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Damian closes the door.
“My brother is a liar, Cristina,” he says more calmly than I expect, given his physical reaction. “He’s manipulating you to get to me. He will do anything to destroy me.”
“Why?”
“It’s complicated.”
“That’s your answer for every question you don’t want to answer.”
“Look—”
“Just explain it to me. I can follow. Please.”
He considers, steps toward me, then stops. I know he’s made his decision when I hear his sigh.
“Because he was supposed to have what I have. He was the firstborn son technically, or at least my father chose him because he was bigger than me at birth. It’d be something for him to do. I don’t know. I’m not even sure I was the backup plan. An unwelcome surprise maybe when they realized my mom was pregnant with twins. I think my father hated us both, truth be told. I think my father is only capable of hate. He thought us weak from day one. Holding each other’s hands rather than having them around each other’s throats.
“Anyhow, he chose Lucas, but Lucas—he wasn’t always like this. When we were growing up, he was the gentle one.”
I find that hard to believe; not that I’d ever accuse Damian of being gentle.
“And to teach Lucas to be the man he needed him to be, a man like my father is, he made it his habit to hurt me while Lucas watched. It’s more effective that way. Did you know that? To hurt the thing the one you really want to hurt loves.”
Loves.
They’ll hurt you to get to me.
“Until Lucas finally started doing it himself, that is. Until he learned. Do you know I had to comfort him afterward?” He shakes his head.
“At least when it was my brother doing the beating, I guess you could say he took it easier on me or tried to, and I know he felt terrible. I know it chipped away at him. I think he started to hate himself before I realized what was happening to him.”
He takes a break, pushes his hand into his hair, and in his eyes, I see he’s miles away. Back in the past maybe. After a long moment, his eyes refocus on mine.
“For every misstep any of my siblings made, guess who took the punishment? And thing is, Lucas was the creative one. He was the one who got me into the woodworking. He was the softer of us. Always. He wasn’t ever cut out to be the man my father wanted and expected him to be. Never had it in him. Hell, I far surpass him in that area. I’d have made my father proud and I hate myself for that.
“But something was happening all those years that I didn’t see. Lucas’s resentment of me grew at the same pace as his self-hatred. The accident, the fact that I was driving, what happened to him, Lucas blames me. Thinks it was my revenge for what he did to me even though that’s his own guilt. I never blamed him, not really. I knew who he really was underneath it all.
“I’m not even sure he wants any of this, but he cannot let me have it.” He takes a breath, then runs a hand through his hair. “And you know what? I still don’t hate him. I wish I did. I try to. I miss him. I miss my brother the way we were before our father made us what we’ve become. But I know it’s too late to get that back because something died inside him the night of the accident. No, that’s not right. It was already dead by then. That accident, what it did to him, it’s what turned him rotten.”
I reach out to touch him, but he puts up his hand to stop me.
“Annabel’s death was what pushed us all to the place we’ve come to. And I don’t think there’s any going back. Not for any of us.”
His gaze shifts to the scar on my face.
Everything always comes back to that. To that damned accident.
He reaches out a hand and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. He brushes his knuckles over the scar on my lip and a storm that’s been brewing for a decade darkens his eyes.
“The end is coming, Cristina.”
I shudder.
“And I won’t be able to stop it. I won’t be able to stop the storm my brother is bringing.”
He drops his hand, pupils focusing on me again.
“Can’t you walk away? Just leave it all?”
“That’s the thing. Whatever it is, I need to see it through. Finish it and put the past to rest. Bury it finally.”
I shudder.
It’s silent for a long moment before he speaks again.
“You still want me to tell you what I want? I will.”
I search his eyes, my heart racing, trying to process everything he just told me. Trying to reconcile this man who feels pain, who feels remorse and sadness, with the monster Lucas accuses him of being, the monster he doesn’t deny being.
