Page 36 of The Saint

Gone were his drawings. Gone were the paintings, the canvases and pictures that had covered every inch of the room. The easel and the paints, the utter mess that had touched every surface.

His bed was made. The dishes that had filled the sink were missing. If it weren’t for the view of the river outside the window, and the smudge of paint along the sill, I would have thought I’d stepped into the wrong apartment.

Carmen led me to the small table in the corner of the kitchen, then plopped herself down as if the cleanliness of Rolly’s space was nothing new. Once I was seated, she reached across the table and took my hand, a wide smile on her lips.

“Tell me, what have you been up to since you got back?”

Stumbling for words, I watched Rolly wander around his kitchen, rifling through cupboards, pulling things from the fridge. His eyes never once fell on me, and I hated that I was even there. But like some automaton, when I finally spoke, it came out in the coded language I’d learned growing up.

“Oh, you know, lots of time with my family for a while,” I told her. “And for the last couple weeks, I’ve had plenty of time to explore my new home.”

Carmen kept hold of that smile, but it fractured just a bit as she deciphered my words.

For a while, I’d been with my family.

That was the war we weren’t to talk about. The family was D’Angelo’s organization and the men and women who’d stood by my side as we brought down our long-time enemies, the Silvas.

A couple weeks ago, the night I got my stars, D’Angelo told us to lay low. That meant no work. No seeing my men, the family, or anyone else.

I was alone.

And both mother and son understood my words without me saying anything more.

“I’m sure it’s been different,” Carmen offered, “coming here from where you were.”

This time, my smile was the one that grew tight. I looked away, to the corner of the room. I didn’t need the reminder of the farm where I’d lived for two years. I didn’t need her reminding Rolly of the man he’d rightly assumed I’d been with while I was there. “Very different.”

I dug my nail into a gouge on the table in front of me, trying to ignore the heat of her gaze.

“I hear you’re in the city now?”

I nodded, just enough for her to see.

“And you like it? Being back with all the traffic and the people?”

“Yeah, it’s—” Rolly placed a glass of iced tea in front of his mother, then dropped a kiss to her head before he threw a quick glance up at me. “It’s great,” I finished, voice weak but for the anger that was beginning to rise.

“And have you—”

“Mom.”

Carmen looked up at her son, brow furrowed as they engaged in a silent conversation. I sat still through it all, my blood slowing, my muscles hardening to stone. Her brows raised, lips pursed, then she turned a gentle smile my way.

Her hand squeezed mine. “Have you spoken to your mother?”

“No.” I pulled my hand away, burying it in my lap. My gaze once again landed on the corner of the room, on a small spider web on the baseboard.

“I haven’t seen her for years. Not since, well, not for quite some time.” Carmen’s face pulled into the same pained look her son wore.

The tiny black spider crept along the wall, making its way back to its home.

I felt trapped in that web. Trapped in Rolly’s apartment with this woman who…

Had never been anything but kind.

“I’m sorry,” I told her, my voice just above a whisper. “I’m sorry I left the way I did. That I didn’t tell anyone. It was wrong of me, but I couldn’t—”

Sixty-two.