Chapter 2
2
J AMES
She slides her thumb over her phone and pulls up a few pictures. She sifts through them before finding what she needs, flipping her phone over and pushing it to me to see.
“What is this?” I ask without checking the picture.
My eyes stay locked with hers.
“Look,” she says, tapping her phone screen with her forefinger.
Slowly, I tip my gaze down.
An instant reaction zips through me as my brow furrows and my shoulders pull back.
“What is this?” I mutter.
Bewildered, I stare at the man in the picture.
Taken at the height of the summer, the photograph features a younger version of me.
Shirtless, the man is propped against a bench, the blue-green sea gleaming in the background.
He has the same stature, broad shoulders, dark hair, and green eyes––the last two features inherited from my mother.
He has the same sharp look in his eyes and cocky smile I’ve perfected throughout the years.
Intricate tattoos cover one of his shoulders.
The man is ripped.
I lift my gaze to my mother.
“Who is this?”
“Tiago Diego Rossi.”
My pulse races as I wrestle with a strange feeling.
“Your brother.”
Her answer confirms what I already know.
Stifling my surprise, I move my thumb across the screen and check his pictures.
I study a close-up––the similarities are surreal.
But how?
The man in the picture must be at least twenty-five years old. He’s strong, well built, and has an edge in his stare I’ve always had.
“How can he be my brother? How old is he?”
“Twenty-one.”
I shoot her an incredulous look.
“That means that…”
She nods.
“Yes. I was pregnant when I left. I concealed it as much as I could, not that your father had paid much attention to it. You, on the other hand, couldn’t tell, but I was a few months pregnant.”
I look at the man in front of me as if peering at myself in a different life––one unfolding on Lisbon's streets.
“What is he doing?”
“He’s a fighter.”
My eyebrows shoot up.
I lean back in my chair, bringing my cigarette to my lips before blowing out the smoke.
“What kind of fighter?”
“He’s a bare-knuckle boxer and fights in the underground clubs in London.”
Her breath catches while she speaks.
“For money?”
“Yes. He wants to have his own money, and this pays better than a job. Or a college diploma. At least, that’s what he thinks.”
I purse my lips.
“Hmm... I see. Why is he the reason you are here?”
“He’s missing,” she says curtly.
I ponder before straightening in my seat and putting out my cigarette while releasing the smoke to the side.
“What do you mean he’s missing?”
“I haven’t heard from him in three weeks. I called his cell phone and left several messages. And then I traveled to London and looked for him. I talked to the police, and they started an investigation. They’ve tracked down a few people who saw him the night he disappeared, but none of them could provide any useful information. The police have no leads at the moment. All I know is that he won a huge prize and vanished. The detectives I talked to––although nice and sympathetic––suggested he might’ve taken the money and fled overseas. I told them that while that was a possibility, it wasn’t likely. I know him. He wouldn’t just pick up and leave. Fighting was his life.”
“He can fight somewhere else.”
“Not for this kind of money.”
“Any chance he traveled to the US?”
“I doubt.”
I study her.
“What do you want me to do?” I ask, setting her phone down.
“I want you to locate him and bring him back. Every person I had talked to told me he had left. But there are no police reports suggesting that had happened. He couldn’t just vanish in thin air. I don’t think he suddenly decided to move to a different country. And go where? He moved to London from Lisbon. There’s no way he went to Italy, where his father lives. And for sure, he didn’t go to Colorado. He’s never been interested in setting foot on American soil.”
“Why?”
“I have no idea.”
“Does he know about me?”
“No.”
I stare at her, surprised, although I shouldn’t be.
She has a hard time holding my gaze, so she slants it down.
“It’s a long story,” she mutters.
I have no doubt.
Silently, I observe her, waiting for her to raise her eyes.
“Are you sure he doesn’t know about me?”
“I didn’t tell him. And Diego would’ve never told him about you. He hated to think about the past because of you.”
A few moments pass.
“What’s my brother’s story?” I ask.
She’s pale and restless.
“He had some problems in the past,” she says, barely uttering the words.
“Some?” I toss at her sarcastically.
“He wasn’t a bad kid or anything,” she continues, unperturbed. “But everything changed when Diego and I started to have problems in our marriage. And then came the divorce, Tiago hit puberty, and everything took a turn for the worse. His teenage years were hellish for both of us. It was difficult to discipline him and help him understand what was happening to him. Some of my advice worked to a degree, but most had no effect on him. He’s smart––brilliant, I would say––but he’s hot-tempered and has a mind of his own. He’s unruly. Rebellious. Show him some trouble, and he’ll dive right in. He’s always questioned authority, and that was my first lost battle with him. I suspect he resented my role in his life and took it out on anything that felt too restrictive to him.”
“How did he get into fighting?”
“He got a taste of women first––and that was a rollercoaster––and then he discovered he could make some money boxing, and that got him hooked. He’s good––at least that’s what people say––but that’s not the kind of thing you want to be good at, in my opinion. He could’ve made his money any other way. But he didn’t want to go to college. And he didn’t want to start a business. I had some money stashed away. He could’ve used it for a start-up, but no. He didn’t have the patience for it. Getting a job was out of the question, and he moved out as soon as he finished high school. He lived with a woman for a while and then with another one, and then he left the country and moved to the UK. He got a place of his own, where he currently resides. I talked to his neighbors, but no one had seen him these past few weeks. The rent had been paid in advance for the entire year. That’s another reason I am worried. He might be reckless in many regards, but not when it comes to money. He wouldn’t have paid it had he not intended to use that place.”
“Drugs?”
“Not that I know of, but I don’t think so. He never liked the idea. He’s not the type who hangs out with a crowd and does stupid things.”
“Friends?”
“He had a friend in high school. Benny. I talked to him. He hasn’t heard from Tiago since the beginning of this year.”
I think about it for a second.
“What can I do that you haven’t done already?”
She searches my eyes.
“I hired a private investigator, but his leads went cold rather quickly, and I couldn’t find anything from him. I hoped you’d have more manpower to track your brother down. I can’t think of anything else right now. You’re my only hope.”
“Three weeks, you say?”
“More or less.”
“Has he traveled out of the country before?”
“He went to Germany a couple of times and Italy once.”
“When did he move to London?”
“Last year.”
I suck in a long breath.
“Do you keep in touch with his father?”
“No. Not really. We rarely talk, and when we do, it’s strictly business.”
“I see. So that is pretty much it since...? How old was Tiago when his father left?”
“Fourteen.”
I look down and start playing with my lighter, processing the information.
“How did you earn your money?” I ask.
“I have an antique shop and an art gallery.”
Our eyes meet.
“I make enough to support myself and have a comfortable living, but I’m nowhere near retirement.”
“You’ve never thought about coming back? You’d make more money in Colorado.”
She pulls in a short, rushed breath.
“I thought about it, but as I said before…Tiago was against it.”
“Well, he’s gone now, and you’d be better off––financially speaking––if you moved back.”
“I may consider it at some point, but first, I need to find him and make sure he’s okay.”
I break my gaze away from her.
“I’ll see what I can do,” I say when our eyes connect again.
I pick up her phone from the table and study my brother’s pictures again.
In some of the earlier photos, he has a sweet, boyish expression about him, much different than his cocky, arrogant attitude in the most recent snapshots.
“Why Tiago?” I ask, my eyes lingering on him.
She doesn’t answer right away.
I raise my eyes.
“It’s the Portuguese equivalent of James.”
My fingers unglue from her phone.
I lean back in my seat, my eyes still on her.
“Interesting...” I say. “He looks very much like me when I was about his age.”
“He looks just like you,” she confirms.
I fold my arms across my chest, weighing my answer.
“I’ll find him for you...” I say in a quiet, even voice.
Nervous, she starts chewing on her lip.
“Why do I have a feeling there’s more to the story?”
Her eyes glint.
I wait.
“I didn’t want to choose between the two of you...” she finally says. “Although in many ways I did,” she continues. “And in the end, I did wrong by both of you. When I left, I told myself you’d be okay living with your father, and in a way, you were. I knew you’d have everything you needed. Had I taken you with me, you would’ve hated me for moving you away from your home and your friends. With Tiago, I tried to overcompensate for everything. For leaving you behind, raising him without a father, and having two failed marriages. I tried to kill my guilt as much as I could, but I’m not so sure it worked. Judging by how he acted out, Tiago had held me responsible for everything that happened. Once he understood reality better, his hatred faded somewhat, but his anger stayed the same. No matter what I did, I couldn’t fix that for him. I wanted him to be happy, but it wasn’t in my power to make that happen.”
She pauses, his eyes glinting with emotions.
“If he’s still alive, he needs someone other than me to anchor him and show him that life can be different even when you’re hurt. So yes, there is more to the story, and asking you to help him has to do with more than finding him.”
She peels her gaze away from me and gets busy with her phone, sweeping it off the table and tucking it into her purse.
Her eyes evade mine, her jaw locked as she pushes her emotions back.
I study her while she stares blankly at the table.
“How do you think he’ll react when he finds out about me?” I ask. “If anything, the news will fuel his resentment toward you. First of all, because you lied to him–– through omission, of course, but it’s still a lie–– and then, because he’d think you were weak. If he has the slightest trust in you, he’ll lose it immediately.”
She shakes her head in response.
“I’ve thought about it, but this is not only about me. I can’t change his perception of me. That will only happen if he learns more about life and people in general. If he looks up to someone else. And there’s no better person to look up to than you.”
This time, she finds enough strength in her to hold my gaze.
“I need all the information that you have on him. Any contacts, women, addresses. Everything. It will speed up the process,” I say.
“Okay.”
She pivots in her seat and pulls out an envelope from her purse.
“Everything I have is in there,” she says, sliding it onto the table before typing something on her phone.
A sound notification comes from my cell.
“I sent you a file with more pictures of him.”
“Where are you staying tonight?” I ask, snatching my phone and sliding it into my pocket.
“I booked a hotel room. I’ll fly home tomorrow morning.”
“Okay,” I say, rising to my feet.
She pushes her chair back and rises.
“I wish we could’ve reconnected under better circumstances,” she says quietly.
“Me, too.”
With that, I walk her to the door.
“I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” I say.
She nods goodbye before spinning around and walking away.