The room goes dead silent. I can almost hear the bones clicking as Remo slowly turns his head.
“What?” he hisses.
I don’t speak, not because I’ve chosen not to this time, but because I don’t know what to say. I can’t deny it and I’m done with lying.
Cass glances at me, his gaze full of apology—he knows he’s gone too far. But, like me, I think he’s sick of concealing the truth too.
Remo’s low voice cuts across him, spearing me in the chest. “That better not be true.”
My chest fills out and my brows hike.
“Why? What are you going to do?”
He blinks as if the question is a physical blow.
“You can’t be for real, Fiero. After everything she did?”
“Shedidn’t do anything,” I grit out. “She was forced into it by her fucking uncle.”
He leans over the table. “Was her uncle in the room when shetauntedyou?”
“He didn’t need to be. He was in her head. Same place all abusers go. You know that.”
My calmness is a façade. I’m this close to snapping and giving Remo a piece of my damn fucking mind. He’s the one who hasn’t let this lie all these years.
Of all my brothers, Remo saw the most. He covered Brando’s eyes, pushed Cass out of the room, listened to my cries through the walls. When I refused to speak, Remo was the voice our father turned to. He had to step up sooner than any of us expected.
I was useful, of course, but no one turned to me for answers. Not like they did Remo. He took on a lot of responsibility at a young age because of me. That’s why he hates Pfeiffer more than the others.
But he can’t keep punishing us all forever.
“You don’t love her.” A bitter half-laugh leaves his throat as he shakes his head.
Despite how important Remo is to me, that statement drives me insane.
“Yes,” I grind out low. “I do.”
He bares his teeth. “You know what that makes you?” he snarls. “A fuckingtraitor. How can you love someone who tore us apart?”
I stand without thinking, my hands balling into fists.
“She didn’t!” I bellow. “When are you going to get the fuck over yourself and listen to the truth, Remo? It wasn’t fuckingher!”
A knife driving deep into the table makes us all step back.
Brando is glaring at us, his hand white-knuckling the handle of the blade he just drove halfway into the wood. Either he reallyis inhumanly strong or that blade is sharp enough to rival every single item the Fagans own.
“We didn’t want her ruined forthis,” he growls. “This was supposed to bring us together, not drive us apart.”
Cass sits back down and folds his arms as though Brando just succinctly made every point he’d been debating himself.
Remo and I glare at each other, then he shakes his head and I know there’s no going back. I’ve hurt him. By failing to fall out of love with the girl who triggered my father’s anger that day, I’ve failedhim.
I might have shattered Pfeiffer in the street and walked away from the broken pieces, but in Remo’s mind, I’d chosen her all along.
He straightens and holds his hands up, his lids falling closed like he can’t bear to look at me—or any of us.
“I can’t do this,” he sighs, his voice heavy with disappointment.
