Chapter Ten #2
There were rational reasons for difficult decisions, but there was core rejection that couldn’t be healed. Nothing to be said to assuage it. Mia looked at him—her expression open. She could be so full of joie de vivre but on the flip side, deeply considerate. And compassionate.
‘Did you get placed with another foster family after you ran away?’
‘I was at the third home for a few years. They had several foster children. Very strict foster father. He was an athletics coach. He had high expectations of himself, his wife and all of us.’
‘Expectations that you would have met. You won that sports scholarship to Dario’s school.’
All-rounder scholarship, actually—the academics had been the clincher more than the sporting strength, but he wasn’t in the mood to brag.
‘I know. So his routines didn’t damage me. I could handle the intensity. He wanted to make something of us. We were nothing, but we wouldn’t always be nothing because he would help us get there but we had to work for it.’
‘He told you that you were nothing?’
‘It was five-mile runs before breakfast. Weight training. Things were withheld unless you hit your daily targets.’
‘Things?’
‘Food. Rest. You had to keep pushing.’
‘Oh, Sante.’ She looked stricken. ‘It was abuse.’
She immediately saw what he hadn’t realised for too long.
‘I was lucky,’ he muttered. ‘He set the challenge and I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of beating me.
But I’d been blessed with a strong enough body to be able to endure it.
But Luca wasn’t.’ He dropped his gaze. ‘He’d been there about a year and he struggled.
One weekend I was away at a meet. The foster father would normally come on those trips.
He liked to watch me win. It was good because it gave the others a break from his supervision.
But my foster mother was unwell and he had to stay home.
Which made him frustrated and when he was frustrated, he would blow the whistle and demand more effort.
Other times I was able to distract him—ask him to spot me for my weights routines. Ask his advice. Flatter him.’
‘You played him to protect the others,’ she said. ‘But that time you weren’t there. What happened to Luca?’
‘They assessed him at the hospital. Aside from the broken ribs there were all kinds of overuse injuries. They shut down the home. The foster father was charged with cruelty. But I was the success story. He used me as the model to prove his strategy worked. The social workers challenged me. Why hadn’t I said anything?
Or done anything to stop him? She said I was selfish because I could do it and show off and that I was as bad as he was. ’
‘Sante, you know that wasn’t fair.’
He bent his head. ‘She was right.’
‘You were a child. You tried to protect the others by taking the attention of your foster father the one way you could. Sante, none of it was your fault.’ She paused. ‘What happened to Luca?’
‘I never saw him again.’ He glanced up. ‘I was sent to a group home and a new school. The principal there helped me apply to that school in Wales.’
‘Dario’s school. It was supposed to have changed your life.’
‘Get me a full ride to an elite university, sì. Make connections with the right people. The principal was delighted for me.’
‘Were you delighted?’
‘You know how hard it is to leave the place you’ve lived your whole life and go somewhere wildly different. When you don’t speak the language all that well…’
‘It’s hard,’ she said. ‘Especially without anyone to support you.’
‘I met Dario,’ he muttered.
Her brother had become a friend. The one person he could speak in his own language with.
They’d joked about creating apps that would make them billions.
But Sante had always been serious. Dario was as smart.
As sporty. Idealistic. He’d been a friend and competitor.
Dario had wanted to do big things, to make a difference.
He’d been a damn idealist. But he’d had a backstop.
He’d had a family. Money. Entitlement. He could afford to be idealistic.
For Sante it had only been about survival.
Of course he’d wanted to make money. He’d wanted to create security for himself.
He’d wanted personal freedom. Never to have to perform for anyone again.
Never be told what he could or couldn’t do.
Never feel trapped and helpless. Never have to suck up to powerful people or feel as if he were the change in a transaction.
Never rely on anyone—never make the mistake of letting anyone close ever again.
Certainly not the baby sister of the guy he’d felt betrayed him most.
‘But then you had the accident,’ Mia said softly after a while. ‘You tried to help Dario. You just ran the opposite way to which help came.’
‘I failed,’ Sante said harshly.
‘You still tried. That matters, Sante.’
No. Failure sucked. It had ended that friendship. He would fail her at some point. He couldn’t sustain relationships. Once again, he’d failed to protect someone he’d come to feel close to. He wouldn’t be close to anyone again.
‘For what it’s worth, Dario shut everyone out. Even me,’ Mia said.
Dario had believed Sante had abandoned him when he was hurt. Abandonment was one of the worst things that could happen to a person. He would never have done it. That Dario believed he had just said it all.
He was blamed again—everything about the accident deemed to be his fault.
Going to the music festival had been Dario’s idea.
Sante had never been to one and he’d thought it would be fun.
But Dario’s father had blamed him. The police had shamed him.
He’d taken one look at the principal’s face and known to withdraw as a student before he was expelled.
As he was seventeen they didn’t bother to try stopping him.
That had ended the scholarship offers for university.
He’d always been discarded. If something or someone better had come along. Or if there was a problem—if he caused any problems. For any arbitrary reason. Any trouble and Sante was blamed first. Judgement lingered. Assumptions, negative expectations, were what stuck with him, never people.
The moment anyone found out about his past, their perceptions shifted. His achievements were marvelled at—as if somehow it was a miracle that someone like him could do anything beyond the norm. He wasn’t letting anyone reject him again. He took control of everything. Always.
‘After the accident you came back to Italy?’ Mia asked.
‘Like you I took jobs that included food and accommodation so I could save everything. Worked through the night on my app.’
‘You must have been exhausted.’
‘There wasn’t any other choice.’
‘You could have taken my father’s money.’ She smiled sadly. ‘I know you didn’t. You’re not big on taking help from anyone.’
‘That wasn’t help,’ he said gruffly.
She nodded. ‘It’s hard to ask for help, let alone accept it, when you’ve been let down by people in the past and almost everyone let you down.’ She fiddled with the controller, her voice going husky. ‘Until Adele. She’s been constant.’
‘I needed someone to take the phone calls and do the admin. She stays because I pay her well and she has financial stresses that require her to remain. Her loyalty isn’t personal.’
‘You know that’s neither fair nor true. She cares about you.
She just knows better than to let you see it.
Her desperation to get me to handle the office wasn’t just about Bruno.
It was for you, too.’ She lifted those lashes and gazed at him, emotion blooming in her blue eyes.
‘And I bet you’ve never told her about your past. So it’s not pity, Sante.
You know that and it goes both ways. That’s why you’ve been helping her by paying for Bruno’s new specialist.’
‘You know about that?’ He frowned. ‘Does she know about that?’
He’d pulled some strings—made a donation. Because Mia was right. Adele had been constant and he’d been compelled to help even if it was only in the one way he could—financially.
‘Of course not. I guessed when she told me they’d gotten a referral to the top guy in Rome. I knew I was right.’
‘Want to lean on her to accept a cook and cleaner as well?’
‘Leave it with me.’ Mia nodded but her smile was sad. ‘The reason you don’t have personal photos is because you don’t actually have any, isn’t it?’
‘Why does that bother you so much?’ But she was right. No family. No photos. ‘The photo on my file is like a police mugshot. But it doesn’t matter. I don’t want reminders of that time.’
‘Did you ever try to find your biological parents?’
‘There were no DNA matches in any databases at the time and I don’t want to find out now. They didn’t want me. I don’t want them.’ He fully imagined the worst.
‘You don’t have to have DNA answers to know who you are, Sante. You’re a good person.’
‘Am I? My genetics might be flawed. I might have inheritable diseases in my body or brain—undesirable personality traits or—’
‘We all have messy genes. We’re not clones of our parents. You’re still you. You’re in charge of your destiny—you’ve proven that beyond doubt. But I’ll admit you’re not normal, Sante,’ she said. ‘You’re exceptional in so many ways.’
‘Mia—’
‘I stand by what I know,’ she said softly. ‘You’re aware of others. You help. You care.’
‘Don’t start thinking I’m something I’m not,’ he muttered, rejecting her innate positivity. ‘I’ll only disappoint you, Mia.’
‘Lots of things in life are a disappointment.’ She shrugged but then shot him a loyal look that lanced. ‘But you never will be.’