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“I bet you fucking made sure the best Italian was made by you.” I raise an eyebrow.
“Not at all. My wife is no-nonsense. She has made it perfectly clear that I’m too heavy with spices.” A wide smile pulls on my brother’s lips. I never thought I would see him this happy.
“How hurt were you after hearing that?” I joke, but my focus stays on the menu as I select the items to order.
“It helps that I am madly in love with her. It did hit my pride though. You guys would eat just about anything I make.”
“I’m surpr-rised you aren’t t-taking classes at her favor-rite place.”
“Only because her favorite place is the bed-and-breakfast in Tuscany where we stayed for our honeymoon.”
Finally,our order of cannelloni, tagliatelle, and lasagna arrives, and I wolf down half from my plate in record time. Once some food is in my stomach, I feel much better.
“Now tell me the real reason why we’re sitting here on a sunny Monday afternoon,” Zander asks, placing his fork down.
Rubbing my hands over my pants, I glance at Zane before meeting Zander’s gaze. I take a deep breath and narrate my encounter with Ray and, at the last minute, add the fact that he isn’t my kid.
“You had a vasectomy?” Zander asks. My stomach hardens watching his lowered head as his fingers dig into his forehead. I know he’s hurt that I didn’t discuss this with him.
“It was the right thing for me.”
“It was a big decision.” Zander clenches his fists on the table.
His disbelief, his confusion, his hurt is all too much. I pick my fork back up and push another bite of lasagna into my mouth. After chewing completely, I reply, “Believe me, I know. But I also know that I can never pass this fixation, this addiction, this sickness to someone.”
“Zach!” Zander’s eyes widen and Zane mutters a curse beside me.
Fuck! They won’t let it go. Before my brothers turn this lunch into an intervention, I urge in my most polite voice, “Please drop it for today. Maybe some other day we’ll talk about it, but not now.”
Zander sighs, slumping into his chair. “So, the boy looks exactly like you.”
I nod and continue eating while my brothers’ half eaten meals sit before them.
“You also saw him?” he asks Zane who nods and flips his cell phone toward us.
There’s a photograph of Ray and me as I hand him my card this morning. Ray’s face is clearly visible from this angle as he looks up at me with so much…reverence. I can’t fucking shake the feeling that many years ago I was exactly at Ray’s place, looking at Beast. Begging him with my eyes to take us with him and end the nightmare my brothers and I were going through.
Zane places his phone on the table and then takes out our childhood picture and places it next to his phone.
“Wow,” Zander mutters. His gaze moves between the two images. “It’s fucking unbelievable.”
“Is this a coincidence?” I ask him warily, my heartbeat elevating every second.
“The boy lives with his mother and grandmother. No father?”
I shake my head as Zander rubs his face. I know what he’s thinking. I am thinking the same.
Could one of Ray’s parents be connected to that sick woman who gave birth to us?
“Mother?” I ask.
“I don’t know. It’s possible.” Zander flinches, just as he does every time there’s a reference of her.
Our mother was a young girl with Hollywood dreams. Our father was a middle-class teacher, totally in love with his wife. Their odd pair was happy for a while, but after a few years, our mother got addicted to alcohol, and when our father passed away, she moved to drugs.
But we don’t know about her history with any other man, except her drug dealer.The bad man who changed our lives.
I shiver with familiar fear thinking abouthim.
