Page 4 of Saint's Preciosa
I bite my lip, trying not to cry. This is why I can't quit the spa, no matter what Popov demands. Why I work seven days a week and still barely scrape by. Why I'll probably have to work this weekend's “party," despite every instinct screaming against it.
"Something's wrong with Paco," Abuela says once she catches her breath, stroking the dog's head. "He makes this noise when he tries to breathe. Like he can't get air."
I kneel to examine our little companion. Sure enough, when he gets excited at my attention, he makes an odd gasping sound, his tiny body straining. He needs a vet. Another expense we can't afford.
"First me, now Paco," Abuela says with grim humor. "We are falling apart, our little family."
I take her hand, feeling the bones prominent beneath paper-thin skin. "We're surviving. That's what matters."
One day at a time. That's all I can manage.
As I reheat the soup listening to Abuela's worsening cough and Paco's labored breathing, I allow my mind to wander to more indulgent thoughts. Pleasant ones. Thoughts that stir my blood. Like dark brown eyes that seemed to stare into my soul. And a deep voice calling mepreciosa.
Chapter2
Saint
The Glock 19 disassembles smoothly in my hands, muscle memory taking over as I clean each part with practiced precision. One by one, I lay the components on the cloth spread across the table in our club's armory. I've done this hundreds of times—weapon maintenance is part of my responsibility as Sergeant at Arms for the Shadow Reapers.
But today my mind isn't on the task. It keeps wandering back to those dark eyes, long black braid, and soft voice.
Those eyes. Scared but defiant. Frightened but fierce.
An electric charge sizzled through the air between me and that woman outside the bar last night.
Girl,really, and way too young for me, I remind myself.
But something in me recognized something in her—a kindred spirit fighting against impossible odds.
"Preciosa," I mutter under my breath as I reassemble the Glock with quick, efficient movements.
"You say something, hermano?" Hawk asks from across the room where he's checking inventory on our ammunition supplies.
"Nah." I slide the magazine home with a satisfying click, then rack the slide. "Just thinking out loud."
"You've been doing that a lot this morning," Blade adds, the hint of a smirk playing at the corner of his mouth. "You got something going on we don't know about, Saint.”
Saint—the road name the club gave me when I patched in. An ironic nod to my Catholic upbringing, my last name, and the large Our Lady of Guadalupe tattoo that covers my back. Or maybe they thought it was a funny sort of irony calling a man with so much blood on his hands "Saint."
"Someone, not something," I correct, surprising myself with the admission.
Hawk's eyebrows shoot up as he sets down the ammo crate he's been counting. "No shit? Saint Santiago got himself a little sugar?”
I give him the finger and curse at him in Spanish without looking up.
He laughs, unfazed. "Whoever she is, she must be special to get under your skin like that.”
The armory door swings open before I can respond, and Ghost strides in, his massive frame blocking the light. As President of the Shadow Reapers MC, Axel "Ghost" Morrison has a presence that commands attention even when he's silent. Right now, his steel-gray eyes are studying us with uncomfortable intensity.
"Church in five," he announces.
I nod, returning the weapons to their proper storage. Club meetings—church, as we call them—typically mean trouble brewing, and from the look on Ghost's face, this one's serious.
* * *
We assemble around the heavy wooden table in our chapel—the club's private meeting room. Hard faces of hard men who have seen too much, done too much.
The smell of leather and stale cigarette smoke hangs in the air. Years of defiance are embedded in the very walls.
