Page 17 of Sainte
After I sit, she asks, “Is something wrong?” She looks at Ice and then me. Neither of us say anything. “Guys, come on. What’s going on?”
Ice stands from his chair, comes around to the front of his desk, and leans against it. “I need to tell you something,” he says, and from the sound of it, he sounds as if he has some great confession to tell her. Why the fuck is it so hard?
“Ice, you’re making a big deal out of nothing. Just tell her.” I’m frustrated. He’s worrying her for no reason.
He shakes his head. “Fine.” He takes Emma’s hand, “Darlin’, I need to tell you about Sainte and his connection to you.”
“Oh God, Caden, please don’t tell me he is my long-lost brother. I think I’ve had enough of long-lost brothers to last a lifetime.”
I can’t help but laugh, and Ice throws me an angry stare. Emma laughs too, and he shoots her the same look. Sometimes, he just has no sense of humor.
“Oh come on, Ice. That was funny.”
“Whatever.” He walks around to the other side of his desk and sits. “Emma, you and Sainte are cousins. He is your father’s nephew.”
Emma looks over at me. “You are? Why didn’t I ever know you?”
“Well, darlin’, in my younger days, I spent a lot of time in juvie. The last time I was at your house, I was eighteen. And that time, I got myself in a lot of trouble and ended up doing real time in jail.”
She looks at me confused. “You couldn’t be much older than Caden…”
“Just by two years.”
“Well, that would have made Caden sixteen. I would have been ten. I should remember you.”
“Yeah, you should, if you had been home. Your mom didn’t want me to come, but your dad couldn’t say no to my mom. Your dad always liked having me around. Your mom, not so much. So your mom took you away that weekend because she didn’t want you associated with someone like me.”
“Oh.” She looks over at Ice and then back at me. “So what were you in jail for the last time?”
“Involuntary manslaughter.”
She takes a deep breath and leans back in her chair. Before she can speak, Ice chimes in. “Emma, that last weekend Sainte was home, he covered for me and kept me out of juvi.”
“What happened?”
“Ice and I had always been good friends. Before I started getting in trouble, I used to come visit all the time, but you were so young, it doesn’t surprise me that you don’t remember me. Right before I came to visit the last time, I had just gotten out for doing some petty theft thing, and I had just turned eighteen.”
“I dug into my stash of fake IDs, and we hit one of the bars in Waterford. I figured small town, low profile… what could happen?” I shake my head and smirk. “If I only knew.”
“What happened?” she asks again.
“We got into a fight. The other guy started it, but unfortunately, he died a few days later, and I was arrested for manslaughter.”
She looks back at Ice. “Why didn’t you get arrested? Or did you?”
“No, darlin’, I didn’t get arrested thanks to Sainte. When they tried to take me in, Sainte stepped up and told them he had no idea who I was and that I had nothing to do with the fight. They believed him.”
“Oh my God.” She sighs. “Why would you do that?”
“Because I had already been through the system, in and out of trouble. I didn’t want to see Caden get caught up in all that.” I rake my hand through my hair. “Besides, I should have been smarter about the whole thing anyway and never should have let the guy get under my skin.”
“So how did you end up with Michael Vitali?”
I laugh. “My dad, your uncle, was one of his dad’s attorneys.” I sit back in the chair. “My dad used to talk about the Vitali family as if they were some type of royalty. He always left me in awe of them. Even when I got older and knew who and what they really were, I still wanted to be a part of it all. So when I got out of jail, I approached Michael and told him he needed an enforcer.” I shrug. “And the rest is Vitali family history.”
“Enforcer?”
I laugh. “Don’t go there, Emma. That’s a question you definitely don’t want to know the answer to.”
