THIRTY-NINE #2
‘You didn’t see the bruises, then.’ It was a question more than a statement.
‘There were none.’
‘Visible,’ I corrected, shifting gears harder than necessary.
A flash of my mother’s wrists took my vision, shades of purple mottling her beautiful face.
The car jerked forward, earning us an angry yell from a cyclist, but I barely noticed. The streets of Rome blurred past in streaks of gold and shadow, the neon-lit storefronts casting fractured reflections in the puddles.
A long silence stretched between us, heavy as a noose.
‘She never said a word,’ he muttered finally, and I felt the weight in his voice.
‘Yeah. Because women in love with their monsters usually do.’
Suddenly, the words turned on me. I didn’t look at him when I said it for fear of revealing how much of a monster I was.
The city moved around us. A city that had watched men live and die over blood feuds, power struggles, betrayals.
I had a feeling it was watching us now.
Two devils out to catch another one.
‘There was nothing to say she wasn’t happy,’ he said on a sigh.
The words landed wrong. Too neat. Too easy. Like someone tying a bow on a box filled with something rotten.
My fingers clenched around the wheel. The memories rushed in again – my mother, smiling through the split in her lip. Back then it had been just another thing I’d got used to: like bad weather, hunger… pain.
It had felt normal.
I gripped the wheel tighter, strangling it, as if the sensation would banish the memories.
He noticed.
‘You’re very invested for someone who’s been fucking my sister for only a few days,’ he said cooly.
I let it sit for a moment, let it crawl under my skin and settle there. I should’ve had a quick answer, something detached, something easy. But the truth was – he wasn’t wrong.
It wasn’t like me to get invested at all.
I knew what I was. Something twisted. Something missing a few key pieces. My mind didn’t work like other people’s; things took different paths with me – steeper drops, sharper turns. I didn’t let things in, didn’t let things matter.
But with her, it was as though it had never been a choice.
The thought slithered up my spine, entirely unwelcome.
Maybe that was why it had happened so quickly.
Maybe – and I almost swallowed that thought – she was the one?
Maybe it wasn’t my mind deciding to be invested, as Matt so casually put it.
Maybe it was something deeper – every fibre of me locking onto her, every breath tilting in her direction, as if gravity had changed the rules and hadn’t bothered to warn.
Natural. Like the moon rising after the sun fell. Like blood rushing to a wound.
But I wasn’t about to say that.
‘Anyone would be invested after what I’ve seen so far, Picasso,’ I dropped my eyes at his inked wrists, going with the easy answer – the one that would keep him at arm’s length.
He nodded, letting me have that one. But there was no amusement on his face.
‘Sorry to hear about your home.’ It was low, almost begrudging, as if he didn’t say that sort of thing often.
We drove in silence for a while, the streets unfurling around us, washed in shadow.
‘How do you know where he is?’ he asked, breaking the quiet.
‘I don’t.’
A pause.
‘Then you know where he rents?’
‘Nope.’
Silence, thicker this time.
‘So where the fuck are we going, Hollywood?’ His tone had climbed an octave, and I could feel the irritation rolling off him. But beneath it, there was something else. Guilt. Ignorance. Something that came when one realised they should have known something sooner. Done something sooner.
I could have given him an easy way out. Told him his sister wouldn’t have let him see the bruises. That she would have smiled through them, just like my mother had. But the selfish part of me – the part that didn’t give a fuck about his guilt – sharpened its horns.
Because if he had paid attention – if he had stopped it – she never would have come to Rome.
Ghost never would have met Scarlett.
I never would have met her.
The contradiction raked against something raw in me.
‘My place,’ I said finally. ‘Or what’s left of it. He left me a present.’
He frowned. ‘You’re giving me The Shining vibe right now.’
I scoffed. More like Cape Fear. But I kept that to myself.
I turned onto the last stretch of road before it narrowed into a street crushed between rows of buildings, their facades bearing the weight of time with their crumbling cornices, iron balconies – some tangled with dying ivy, some with windows lit with life from beyond.
The city was pressing in now, its pulse thickening around us.
Rome’s centre had a sound of its own. And he was here somewhere. I felt it in my bones.
Meanwhile, the bastard next to me was still sprawled across the front seat like a king surveying his kingdom, legs stretched out, elbow hooked on the door, taking up more space than should have been physically possible.
For all the space in my car, he sat in it as if it were a fucking compact rental.
Given how fucking small Paula was got me wondering what the rest of them were like. And, like an idiot, I let my mouth move before my brain caught up.
‘Where’s the rest of the cavalry?’
He cut me a look, one thick blond brow arching with the lazy sharpness of a blade catching light.
‘The Cleaner,’ he said, half-amused, ‘likes to go to bed early. The Gardener is probably playing fucking PC games.’
It was obvious which one was Leo and which was Dante.
Still, my earlier exchange with Paula gnawed at me, making me re-evaluate everything – not that guilt had ever stopped me from opening my mouth before.
‘So what kind of gang are you?’ I asked in my most nonchalant tone, steering us past a group of tourists drunkenly debating something. ‘We talking Matrix hackers, or Al Capone in fake leather?’ I looked him up and down to drive the point home.
‘What kind of a fucking question is that? We’re brothers,’ he said, as if it were supposed to explain everything.
‘Don’t bullshit me, Inkblot.’
I had no idea where the nickname came from, but the creative demon in me perked up at the chance to dish it all back. Creativity was my niche, after all.
His head angled, bemused, but I kept going. ‘I ran a background check on you.’ My voice was flat, factual, almost bored, letting it settle between us like a lit match over gasoline. It didn't matter I was lying. ‘I know exactly what kind of shit you’re into.’
For half a second, there was nothing. Then—
He laughed. A deep, booming sound, as if what I had just said was the best joke he’d ever heard.
‘You got balls, Hollywood. But you ought to ask for your money back.’
He shook his head slowly, just for show. Yet I caught that fraction of a second where his focus drifted, as if he was actually considering what I’d said.
And that was all I needed.
Because regardless of his deflection, even he wasn’t sure where the line had been any more.