Page 25 of The Saint

But instead, his hands gripped the armrests, and he turned his face toward the windows.

And I was sure he already knew.

“Eli David has another family in Tel Aviv,” I said slowly, and Rolly’s lips pursed. “Did you know, he’s taken another wife? That I have five more half-siblings on the other side of the Atlantic?”

I scooted to the edge of the couch, tossing my ice pack aside so I could get up and pace. I needed to blow off some steam. I needed to run, to beat the pavement with my feet.

To ground myself by connecting with the earth.

But one look from Rolly’s ocean eyes had me stopping before I could put pressure on my foot.

I grabbed the ice pack, but I didn’t sit back.

“He told me he knew Eytan and Paz weren’t his, but he loves them anyway and is proud that they share his name. And though I’m not sure I believe him, he promised me I’m his. That it was the last time he and my mother were ever together. But three of my half-siblings are older than me, Rolly. They’ve both been living this lie my entire life, and that's the way I found out.”

Sucking in a breath, I squeezed my eyes shut. “I… felt betrayed. By you. By them. And I couldn’t just come back home. I couldn’t walk back into my life as if none of this ever happened. So, I stayed in his house for a week, hating every moment. Then I joined the IDF and never looked back.”

My brother, Arik, had led the way. He’d left the States when he turned eighteen and joined the Israeli Defense Force, using our dual citizenship as a way in. When he came home, he took my father’s place in our lives.

A place that had always been occupied by him, anyway.

Eli David was a busy man. With each passing year, he spent less and less time in our home, and more in Tel Aviv where he worked. I was eight when Arik went away, and by the time he came home, I was just happy to have a father figure back in my life.

Arik took care of our family. And when he turned twenty-six, D’Angelo made him a lieutenant.

An honor I later found had once belonged in, and was later stripped from my father’s hands.

When I turned eighteen, when I learned the truth about my parents, Arik was the only one I felt I could look up to. I wanted to walk the path he had already trod, to take the easy road where action meant more than all the horrible things I was feeling.

All the things I didn’t want to deal with.

I’d rather shrivel up and die than talk freely about my feelings. But before I could curl in on myself and turn away, two warm hands slid down my back, pulling me forward.

A wave of calm flooded through me as Rolly’s arms wrapped tightly around me. It felt so good, so right, that I immediately threw my arms around him. With my face buried in the side of his neck, I let out a shuddering breath.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered to him. “What I did was stupid and wrong, and if I could take it all back, I would. I lost the best thing that ever happened to me when I left, and I know I’ll never get it back.”

Rolly’s arms tightened around me, and it felt so good I thought I could cry. I hadn’t allowed myself that since I was a child, and I wasn’t about to start.

The storm inside of me calmed even as it continued to roll outside. I was in the safest place I could ever be.

“I’m sorry, Rolly,” I murmured, holding him tight. “I’m so, so sorry.”

His hand smoothed over my hair, and he spoke the three words I’d been dying to hear.

“I forgive you.”

7

ROLLY

Forgiven, but not forgotten.

That’s what I told myself as I knelt in front of the girl who broke my heart. It’s what I repeated in my head as I held her in my arms and ensured she was okay. As I picked up the phone and called Zee. As the doctor arrived to check her out.

I needed a steel cage around my heart to protect it. Jael David was the first and only girl I’d ever loved, and I didn’t trust her not to break my heart again.

“You did good, kid,” Zee told me, tapping me on my arm with the back of his hand. “I’m not pleased you fucking carried her home, but you did good by calling me. Take care of yourself.”