Page 27 of The Saint

I did everything in my power to keep the different parts of my life separate.

Natalia, my childhood friend.

Jael, the girl I’d imagined myself being with for the rest of my life.

My family.

The family attached to my family. My uncle’s organization, and all the troubles it brought.

It was something my mother had taught me. Keeping the family separate from the other parts of her life. She might have been the younger sister of Paulo D’Angelo, one of the most powerful men in the world, but she strived for good wherever she could.

From working with battered women and other charities to taking me to art lessons or basketball practice as a kid.

I’d watched her travel between the different worlds we lived in so seamlessly, and I wanted to do the same.

Instead of telling her that, I said, “I didn’t feel right talking about it.”

Jael let out an audible sigh, sitting back against the couch. Her fingers were back at the side of her head, playing with the short ends of her hair. Rubbing her fingertips over the ends as if it soothed her.

“What’d you do to your hair?” I asked after watching her for a long, quiet moment.

She turned to me, eyes wide, fingers stalled in their path from her temple to behind her ear. Then she smoothed her hand against her head once more before tucking it into her lap.

“Tessa,” she said, as if that somehow explained it. Tessa Silva had been one of Jael’s charges the past two years she was away, but that was all I knew about her time at the farm.

When I raised my eyebrow at her, she dipped her head. “Tessa got the hair brained idea that I needed to color my hair.” She fingered her locks again. “She colored hers blue, and Queenie’s already looks pink.”

Jael shifted in her seat and her lips flattened into a straight line.

“What color did you go for?”

Her jaw clenched, her chest stilled as she held her breath. Her already straight back straightened even more.

“She told me she was going to dye it green. Just a little, so we could see how it looked.”

A chuckle tumbled free. “I take it you didn’t like it?”

“She bleached my hair!” she said, voice loud in the quiet of her apartment. She raised her hands in front of her face, staring at them as if they had offended her. When she spoke again, her voice was back to the controlled tone she always used. “She bleached it. Said the color wouldn’t stick on my dark hair.”

“Did it look okay?”

Jael scowled, though the look didn’t stay. “I cut it off before she could get that far.”

“Why?”

“She ruined my hair!”

“So you shaved it off?”

Those lips pursed, turning into a white line. “Shut up.”

There was no containing my laughter. It had been far too long since I’d been subjected to Jael’s quirks, and it felt like a breath of fresh air.

She grabbed the pillow from beside her and tossed it at my head. The ice pack tumbled from my hand as I tried to grab the pillow, and it fell to the floor with a wet splat.

We both leaned forward to get it at the same time. Our heads bumped together and I froze, looking up at her.

“You okay?” she asked, too quiet, too calm.