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I’m not sure how long we went at it, but I was far from done when a tiny alarm sounded. “Shit,” I said, pulling away from where Matteo and I had been tussling. “I was supposed to pick her up at nine.” I ripped the Velcro on the gloves with my teeth, throwing them to Matteo, who caught them and stuffed them with his own in a drawer on the wall. We both looked at the screen hidden in a cabinet, which showed Gideon’s SUV pulling down my winding driveway.
“Helmet,” he said calmly, catching that as well and throwing them in with everything else. “It’s not nine yet—your brother jumped the gun.”
He closed the cabinet as I yanked the tape off my hands and disposed of it in the trash. I snatched for the mats I’d rolled in a corner, throwing them both out on the floor we’d vacated before rushing to the door to open it. “We’re over here,” I called to Gideon and Gia as they exited the vehicle. Gia waved, skipping over as her dad trailed a few steps behind. “You guys are early,” I said, hugging Gia.
“Dad needed to get some work done, and even though I’m not a baby and am perfectly capable of staying at the house by myself,” she said pointedly, “it was decided that it would be in everyone’s best interest if I were dropped off at your house.”
I bit my lip at her attitude, which skimmed just that side of respectful. “I see,” I said, looking over at Gideon, who looked a little rough around the edges. Clearly, father and daughter had gone a round or two that morning despite the early hour. Gideon opened his mouth to say something when he noticed movement behind me. I saw his hand twitch, the only indication he fought the urge to grab his gun as Matteo came into view.
“Namaste,” he said to my brother, nodding at him before looking at my niece. “And good morning to you too, mini Belle.”
“Matteo, I didn’t know you’d be here today!” She launched herself at him, and he leaned over to wrap her in a hug.
Gideon’s jaw clenched. I knew all my brothers hated Matteo on principle. After all, they were fairly sure that my “personal trainer” also did some other “personal” things to me as well. It was a good way to explain the odd times they saw us together, but I neither confirmed nor denied the question every time they asked for several reasons. One, it worked out in my favor to make them think there was more to our relationship than just the one I claimed was gym-related. Two, I didn’t want to have to lie to them any more than necessary, and I couldn’t exactly divulge what he was without also spilling the beans on whatIdid. And three, it drove them crazy to think that their little sister had an on-again, off-again, sex-only relationship.
“I’m sorry if we … interrupted anything,” Gideon forced out, his jaw never relaxing.
I smirked. “We were just finishing up.” I couldn’t help but taunt him. “Yoga, I mean,” I continued when his face flushed an angry red.
“When am I old enough for yoga?” Gia asked, looking between her father and me.
“Aren’t spa days and nail polish enough?” Gideon asked, looking more than a bit aggrieved at how his morning was going.
“You wouldn’t let me take kickboxing, taekwondo, or self-defense,” Gia counted off her fingers. “I thought since apparently you think those aren’t appropriate, something more girly would be more proper.”
Someone’s on a roll this morning, I thought, raising my eyebrow at my brother.
In an uncharacteristic move, he wiped his face with his hand, his weariness coming through loud and clear. “I don’t know. I’ll think about it.”
“I just don’t understand why you won’t let me do active, boy things, like soccer or hiking club, or anything else I’ve asked to do, but you get mad when I want to do girly things. You make fun of Aunt Lessia for doing beauty things, but that’s all I seem to be allowed to do.”
The girl wasn’t wrong, and I wanted to give her a high five for telling it like it was, without the extreme attitude and snark I would have, but I didn’t think it would be appropriate. “Why don’t you help Matteo move our mats, and you can show me what you’ve been learning in gymnastic class?” I offered the reprieve, and my brother looked at me gratefully as she rushed inside to get the floor cleared. Gymnastics was the only thing the two of them had agreed on.
“She’s not wrong,” I whispered when she was far enough away not to overhear. “You can’t be upset at what she’s becoming if it’s due to your choices. You’re molding her into this, not me. I understand how worried you were when she was born. I know you were terrified you would lose them both, but—“
He cut me off like he always did when the subject came up. “You don’t have a child. You have no idea—“
It was my turn to cut him off. “Bullshit,” I snapped. “I might not have birthed that child,” I pointed behind me, “but I raised her just as much as you did. From day one, I loved that girl as if she were my own. Don’t you dare tell me that again.” I took a breath, more because I didn’t want Gia to see us arguing than anything else. “You’re going to have to make a choice,” I continued, calmer now, “about what kind of adult you want her to become. Because two things are going to happen. She’s going to fold and become that Barbie doll you’re encouraging her to be, or she’s going to rebel and pull away from you.” I knew that with absolute certainty. I’d done the same, after all. They just hadn’t realized it. None of them had. It made me feel like shit that I was doing it again with the next generation, but I knew what that little girl was going through, what it felt like to want to be one version of yourself while your loved ones wanted you to be another. And because they loved you, and you loved them, you couldn’t say what needed to be said, couldn’t explode with the hurt and anger that burned in the pit of your stomach like a volcano. Until one day, you had to make a choice, lest all that leashed emotion consumed you and burned you to ash.
If I hadn’t been recruited by the government when I had, who knew how bad the fallout would have been. My parents had raised me to be myself, which, for me, meant loving to run the military obstacle course at A.T. and shoot guns. But when my mom died when I was thirteen, my dad forced me into a stereotype we used to ridicule. It made me cram my emotions into a box, lest I upset my father. He’d lost the love of his life, after all. How petty was I to deny him the opportunity to take me out shopping if it made him happy? The rationale of being a dutiful daughter, not to rock the boat, kept going, getting worse and worse while I kept more of myself—my real identity—away from him until I couldn’t anymore. And when I tried to fix things, to show him just how far off his impression was about me and my likes and dislikes, I’d been betrayed in the worst possible way. Our relationship was strained to the breaking point even so many years later, and I wasn’t sure if either of us realized just how close I was to severing ties completely. If it weren’t for the rest of my family, I would have walked away years ago. Hell, I hadn’t seen Daddy outside our dreaded Sunday dinners in years and, though I’d never admit it out loud, often planned my trips to make it in and out of Texas so that I’d miss the meal on purpose.
Afraid I would say something a little too revealing about my struggles, I took a step back and shut the door in his face with a resounding click. I took one more breath, putting my best “aunt-face” on, and turned around, dusting my hands dramatically. “He has so forth been banished until we complete our dastardly deeds for the day.”
Gia giggled. “You’re so funny sometimes, Aunt Lessia.” She kicked her feet up into a handstand, holding it for several seconds before falling back to her feet.
“Great show of muscle control,” Matteo complimented from his position next to her, spotting her in case she needed a save.
“It certainly was,” I murmured, causing Gia to beam.
“Dad said we’re supposed to have ice cream today. Does that mean we’re practicing self-defense instead of karate?” she asked innocently. All our activities had code names. I hated teaching her to deceive her father, but I didn’t know how else to balance Gia’s desires in life with my brother’s decrees.
“I thought I would let you decide,” I said, forcing myself to focus on the person in front of me. “Though, Matteo here was hoping to see if you still remember how to throw him to the floor.”
She beamed, and Matteo groaned but said nothing. That in itself indicated how much he cared for the little girl. Too bad no one could know what he was or what we were doing. The pictures from my surveillance camera would have been exceptional blackmail—the former Ranger super soldier taken down by a ten-year-old.
We spent two hours working with Gia before calling it quits for the day. I snuck in a quick phone call and booked us at the salon I liked in town—mainly because they had the best food for us to eat while they worked—so we both hurried to shower while Matteo left to do whatever it was he normally did when he wasn’t hanging out with me.
I immediately noticed the tail—they weren’t going through much trouble to hide it. “Kiddo, does your dad have security on you?” I asked. With a family as well-known, wealthy, and connected as ours, it wasn’t unheard of for protection to be warranted. All my brothers really should have full-time security, but none of them save Gideon ever used it. Heck, even Gideon wasn’t consistent. I could remember a handful of times in recent years, but with me not exactly present, I couldn’t be sure if it was expected or not.
