“I got hit, but I managed to hide.” Ezra continued his story. “Like I said, I’d been a bit away from the group. There was a lot of confusion at the time. We really were in a bad area. One controlled by rebels. We were in unfamiliar terrain and when the shooting started, everything was confusing. I was hit and dragged myself behind a rock. I passed out at one point and it was all over when I woke up. Someone must have come out later and set the fires to cover what happened. I was found by some local who took me in, patched me up and hid me for days until Kim sent someone to get me out.”
His brother had come so close to death. “And who was that?”
“Brother Francis Bruno,” Ezra said, his eyes shining in the lights from overhead. “He was with a group of surgeons risking their lives in the area to help people. So many people risked their lives and their careers to help me. The brother got me through rehab. He helped me learn Italian. Between him and Kim, they got me the documents I needed to stay in Italy and go to seminary. Turned out, I was really good at that. I’m a better priest than I ever was a soldier. And that is all I know about what happened that day. I beg forgiveness every day for my cowardice, and I’m ready to stand up now.”
But if he did, he would lose everything. “You would likely go to prison.”
His brother nodded. “And there is good work to be done there, too.”
Emotion threatened to choke him because it was overwhelming. His brother was sitting right in front of him. Was he putting on some kind of act?
He suddenly couldn’t stay there a second longer. He pushed back his chair and stood. “I need to make a phone call.”
He strode out of the room without another word because he wasn’t sure what he would say.
Self-loathing was an old friend, and it bubbled up inside him. He’d been the cause of a whole lot of this. While he’d been telling himself he was righteous, he’d left his wife to deal with problems that should have been his, problems that he couldn’t deal with because he hadn’t been kind.
He slammed the door shut to his office and sank down onto his chair, his eyes catching on the picture on his desk.
“Liar.” Kim had quietly opened the door.
“I needed a moment. That was a lot to take in. I’m sorry I didn’t do it privately.” He’d been warned and he’d arrogantly walked right into it and forced them all down the path with him. “I’ll apologize to my brother later. I promise.”
She sighed and closed the door behind her. “Hush. We don’t do well when we talk.” She closed the space between them and eased herself onto his lap. “I promised myself I wouldn’t do this. But just hush and hold me. You had a rough morning.”
She offered him comfort, and it made his eyes water. He wrapped his arms around her and let his head find her shoulder.
“Was he serious?” Beck asked.
“Ezra Fain is the kindest man I’ve ever met. If he says he’ll go to prison and find meaning there, I believe him. And I believe he loves you.”
He sat there, accepting her kindness, and something eased inside him, something that had been tight and uncomfortable for a very long time.
“I love you, Kim.”
She was silent but she didn’t leave.
He would say it until she believed him again.
Chapter Thirteen
Two hours later Kim found herself standing in front of the desk outside of Ian Taggart’s big office. The name plate stated that the desk belonged to Geneva Rycroft and there was a picture of a woman with dark hair holding a toddler girl with a big bow in her hair, a smiling young man, and a dude with a beard who had to be the dad standing behind them gleaming with pride.
But it was a frowning Tasha sitting at the desk. She looked up from her phone. It must have been a different one because this one was smaller and had no bling on it at all. She slid the phone into her backpack and her spine straightened. “Hello, Ms. Solomon. How can I help you?”
There was definitely an iciness coming off the Taggart’s eldest. She was starting to wonder if the teen didn’t have a thing for Beck. She couldn’t blame her. Beck was still hot and looked younger than his years. And he seemed kinder than he’d been before.
“I’ve got a meeting with your dad. I think your mom was coming, too.”
The door came open and Charlotte waved her in. “We’re here. Adam’s coming up in a minute.”
She walked through the door and into Tag’s office, which was a monstrosity compared to Beck’s. She’d thought his was nice, but Tag’s was larger than her Paris flat and Manhattan apartment combined. He had a whole sitting area and a wall covered in pictures of his family.
“Is Beck all right?” Charlotte asked.
Big Tag was sitting on the couch, the remains of their lunch in front of him. “I would like to point out that I was not all for the family group therapy session we went through. I have enough of that with my own family. The boys have PTSD after the pranks Kala pulled last Halloween. We had a couple of sessions after that and now the boys have stopped trying to kill every clown they see.”
“It made kids’ parties very interesting for a while there,” Charlotte admitted. “We were banned from one neighborhood entirely. I’m not joking. The watch group had our faces on posters and everything.”
She was so glad Roman was a calm child. “Beck’s all right. He needed a minute to process, that was all.”
Why had she followed him? When Ezra had admitted he was all right with going to prison, that he was ready to pay
