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“Listen, Roman, Gabe is right. Now is not the time for this.”
“He can’t escape his family or who he is. Even when Dad dies, he’s still a De Luca.”
“Yeah, well, that means something different to me. Mom was a De Luca as well.”
Roman scoffed, just as he always did whenever one of us brought Mom up. “You hold Mom up on a fucking pedestal, but she married into this, she knew what she was getting into when she had kids, she chose our father. Do you really think she was the fucking saint you make her out to be?”
Good thing Dante was between us because I lunged toward Roman. I couldn’t hold back my emotions when he talked about Mom like that.
“Fuck you, man,” I said.
“Yeah, well, fuck you too. You can’t even visit your old man on his deathbed, after all that he did for us.”
“All that he did for us? You mean make deals with the Mob, train us to do the same, throwing us to the wolves and putting our lives in fucking danger to make a dime?” I spat the words at Roman. It had been a long time since I’d felt so much anger.
“He did the best he could with what he had. He had nothing, Gabe. He came from poverty and worked his way up in the only way he knew how. You think you’d have this huge house if it wasn’t for Dad? Do you think you would have been able to start a business without the money he made?”
“I earned all of this myself.”
“That’s bullshit, and you know it. There’s no self-made man here, you benefited from the legacy our father built for us and now you won’t even go say goodbye to him before he dies.”
“I have other priorities right now, Roman. I have my children to look after. Maybe if Dad had put us first just once all those years ago, you wouldn’t be dealing with the fucking wolves at your throat now.”
Roman started to say something but Dante stopped him and pulled him aside. We were getting nowhere. Any reconciliatory feelings I had toward Roman were now gone.
“Just leave,” I said. “Both of you, can you just leave and let me spend time with my family? That’s all I want.”
“We’re your family too,” Dante said, sounding a little wounded.
“Well you certainly don’t know how to fucking act like it, bringing this bullshit into my house, today of all days,” I said. “So I’ll ask you again, please leave, or I will make sure you’re escorted out. Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”
Roman pushed past Dante and headed for the door. “Not like you ever thought of us as family anyway, you always thought you were better than everyone.”
“No, Roman, I didn’t. I just didn’t want to be caught up in Dad’s bullshit. You know what, never mind, why do I even bother?”
“Yeah, exactly, why bother with your family,” Roman said as he stepped out of the library.
I looked at Dante, unsure if he would stay or follow Roman. He shook his head. “You know, he might be an asshole sometimes, but you can be too. He made some good points.”
Dante walked toward the door, just as I expected him to.
I followed them both, making sure they found their way out of my house without any more trouble. Roman slammed the front door behind him, cursing me out under his breath before leaving.
I stood there in the entryway for a long time. I knew Ava had wanted to repair things with them, but I wasn’t sure it was possible. Our family was too broken.
I heard movement behind me and turned to find Bella standing there.
My body instantly relaxed when I laid eyes on her.
“Is everything okay?” she asked me.
“Everything is fine, the guys were just mad that I wasn’t making plans to visit Dad.”
I noticed Ava peeking her head out of the living room, listening to everything. She cleared her voice before saying, “Maybe they’re right, Gabe. Maybe we should visit him one last time.”
I stared at my baby sister. She had grown into an intelligent, mature, self-sufficient young woman, despite all the ways our father had tried to fuck her up.
Not answering her, I walked past her into the living room, where my daughters were fast asleep in the bassinets we had brought down for them. Bella stepped up beside me, and I put an arm around her waist, kissing the top of her head.
