Page 70 of The Saint

“I’m here to make your brother’s life better.”

She turned her dark gaze to me, one brow raised as she looked me over like I was scum. “Says the girl who threatened to kill him if he didn’t comply.”

I shrugged my shoulders, and her mouth dropped open, as if she were surprised at the very thing she’d just accused me of. “Just doing my job.”

“Your job? You make a habit of going around threatening people?”

I leaned a little closer, just to see her reaction. Just to see her shrink away from me like she was scared. “It’s actually my first time.”

The scowl she rocked so well turned into a smirk, and my stomach swirled when I saw it there. “You’re a virgin, eh? My brother popped your cherry?”

Was I on fire? Heat flooded my cheeks, scorching down my throat and threatening to turn my chest to embers. Rather than burying my head in the sand like I wanted to, I turned my embarrassment to anger, the way I’d learned to long ago.

“I’m not interested in your brother.”

Gloria narrowed her eyes. “You look at him like you are.”

“I look at him—” I glanced across the room, to where Alvarez was helping remove the bumper from the Ford pickup that’d caused all the troubles, making the delivery late. When I returned my gaze to Gloria, my own eyes were narrowed. And then it hit me, the reason why she’d hated me from the minute she first saw me.

I opened my mouth to give her the same explanation I gave to Rolly after we’d first met them, after he’d fucked me so hard and so often that first week I’d begun to wonder what had gotten into him.

Jealousy.

That’s what Rolly’s problem was.

And Gloria’s?

This whole time, she was worried about her brother’s heart.

“I look at him like I know his story.”

Her gaze darted to the floor before she dragged it toward Hector. Her concern was written all over her face, and I cringed that I’d missed it before.

The little girl was worried about her big brother, and I knew exactly how that felt.

“He wasn’t always like this.” The words were just a whisper, but even so, I could hear the misery laced among each one.

“Bullshit.”

Gloria snapped her attention to me, that scowl back in place. “What the fuck do you know?”

“I know assholes,” I told her, keeping my voice low. “And I know men like your brother. He’s been this way his whole life, he’s just different now with you. And there’s a reason for that.”

“Oh, yeah? And what would that be?”

“He’s concerned about you. He doesn’t want what happened to her to happen to you.”

She stared at me, and that scowl melted away. For the first time since I’d met her, she looked at me like I was a person instead of her enemy. As uncomfortable as it made me, I forced myself to sit in it. Because showing that discomfort was something I’d learned I could never do.

Gloria lifted her chin. “You have an older brother?”

“Five of them.”

She cringed. “I have three.”

“I know.”

She rolled her eyes, then examined her fingernails. Like she couldn’t be bothered with me anymore.