15. Amorette #2
He leaned back, placing his elbow on the back of his couch and two fingers against the side of his head. When he smiled, there was nothing nice about it. “Let’s discuss this. I would wager you and your darling sister had a perfect childhood?”
“Of course not,” I scoffed. We’d lost a sibling and our mother. That wasn’t perfect in anyone’s most desperate dreams.
He rolled his eyes. “Not that bad things didn’t happen.
I’m sure they did. You’re human, and you experienced life.
Life is a fickle bitch who can be cruel just as much as she can be gracious.
Most of the time, she’s both. To be fair, for the majority of the population, they mostly experience her graciousness. ”
I pressed my lips together. He wasn’t wrong, and I wanted him to be so very badly.
“What’s the worst thing that happened to you as a child? Skinned knee? Grandmother died too young? Your dog was killed by poison?” The words sounded crass. Harsh. Like he was being sarcastic. But the look on his face was riveting, like he truly wanted to know this answer.
Hesitating, I chewed on my bottom lip. It’d been years since I spoke about Louis. Only to Grace. I wanted to tell Parker about him, almost desperately. But I doubted he’d care. I wasn’t convinced Parker felt emotions like that. If this was Lafe, I didn’t think I’d have the same struggle.
“Come on, Little Love. Don’t leave me hanging. What was the most traumatizing thing that happened in your childhood?” He nudged my knee with his.
Twisting my lips to the side, I went for it. If this blew up in my face or Parker tried to use this against me somehow in the future, I’d probably cry. But in the end, I couldn’t be mad at myself for wanting to keep my loved ones alive.
“We had a brother. Louis Pissaro Black. He was a teenager when we were just little kids. He passed away from cancer, and it was probably the single most devastating event of my childhood.” Losing our mother was heartbreaking too, but I was at least older and better equipped to handle such a loss.
I gripped my shirt over my heart. What was Grace going through knowing that I was missing, unsure if I even still lived?
Parker shifted his weight and leaned forward as if he needed to be just a bit closer. “That’s fascinating, you know?”
“What is?” I stiffened. Where was he going with this? If he said a bad word against my brother, I’d leave. I couldn’t trust my actions if I were to stay.
“That the worst thing that happened to you was watching someone you loved get taken by a natural act of life, and that you never once referred to him as yours. But ours. For you and your twin.” He reached out a hand and grazed his thumb over my collarbone.
“So much goodness inside you and yet you still let Grey put his hands all over you. Does he make you feel dirty?”
I wanted to slap him, but he was being one hundred percent serious. The man was dying of morbid curiosity.
“No.” I tried to think of how to put this to him without…
sounding like a psycho or naive idiot. “The four of you aren’t so bad.
Not as bad as I originally thought. You have a code, and you’ve done the best you could with a shitty life.
I understand that, at least on the surface level.
Sometimes, I feel like I still would have done the right thing, or ended up where I was if I’d grown up in the same life, although it’s impossible to know that for sure.
In fact, sometimes, I think I’d be just as violent and brutal as you four. ”
One side of his mouth tipped up. “You do like us. That’s good, Little Love. Considering we’ll never let you go.”
Ice sunk in my stomach even as he kept going, before I had the time to think about what that actually meant.
“You want to know the most traumatizing event in my childhood?” He dipped his head like he was about to whisper a delicious secret in my ear. Maybe he was.
I nodded.
His nose brushed the shell of my ear. “I watched… we all watched Vicente murder Grey’s mother in cold blood. And you want to know the funny thing?”
There was nothing funny about that. Nothing at all. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up as he continued.
“She was his favorite.” He pulled back so he could see me again. “Does it surprise you that he’d go after his own bastard sons?” This time when he grinned, it was full of the sarcastic humor I had expected earlier.
“It doesn’t matter to you that he’s a terrible man? Or that he’s trying to hurt you all?” That was something I think I’d known for a while, but sitting here with Parker right now, it was coming across loud and startlingly clear.
“Why would it?” He furrowed his brow. “He was never a father to us. He whipped us more than he praised us. Pitted us against each other for sport and treated us little better than servant boys. He still treats us that way when he’s not trying to take us down.”
“But this is new, right? He’s never publicly opposed you all as a group before?” I’d seen the marks on Grey’s back. I knew there was a whipping post and Grey was no stranger to it, yet that was very different from attempting to murder your own children.
The skin around Parker’s eyes pinched as if I’d hit a nerve.
“Vicente is your definition of evil. The institution that he’s built is only so strong because it’s soaked in the blood of the innocent and steeped in the fear of those who serve him.
The people love him as much as they hate him.
And they’ll carry out any of his wishes in just a whisper of a promise to gain his favor.
Our lives—my life—are miserable. We’re stuck in a birdcage just like you were when you first came here.
Only ours is a little bigger, and we understand the bars that hold us like the jailer that keeps us. He has to die.”
I sat up. “But what if you die in the process? Or Lafe? Or Andre? Grey? Are you really going to risk everything you love?” My blood pressure started to soar as we touched on the sensitive topic that had been plaguing me for days.
He looked at me out of the corner of his eyes.
“What kind of relationship do you think my brothers and I have? We can barely stand each other.” He laughed.
“I know they can barely stand me, for various reasons. We are only as close as we are because we know, without a doubt, we will never betray each other. We don’t have to like each other for that. ”
“No, that can’t be right.” I wanted to argue with him.
The brothers did love each other. I knew it.
“Love is not about liking someone. It’s about valuing them as a person.
Knowing you’d do anything, be anything, to keep them alive.
” My words were hypocritical to my own ears.
I’d always placed right and wrong above everything else.
But more and more, I believed I’d just been lucky to never have been in a situation where I needed to choose.
“Mm. And you think I’d do anything for my brothers?” He lifted an eyebrow as if I saw too much good in him.
I blew out a breath. “I don’t know you. Not really.
So it’s possible you could throw them to the wolves to further your own agenda.
But…from the outside looking in, it appears that the four of you have already done so much to stay together.
You would have jumped ship before now if that’s what suited you. ”
“Would I? Little Love, it’s amazing how you see the best in all situations.” He smiled sardonically.
I snorted. “Hardly. I see the worst in people. In my line of work, everyone is suspicious, at least the men. And I’ve thought plenty bad about you four, but this is the one observation I’ve made and it’s not a bad one.” I shrugged and turned to the computer.
Parker bent forward and grabbed a folder off the coffee table. As soon as he handed it to me, I recognized it. It was the same one from lunch that day, with all the details of the art he wanted to acquire.
“Your faction is thieves,” I murmured, remembering Mia’s wording as I flipped the pages, reacquainting myself with the items and detailed information.
“You could say that. However, running a heist operation sounds much better than common thievery. A successful heist requires research, preparation, coordination.” He fingered the corner of the folder.
“You run an operation of convicts,” I deadpanned. Men who stole for the fun of it. Men who were good at it.
He laughed, tipping his head back. “If you knew how many of my men had actually been to prison, you’d find that funny.”
“What does that mean?” I peered at him, but he shook his head.
“Nothing. We’re a bunch of regular convicts. Now, let’s review these pieces.” He tapped the page in front of me. “And we’ll see how long it takes my dear brother to come collect you out of raving jealousy.”