Chloe MJ's Reviews > Saint

** spoiler alert ** My rating for this book: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

My review contains a lot of spoilers :

Virgin heroine
No manwhore ( he didn’t touch a woman since he saw her a year ago)
No cheating
Obsessive / Possessive MMC
Abduction
Abuse
Anal sex
Blood play
Blasphemy
Body mutilation
Branding
Breath play
Biting
Childhood physical assault
Consensual Non-consent
Corpse mutilation
Depression
Dismemberment
Domestic violence
Dubious consent
Drugging (of the FMC by the MMC, as well as others)
Explicit sex
Excessive profanity
Exhibitionism
Fear kink
Knife play
Morally irredeemable MMC
Murder
Organized crime
Primal play
Pregnant woman committing suicide
Restrained sex
Revenge
Sharing of the FMC (yeah but not really I explained below ⬇️)
Spanking
Stalking
Throat fucking
Torture
Trauma
Degradation / Praise kink
Voyeurism ( Saint let Declan his best friend watch while he f*ck Violet in the ass bc she witnessed Declan having threesome)
HEA

This is a dark college romance story. Violet and her boyfriend, Liam, are on their way to a creepy party in Liam's car. Along the road, Liam picks up a masked stranger, who he actually knows-it's his friend. Violet is furious, thinking it's dangerous to pick up strangers because they could be serial killers, but her idiotic boyfriend doesn't listen and treats her like trash.

Suddenly, the car breaks down, and Liam gets out to check what's wrong. While he's outside, the masked man talks to Violet briefly, then steps out to have a conversation with Liam. Moments later, the masked man kills Liam right in front of Violet. What's almost comical is that instead of reacting like a normal person and running away, Violet calmly walks over to Liam's dead body and starts talking to the masked man.
He tells her to run because he wants to play, and we find out that he knows Liam. In fact, he claims that he saved Violet from something much worse that would've happened that night.

It turns out Violet and the masked man had been chatting anonymously in an online app, where she confessed her darkest desires to him. The two engage in primal kinks, with the masked man forcing her to perform oral sex and drugging her afterward to drop her off at home. Despite everything, he doesn't take her virginity in the woods, deciding to save that for another time.

Back at school, Violet runs into Declan and Kole, who ask about Liam's whereabouts. She lies and says she doesn't know. That night, she attends a party organized by Declan, Kole, and their group. She goes there to confirm if Liam is really dead, but Saint, the masked man, sends her a gift-it's Liam's finger. At the party, Violet talks to Liam's brother, who tells her that Liam went away because she dumped him, which isn't true-only Violet knows that Liam is dead.

Violet finds herself alone with Liam's brother when Kole and Nixon show up. Nixon douses her with alcohol and leads her to the bathroom, but they end up in a bedroom where Nixon tries to have sex with her. She refuses, but Saint appears behind her, telling her they're going to play a game. Saint orders Nixon to perform oral sex on her, but in Violet's mind, she imagines it's Saint, not Nixon, and she becomes aroused, despite herself. Just as she's about to orgasm, Saint grabs Nixon by the hair, pulling him away, and kills him because no one touches what belongs to him.

Saint then asks Violet if she enjoyed it. She admits that her body reacted, but she didn't want it-she moaned for Saint, not for Nixon. She tells Saint that she doesn't want to be shared, and Saint "reassures" her that he doesn't share what's his. He claims he was just granting a dying man his last meal before taking what belongs to him. He then gives Violet dismembered body parts of Nixon the next day, further playing with her mind.

Violet is desperate to know who Saint really is, and later in the story (around 32% of the book), she finally learns that Saint is Kole, one of her classmates. She attends a party organized by Declan, where she tempts Kole to know if he’s really Saint, leading to them having rough, primal sex. She loses her virginity to him in a brutal, not-at-all romantic way.

We also learn that Kole is part of Sigma Sin House, an elite group with strict rules and trials based on sins. Violet is actually part of a test Kole must pass to become a full member. Although Kole was already a member, each person must pass seven tests related to the sins. Kole had passed all but envy. When he first saw Violet, he wanted her badly, and Liam noticed. Liam then started dating Violet to torture Kole. Kole had to endure seeing Violet with Liam in order to pass the test. We find out that Liam only dated Violet to test Kole, and Violet was Kole's (Saint's) ultimate weakness. Sigma House forces its members to undergo these trials, where they bargain their freedom and sanity to join. Saint killed both Liam and Nixon because he couldn't stand anyone touching what was his. He even stayed away from Violet for a year, letting someone else (Liam) have her, in order to complete the trial and pass the test.

The way Saint/Kole's mind works is really uncommon. He's insanely possessive, but if he wants to punish his woman, he wouldn't hesitate to "share" her and then punish the person he shares her with—like he did with Liam and Nixon, both of whom he ended up killing. He also wouldn't think twice about letting people watch them have sex, as he did with Declan, as a form of punishment.
However, now that Liam and Nixon are dead, no one is allowed to touch her.

Saint killed Liam because Liam found Violet's conversation on the Dark Desires app, where she talked about her deepest, darkest desires. Liam wanted to act on them, film it, and truly hurt Violet. Saint was so enraged by the idea that Liam would harm her like that, he killed him in a fit of rage!

Kole/Saint’s first kiss was with Violet, although she wasn’t his first time sexually. Still, it was sweet to know that she was his first kiss!

We also learn that Liam had ulterior motives for getting close to Violet—he had a specific reason for wanting to hurt her. Liam’s former girlfriend, Trinity, was someone he used to share with his friends and film during those encounters. These videos were leaked due to a trial Liam was undergoing at Sigma House, even though Sigma House was supposed to keep such things secret. However, Ian Pierce, Declan’s father, who was running for senator, leaked the videos to tarnish Trinity’s reputation because her father was his political rival.

The leak devastated Trinity, and since she was pregnant at the time, she ended up taking her own life. Liam’s family wanted revenge for what happened to Trinity. Unfortunately, before they could act, Saint killed Liam, and now Liam’s brother, Braxton, seeks revenge. He kidnaps both Violet and Declan, and it’s revealed that the two are actually siblings. Braxton’s plan is to hurt Violet to get back at Ian Pierce.

Saint ultimately saves both Declan and Violet, and they kill Braxton. Since Braxton and Liam are considered traitors to Sigma House, nobody can seek revenge on Saint. In Sigma House, killing another member without a valid explanation results in severe punishment, but because Liam and Braxton betrayed the fraternity, Saint is safe—no one can touch him.

There’s a bonus epilogue on the authors website where Kole "asks" Violet to marry him and she said yes.

Overall, I loved the book, but I wish we had learned more about Kole’s stepfather and his mother. Their relationship is completely toxic—his mother is terrified of his stepfather, and she’s also afraid that Kole might hurt Violet.