Read Saved and SAINTified Online
Authors: Tiana Laveen
Saved and SAINTified
First Edition
Copyright 2013 by Tiana Laveen
Edited by Natalie G. Owens
Kindle Edition
ASIN:
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
“I’ve been through a lot of shit.”
Saint grinned wickedly. A swirl of thick, purple smoke escaped the side of his mouth like cigar smolder. It was cool, like London fog, and it stuck out like a sore thumb against his all black ensemble as it spun past—twirling in the air with a life of its own. He lowered his head and smirked, then looked back out toward the dark, rolling Pacific Ocean.
It isn’t easy being a man like me. I want a lot. I do a lot. And wors
t of all, I’m getting a hearty appetite for justice—and all the nastiness that entails. I never thought I’d get used to the violence, the ugliness, but I should’ve known better. I was born into this shit. Seen violence since I could barely walk ... This requires me to do things I never dreamed I’d be involved in, heinous things, but I’m all the way in, you know? There is no turning back. It is no longer an option. I have to do this shit ... and I hate that I love how it fuckin’ feels...
He blew out more copious circles of air; they floated up into the darkened, star
-studded sky as he continued to debate and battle within himself.
I’m standing out here, looking at this water
—this magnificent natural wonder—and thinking how this ocean has so much life and death inside of it. The ocean is like a woman ... a Queen. We come from the protection of water and once removed; we stand on two legs but are destined to fall once we leave her fortification. Yeah, the ocean—it is a breeding ground for new existence, and a tomb for the food chain that swims within it. Such is the circle of life. I guess we are all like that, you know? We are entities that bring life and death to others, in so many wonderful and fucked up ways.
He gripped the steel bars in front of the walkway to the beach, crossed his ankles and slumped slightly as he peered at the jet black, rolling waves.
I accept what is going on completely now. I accept what I have to do. I always go through this—the struggle between just wanting to be a normal person and have a normal life, but I always get roped back in because that’s not even me. My life will never be normal. It was never meant to be run of the mill or ordinary because I’m a peculiar mothafucka, and I attract strange situations and weird ass, brilliant people to me wherever I go.
He shrugged.
I tried to be good, I really did.
H
e laughed lightly, shaking his head.
But these
mothafuckas just won’t let me. This fucked up world, just won’t let me get out of this without spilling some blood ...
He gritted his teeth and gripped the steel beam harder.
... so much damn blood.
Nizsm, you have opened a big ass can of worms and you’ve underestimated me. Don’t fuck with my Queen. Don’t fuck with my sons ... and don’t interrupt my work, my calling. You’ve done all three. You’ve crossed the line
.
He looked back out into the ocean, grinning as his eyes narrowed while he drifted
further into darker thoughts.
My family means the world to me
... my daughter isn’t expendable. The way I care for her mother, my Goddess, will demonstrate how a woman should be treated—what she should expect from her own mate, once she gets of age. How I treat her brothers will show her also how men are supposed to act and behave. I’ve put all this fucking energy into making sure she is healthy, safe and okay, and a mothafucka thinks he can just waltz on in, and erase all that shit ... like her life is his to own and destroy. It’s not. That’s my baby, not yours, you son of a bitch!
S
aint tapped his chest angrily with his index finger.
Any man can go out here and be a father
—but it takes care and love to be a dad.
He shook his head and
stepped away from the beach view. The ocean waves continued to roll and crash. Removing his car keys from his pocket, he began to walk toward his vehicle.
While I was in medical school, I read a lot of Sigmund Freud theories. I thought most of it was bullshit but one stuck in my mind, and I didn’t know why at the time, but now I do.
He unlocked his car door.
It is, ‘I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father's protection.’
And that shit’s true. It’s real. My family needs me to protect them, to keep them safe, and I plan to deliver.
S
aint sat in the driver’s seat, and then started the car. The engine purred.
Daddy’s home, baby
... To my enemy, here’s your wake-up call—the big bad wolf is on the other line and I never dressed in sheep’s clothing. You just had your eyes closed, and that will cost you dearly...
Xenia yawned and stretched her arms as she glanced back at the clock on her nightstand. Not long after, she found herself dozing off, drifting into fragments of odd, inconsequential dreams. Several minutes later, she awoke; startled at the discovery of her sudden slumber that dropkicked her into the land of counted sheep with little to no notice.
“Damn.”
She rubbed her heavy lids and shuffled her legs under the cream, heavy sheets as she turned another page of the perfume sampled magazine leaf. An article caught her eye, causing her to sit straighter against the broad headboard—on full alert. She scanned each line, reading some twice as her finger glided past each sentence in heavy black font.
Interesting. I’ve been thinking about this for a
while and funny how tonight, there is an article right here about it. I rarely buy magazines anymore, seemed like an impulse buy in the checkout lane, but this is really something...
She immediately dog-eared the page, and then continued reading
, absorbing the information like a sponge.
A few minutes later, she heard S
aint approach the bedroom door. His heavy footsteps grew nearer and nearer. Quickly shoving the magazine behind her pillow, she folded her hands over her sheet covered legs, trying desperately to push the words she’d just digested out of her mind. She didn’t want him tipped off to her ideas and half-baked notions for she was too sleepy to have a heavy discussion, especially since it had the potential to resort in an argument. The bedroom door slowly swung open, revealing her husband’s towering image. He stood there briefly, his shirt partially unbuttoned and a black silk tie dangling from around his neck.
“Whew, what a night
! I know I’m late, baby,” he said as he closed the door quietly behind him. “I take it the boys are already asleep by now?”
“Yeah, they fell asleep about an hour ago. Dakarai made you a card
.” Xenia smiled as her head lazily rolled from side to side. “It’s downstairs in the kitchen.” She laughed lightly, nestled further back into her pillow and briefly closed her eyes.
“I just saw it, that was cute
. He made my head awfully big.” He chuckled as he approached her. “Is that how he sees me?”
Xenia
looked up at him, his face less than a half an inch away from hers.
“Give me a kiss
,” he whispered in his deep voice, a slight smile curving his lips. He did not wait for her to answer. She stuck her lips out, forcing their faces to rub affectionately together as Saint pushed his lips harder into hers, demanding the lip lock he sought with gusto. He licked her bottom lip slowly, his lips curved in a roguish grin as he jetted his tongue inside of her mouth then abruptly retreated from her to stand erect. “You’ve been in my Rocky Road ice-cream again,” he said sternly.
“S
aint!” She pounded the bed with both fists as her back lifted from the headboard. “Why do you think you own that ice-cream? Nowhere on the container does it say, ‘
This frozen treat belongs to Saint Aknaten’
. I buy it for all of us.” She laughed as she playfully tried to swat at him, but missed when he stepped back.
“I’ll write that on there with a magic marker, if that is what it will take to keep you and Hassani out of it
.” He laughed and sat down at the foot of the bed, his back to her. “Always eating my shit.”
Xenia
smiled as she looked at the back of him, watched his long, lean body move to and fro as he sluggishly removed his brown shoes and socks. She could tell from his long pauses and sighs as he undressed that he was tired, dead tired, maybe even more so than she was. It had been a long day for both of them and the weeks were jam-packed with work, activities, the children and a never-ending list of duties.
It had been six months since their quixotic honeymoon in
Italy—non-stop with sight-seeing, intense all hours of the day lovemaking and deep discussions about their future. They’d had a wonderful time, it was like a fairy-tale, but as soon as Saint set foot back in the States, the assignments, conferences, small emergencies and obligations came rolling in without a moment to spare. Xenia had wanted to have her own ‘deep discussion’ with him a time or two over the course of their romantic retreat, but the time never seemed right, and tonight provided no window of opportunity, either.
This isn’t a good time. But when is
it so? Never mind. Don’t say anything at all. Hell, you may even change your own damn mind…
“How was work, baby?” S
aint asked as he remained seated and removed his shirt, exposing his muscular back with the infamous angel tattoo.
“Oh, it was busy, but good. Today w
e had the call-in show and the question of the day was, ‘Could you forgive your partner if you found out they’d been fired and didn’t tell you?’”
S
aint sighed and laughed. “Questions like that are misleading.”
“How so?”
“Well.” He shrugged. “A lot of people will say, ‘I’d be pissed or he should have told me,’ but those questions rarely discuss the heart of the issue.” He stood and turned toward her, undoing the button at the top of his black pleated dress pants. “Such as, why in the world would someone keep that from their mate in the first place? The real reasons, you know? Not just the fear of the reaction. What does it all really mean? I don’t think some women understand how devastating that is, especially for a man who is hard working and used to taking care of his family.”