Page 16 of The Saint

Rolly stood on the metal fire escape, his attention on the Queensboro bridge in the distance. The salty brine coming off the river brought with it memories I was none too happy to relive. A simpler time, when my best friend and I swam in the ocean. When the distance between us was nothing but a thin slip of water against our skin.

Shaking off those memories, intent to leave it all behind, I spun on my heel, ready to walk off. Only, I stopped, my gaze falling upon the canvas Rolly was working on.

It was a painting of the Queensboro bridge, the dark sky lit with lightning, enough light thrown on the deep waves sloshing in the East River below to show the danger that lurked within. It was beautiful. I could admit that, even though something in me lit with fear at the sight of the storm.

But the bridge, the storm, the tumultuous river underneath? They were merely decoration to the unfinished piece.

Atop the bridge laid the naked body of a woman. Arms draped over the trusses near Roosevelt Island, legs spread out toward Queens, bare breasts pressed to the sky, soaking in the rain and the lightning as if it were stealing her life. Her face, tilted toward the skies over Manhattan, was nothing but an open mouth and a curtain of long, dark hair.

Discomfort wove through me. The fear of the storm turned to dread.

“You’re in my way.” Rolly’s deep voice startled me, and I jumped, twisting in my spot, stumbling backward until I fell to the floor. The notebook tumbled from my grip, landing at his feet.

Opened to that page.

Rolly’s face pinched, and he set his paintbrush down before extending his hand toward me.

Instead of taking it, I scrambled backward, my head shaking, my eyes dashing between him and the book. “It wasn’t like that,” I told him, a plea in my throat, finger pointing at the picture.

That picture.

The only one in there that didn’t tell the truth.

Rolly’s brow pinched as he looked down at his feet where it lay. Then his gaze was back on me, dragging across my body. As if he were judging me. As if he were comparing me to the naked beauty he’d painted on canvas.

A beauty I could never be.

The anger and hurt I felt from five years ago came rushing back, and any hope I might have had of talking to him was gone.

I scrambled to my feet, clutching at the strap of my bag, my anger gaining more strength as his eyes held steady on my chest, not my face.

Once again, I wanted to hurt him the way he was hurting me. I wanted to push him. Shove him. Make him see I wasn’t the girl he once knew. That Lev had no hold on me.

That the world would care if he were gone.

“It wasn’t like that,” I repeated, then spun around and rushed away.

5

ROLLY

“Are you listening to me at all?”

I glanced over to find Zee standing halfway across his kitchen from me, looking like he was about to lunge for the door to the other room. It took a long moment for his question to register in my mind. For me to pull myself out of my head, away from my concerns for Mrs. T and her new daytime helper, and back into the kitchen where I sat.

“I’m fine,” I told him, rubbing the ache in my shoulder. The ache that had been getting worse over the past week.

“You’re obviously not,” Zee told me, gaze narrowed on my hand. I forced it back to the table in front of me. “And that’s not what I asked.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“You don’t?” As if he’d decided I no longer posed a threat, that I was present enough not to grab for a gun and shoot at him for startling me out of my daze, Zee stepped forward with his hands on his hips. “Why don’t you start with the truth? Why don’t you tell me why I had to hear it from some neighborhood kid that you’ve been out there playing ball against my direct orders?”

“Zee—”

“You pull this shit at work too? And before you answer, I want you to remember who I am and what I can do.”

Zee was Dr. Zeno Fierro. A lieutenant in my uncle’s syndicate. A friend of the family who could make my life a living hell.