CHAPTER NINETEEN

S aint…

Fish on.

I stared at the two words on my screen and chuckled. She worked fast. I’d expected it to take longer. I looked up and over at Cypress, Bennie, and Collier. We were at Velina’s apartment in California, packing up everything that even remotely looked like clothes or anything sentimental. The furniture would stay – the rest was going into bins and into the back of the club’s crash truck. We’d store the shit in my attic for now or at the club. Whichever. It didn’t matter to me…

Except it did.

I would rather store it at my place, the Bayou Baroness’ words lingering in my ears about Velina and I being some kind of a good match.

I didn’t think she was wrong – the only problem?

I was a saint in name only, and that name was tongue in cheek at best.

I was a jealous fucker, and I didn’t know how well or how long I could deal with her cozying up with those sons of a bitches.

“Yo, Saint, I think we’re done here,” Collier called out, and I sighed, looking around. Everything was emptied – the cupboards, bookshelves, closets… everything that wasn’t nailed down or was too bulky was left – so pretty much all the furniture. We took the bed. She would need that – but everything else? The couch, the small dining set? The old, outdated, too-small television?

Nah.

There was no need for any of it.

“Let’s go,” I said, putting on my sunglasses, and we left her tiny apartment behind.

It’d been a depressing place. Most of her books on her little shelf were text books… some true crime.

All of that had been packed, but the box truck still had room to spare, and the pickup we’d brought? No need for it at all.

She led a simple life, like she was afraid to put down roots, and I wondered about that. But that would be for a game of quid pro quo in person after we got back.

I didn’t answer her text. I told her that as soon as she sent anything, to delete it. For the purposes of Velina’s character, Louise, her daddy was alive and well and how my number was saved in her phone.

That was her story and she was to stick to it.

As for my phone? It was just Velina… and a picture I’d snapped in secret of her smiling as she skimmed the picture frames and art in a thrift.

I sighed and thought about that picture and had to admit, even if it was only to myself, I hardly knew her, but I was head over heels for her already.

Damn.