Chapter 2
TWO
NICOLO RASTELLI
Ghosts aren’t real.
There are plenty of things that go bump in the night but none of them are supernatural in any way. Or so I’ve always believed.
Until now. Until the ghost of my long-dead brother wobbles before me.
I drag oxygen into my burning lungs; attempt to hold it; can’t. It leaves in a rush that sounds more like a wheeze than an exhale. “Sebastian.”
He’s not the brother I remember. But somehow, he’s exactly as I always pictured him. The spitting image of our mother—high cheekbones, straight slim nose, dark pink lips—but with our father’s height and bulk.
His eyes aren’t gray—not like mine. They’ve got flecks of the ocean in them. Thunder clouds that meet the sprawling sea. His hair isn’t blond. Nor is it brown. Some captivating mix of the two.
I remember being small—six, maybe seven—with my arms clenched around his throat as he carried me on his back, both of us laughing like children who had nothing to worry about.
The summer sun would steadily lighten the blonde until it was almost white, and soften the brown into a creamy shade of caramel.
The same shade it is now.
Memories wash over me like a tsunami.
The good and the bad.
My brother sharing a tub of ice cream with me in the kitchen after midnight, both of us stifling our laughter, before we throw away the damning evidence of our disobedience and part ways as if nothing happened.
My brother stepping between my father and me. His eyes blackened, split lips bloody in the aftermath of uncalled-for violence as he tucks me into bed, brushes the tears off my face, leaves a kiss on my forehead.
He never told me not to cry. Only that I shouldn’t let anyone see.
My brother the last time I saw him—in the courthouse bathroom at our father’s trial. His eyes sad as I blinked back my tears, his lips pressed into a hard line. He clenched me to his chest, told me he loved me for the first and last time, before the man in a suit behind him took him away.
Three months later, our father was in prison and my mother and I were at breakfast when Uncle Vincent gave us the news.
Sebastian is dead.
Only, Sebastian is not dead.
He’s here—alive and frozen in place.
I stumble forward, tripping over my own feet. My bag falls from my shoulder, lands with a thump on the studio floor, and I collapse against him with a sob. “Sebastian.”
“Nicolo?” His hot breath ruffles the hair on my temple. I claw at his bare back, climb him like a tree, as if I’m a small child again, and cling to him like a monkey with zero intentions of ever letting go. Not now that I know he’s alive.
“Uncle Vincent told us you were dead,” I choke out around a sob.
He showed us the news clipping.
A car accident. A John Doe later identified, with dental records, as Sebastian Rastelli. No funeral. Not for a traitor.
Just an official death certificate paid for online, shipped to a PO Box, collected weeks later and hidden among my things like a dirty secret. The only evidence I ever had a brother at all.
“What are you doing here, Nicolo?” His voice is cold and hard. Harsh. Unlike it’s ever been. Still, his hands are gentle on my waist as he supports my weight, holding me against his body like he did so often in the past.
Of all the hands that have touched me, his and our mother’s are the only ones that have never done it with any cruelty. Not once.
“School. College.” I can barely speak around the lump in my throat. “Mother argued against my baptism and Uncle Vincent agreed.” I still can’t believe he agreed. “I’m not to ever see or speak to her again.”
A fact that still hurts weeks later.
“Nicolo.” Sebastian runs his hand up my spine, under my shirt. His tone is softer now.
I shake my head. “You’re alive.”
He’s alive. My brother is alive and I can’t stop sobbing.
I tuck my face into his neck as tears burn my cheeks. He rests his chin in my hair and walks backwards, sinking into the chair he’d been reclined in before.
I’d hardly spared him a glance at first—too focused on the flier in my hand. Confused as to why the studio was empty.
What if I’d decided not to take the class? It’s not as if I need it. I just thought it might be a good way to make friends. Meet new people before classes truly begin on Wednesday. If I hadn’t come here between freshman orientation activities, I might’ve missed Sebastian, living, right under my nose.
“Listen, Nico. Are you listening?” He cups the back of my head. I nod. “Sebastian Rastelli is dead. He died ten years ago in a car accident. I’m Henry Salman. You understand?”
Sebastian Rastelli is dead.
Henry Salman is . . . He’s mine. My brother. Even if I can never tell anyone.
“What happened after the trial?” I pull back and search his face. His eyes are so fucking clear, bright as a bolt of lightning. There’s happiness there, violent as an ocean storm, but his mouth is turned down in displeasure. “Where did you go? Here? Have you always been here? How did you?—”
He shakes his head. “Not here. Let’s find somewhere else to talk.”
I ease out of his lap. He winces as he stands, bending to snatch a melted ice pack off the floor. Before I called his attention, he’d been sitting with it pressed between his legs.
“What happened?”
His look is flat. “What do you think?”
I stifle a laugh. “It’s not the first knee to the nuts you’ve taken.”
As boys, we used to wrestle all the time. Harmless fun between brothers. I’ve planted a knee in a delicate area more than once. Usually by accident, but once or twice I’d been trying and managed to reduce his chances of being called Daddy. At least by children of his own making.
“Brat.” There’s a lifetime of fondness in that single insult. It isn’t an insult at all. Not coming from him.
“Bonehead.” I grin. He laughs under his breath. I snatch my bag off the ground before grabbing his, as well.