The Cardinal (The Holy Trinity Duet #2) - M.E. Clayton Page 0,3

he hates hearing you assholes beg.”

Constantine’s swollen brown eyes narrowed at me. “You are all going to burn in Hell for all your sins,” he hissed.

“Just our sins?” I asked. “Not yours?” I leaned in closer. “Because, Constantine, my friend, you’re not exactly squeaky clean yourself.”

“But I’m not evil like you,” he fired back.

I smiled.

Little did he know, no one was evil like me.

Chapter 2

Blake~

Mondays were always the worst.

It always felt like I was being punished for the days people took off. It felt like it was my fault that they dared to enjoy their days off, and when Monday rolled back around, it was my fault they were all behind on shit.

It was bullshit.

Now, that’s not to say people shouldn’t take days off from work or enjoy their time off because we all needed that break, but you didn’t have to be an asshole about it come Monday. And if you didn’t want to work on your days off, you should have chosen a less-demanding career. Don’t go into pharmaceutical sales, for Pete’s sake. As one of the largest medical distributors around, Sil-Med was an everyday operation. Those weekends off were just an illusion.

Luckily, my only role at Sil-Med was that of their front-office receptionist. I wasn’t important enough to have to contemplate working my weekends off. For the most part, my job was easy, and I enjoyed it.

Except on Mondays.

Everyone was such an asshole on Mondays. The top salesmen and bosses barked out orders and demands as if I was the sole cause of Saturdays and Sundays. A few of the salesmen even acted like I was their personal secretary sometimes. However, that was something I would always quickly clear up. I was the receptionist for this location and that was it. And there was a big difference between being receptionist, a secretary, and an assistant.

I was a receptionist.

Period.

Though, most days, I really did my best not to complain. The job was a decent one with good pay and affordable benefits. I’d been working for Sid-Med for over three years now and every year came with a raise and every Christmas came with a bonus. This job afforded me my own apartment in a decent neighborhood, though I still felt the need to lock my doors tight at night. Decent did not equal nice. It just meant there weren’t heroin needles littering the sidewalks. It didn’t mean there wasn’t any crime to be concerned about.

However, given the choice of moving into a nice place that I couldn’t afford and having to pepper spray an asshole, I’d rather pepper spray someone than be so broke that I couldn’t enjoy my life a little. I wasn’t a big spender, but I appreciated being able to go out and have drinks with my friends if I wanted and not be worried about the electricity bill at the same time.

My life left little for complaints, except for one thing.

My sister, Caitlin.

Caitlin was my older sister by three years. She was thirty while I was twenty-seven. Raised by a single mother, Naomi Turner had done her best to raise us right. Mom was a hairdresser and with an unsteady income-as with most beauticians-things had been hard growing up. We’d never been homeless or starving, but Mom had sought out government assistance a time or two when we were younger.

Our father, Alvin Turner, had bowed out of the family life when I was three and the bastard never looked back. Oh, sure, Mom had done everything she had been told to do, but how did a single mother collect child support from a man who refused to work?

The answer was simple; she didn’t.

Left to our own devices, we’d grown up as a team. When we’d been old enough, Caitlin and I had gotten afterschool jobs and had helped out as much as we could. It wasn’t until I was a senior in high school that Mom had met Charles Logan and things had started looking up for her. Ten years later, Charles and Mom were married and living a nice, quiet, unassuming life together. Mom was still a hairdresser while Charles was a pharmacy technician.

The only sore spot in our lives was Caitlin. Somewhere between graduating from high school and last year, she’d taken a wrong turn in life and had gotten into some pretty sketchy shit. Though I did my best to shield Mom from the truth of what Caitlin’s been up to, there was no guarantee she wouldn’t find out eventually. Caitlin’s