Chapter 31
breaking confidences
MARCO
I felt like I was inhaling rain as I stood still, my face tilted up. The awareness that my reality had the potential to suffocate me was undeniable. I wasn’t facing nature’s fury, though. Just my own as I showered.
If I could’ve scrubbed away the knowledge that I now possessed, then maybe showering might’ve been worthwhile. But it seemed no amount of it would do the trick.
The conversation I’d had with Massimo when he had interrupted my time with Brooklyn was still vivid. Too vivid. So vivid, in fact, that if I closed my eyes, I was back there in real time…
“You’re an idiot. I heard what you were trying to do,” he said, and if I wanted to, I would’ve had to think hard on what he could’ve been talking about. After I had just been with Brooklyn, though, I maintained little interest in expelling any energy on such useless endeavors.
“I don’t have time for this, Mass,” I said while Brooklyn kissed my chest before laying her head against me.
“Do you remember Siena’s horse? Raf Briggs has one from the same bloodline. Acquiring the centers would mean acquiring that horse.” I would’ve stayed like this with Brooklyn until the end of time, if my brother hadn’t just said those words.
At the mention of Raf, I gently nudged her off me and immediately sat up straight. This wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have around her. I covered the phone with my hand and looked at her. “I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere.”
She nodded, and I left, choosing to take this call to the room farthest from mine. I closed the door behind me and leaned against the wall. The intense thud of my heart was not to be ignored.
“Fanculo,11 Mass, what are you talking about?” No amount of using deductive reasoning was going to get me to where I needed to be on this one. I didn’t want some coded shit, either. I wanted to have all of the facts, not be brushed off. He obviously had them, so he was going to enlighten me.
He released a heavy sigh. “Raf doesn’t know it, but he has one particular horse in Wellington he uses for his riding programs that is a valuable asset. The horse has an elite bloodline that, with proper training, can become a champion in show jumping in its own right.”
Siena had been a show jumper and had a champion horse until she’d had to strategically retire it.
At the high level where she had been, Siena had known she had to save the horse’s jumps to preserve its physical longevity, so she had sent it to a dedicated retirement facility in Kentucky where it did trail rides as far as I knew.
The thing was, those genetics were rare, making the horse worth millions.
More than that, it had the potential to later be bred for a premium given its renowned bloodline.
“And we’re sure that horse is Raf’s?” I knew he operated his facilities in a way where he not only owned horses for clients to ride for lessons and camp programs but also boarded horses for others.
In addition to doing other things to earn revenue, like hosting events and competitions, but that was irrelevant here.
“Marco, please,” Mass said, sounding far too much like our father as annoyance etched his words.
Stretching my neck as I threw my head back, I let the water run down my chest. Annoyance…
I knew a thing or two about that. Although that might’ve been the simmered down version of what I felt.
Likely attributed to the steam that swiveled around me, lifting the weight of what this new information meant for Brooklyn off of my tense muscles.
She didn’t know it yet. I didn’t know how to tell her.
Santo is screwing over your father.
I didn’t even know if I should. My loyalty was always toward my family.
There was no other option. And breaking confidences by telling Brooklyn would be the start of a war with my family.
I’d be Napoleon against what I could only imagine would be a shifting coalition as my brothers came in and out of the fight, giving my father an endless cycle of temporary alliances. In the end, I’d be exiled.
But, to cause Brooklyn any more pain by not telling her, especially knowing she’d already experienced so much at the hands of both of our fathers, was like taking a dagger to the chest. And I wasn’t sure I would be able to remove it without suffering catastrophic damage.