months while sleeping under my roof and demanded a monogamous relationship where we genuinely gave this a shot. Well, newsflash Ariadne, it doesn’t work if you don’t trust me.”
“The only reason I didn’t tell you was because I was scared you’d leave me.” She pushed past me, blocking my way, the pupils in her caramel eyes dilated. “I didn’t want to lose you, Saint. I really like you. I-I lo—”
“Don’t." I bit out harshly. "You don't think so lowly of someone you love. You don't think they're going to leave you because of something that happened before you even met. I'm fucking offended that's the kind of guy you think I am, Ari. No better than your ex if I was going to throw you out because a motherfucker was blackmailing you."
I could see the rise and fall of her chest getting faster now. She wrapped her hand around her neck, looking at me like she was scared I'd disappear.
And she was right.
Two parts of myself were battling for dominance. One wanted to chain her to the bed and lay with her until I was sure cunty Harry would rot in jail for years to come, and the other needed some space. Except for the fingerprints on her neck, Aria was fine. I made sure of that after I threatened the medics to make sure she had no holes in her body, otherwise, I would put some in theirs.
"Saint, please, I would never put you in the same category as him. I love you. I do." Aria tried to hug me, but I held her back by her arms, ignoring the tears in her eyes at my rejection.
One thing I knew for sure; I was a goner for this girl. Even at her lowest, she looked so gorgeous my body was screaming to just give in, but I couldn’t think straight right now. My phone was buzzing in my back pocket, reminding me that this night was far from over.
I had to deal with real-life karma.
"Ice your neck and face like the paramedics said, Ariadne. You have painkillers in the first drawer on the right." I moved her out of the way, her eyes sticking to my every move.
"You’re leaving?" Ari’s tear-thickened voice called me a bastard in all the languages of the world, including fucking Javascript, but I would deal with her later.
I didn’t have the mental capacity to be extinguishing fires from every corner of my life right now.