Fear trickles down my spine. “Wait, what? What are you talking about? War? Stealing from you? None of this makes sense.”
He has to be wrong. My parents weren’t bad people. They might not have been the most loving, but stealing? Never.
I stand, but he’s quick to rise, too, grabbing my arm and holding me in place.
“Let me go.”
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“To get Tommy.”
“No.”
I rip my arm out of his grasp, managing to hold back my gasp at the pain from the way he pinched my flesh in his tight grip.
“No? What gives you the right?”
“I have every right. I protect this family. From everyone. You think you’re the first woman to try and use my brother?” He scoffs. “Not by a long shot. You were just the first to do it in pointed shoes and a tutu.”
His words sting more than they should. I know Tommy has a past. Everyone does. I didn’t care. I still don’t. But being compared to the others? That I’m just like everyone who used him or tried to get something from him? It makes me sick to my stomach.
Because it’s true.
I used him. He was shelter. He was safety. With him, I didn’t have to think. I could pretend that it was like before, when all I had to worry about was what clothes to wear. When my parents were alive, I never worried about when I would eat again. Or if I had to stretch a dollar to pay both the rent and electricity. It was just there. Like with Tommy. Things were just there. I might not have asked for any of them, but I never said no, which makes it worse. It became an expectation. A thing I relied on.
I knew this dream would end one day, but I didn’t think it would be so soon. Or because of all these lies.
“I’ve never stolen anything. Neither did my parents.”
I turn away but then pause, a thought screaming at me that steals my breath.
“Did you?” I ask the universe, but only Danny answers.
“Did I what?” he snarls.
I turn back to glare at him. He’s standing all high and mighty, as if he’s judged me in everything without knowing me. He might be the quiet brother, but he seems to be the cruelest. Hiding behind the silence is a man who doesn’t care about anything except what he thinks. And he thinks very little of me.
“Did you kill them?”
He rolls his eyes and, with a shake of his head, takes a few steps toward the bar. It seems they have one in every room this family owns. “So quickly you change the subject.”
“Did you!” I yell, not in question but accusation. “Did you or someone in this stupidfamigliakill my parents? Did you think they stole from you, so you stole them from me? Did you do that? Did you?”
He turns, a glass already in his hand, and sips at it casually as he assesses me. “Thefamigliadoesn’t allow thieves to keep stealing.”
It’s not a confirmation, but it’s the only answer I’m going to get from him. My legs shake as I take a step back, then another, till I hit someone.
I turn and see Tommy, but there’s nothing of the Tommy I know in his expression.
“Why’d you do it?”
I shake my head. “I don’t understand.”
“Why look at the books?”
The night he sent me to the club. Alone. Before Carl showed. I looked. I peeked. I snooped when I shouldn’t have.
I look at him, then blink and glance behind him to see his other brothers have come into the room. They look at me but don’t offer an ounce of kindness in their expressions.
