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She scoffs, then moves back like I physically shoved her. She shakes her head, then nods.
She comes back to me, “Benedetto, I don't care if you want to start a rebellion, but just tell me you are fine and this is only that, a rebellion.” She shoves the cutouts at my bare chest.
“If you will excuse me, I have work to do,” I let them drop to the floor, angling to leave when the bastard surfaces.
“Just the person I've been wanting to see,” the craggy voice of Claudio makes my blood boil and I ball my fists as he struts toward us, in his usual corporate casual outfits, white dress shirt, blue jeans, and a brown hat.
Another painful thing about him is that he looks like my father, sounds like him, and in most cases has the same laugh.
Just slight differences between them, like where his eyes are hazel, my father had brown eyes. Where he has dark hair like mine, my father had lighter hair. My father was a little taller and more athletic than him. My father was a corporate man through and through. Even when he did gardening, he wouldn't change up, he would just roll up his sleeves. And you could feel the vibration of my father’s laughter in your stomach, whereas for Claudio’s never reaches his eyes.
How did I not smell the hunger and jealousy of him wanting to be his brother? To have the life he had. To live the life he would have lived.
“Claudio let him be, he is having it rough,” my mother looks at me tenderly, trying to understand me a little.
“I know,” he closes the distance and wraps his arm around her waist, “He is like my son after all,” he plants a kiss on her forehead.
“I am not your son,” I scowl at the both of them and their shameless display of affection.
“Like it or not, you practically are, and if cutouts like this make you feel better, then we can do it together and paste them around the city of Boston,” Claudio smiles softly. “He was my brother too and I miss him a great deal,” he exhales and shakes his head as if he truly does.
“You miss him so much you didn't want his widow to cry him out of her system before you start to fuck her.”
“Benedetto,” my mother growls.
“What? Since you are all expecting me to grow past this, why don't you both take it as normal when I say these things?” I shrug, “It's been years like you said, we should all accept certain things,” I move away from them.
“You remind me so much of him,” he tightens his grip around my mother's waist and she leans into his chest. “Full of life, always so bullheaded and fierce,” he scoffs, “You should relax a little, live more, you know heart attacks can happen to anyone,” he shrugs smugly.
I don't miss the threat in his words. He is saying plainly that what killed my father can kill me. Which also means whoever killed my father can kill me. Basically, he is letting me know he can kill me.
Except he doesn't know that I know he killed my father. Maybe he thinks I suspect him, but I'm sure he doesn't know I know. And if he is threatening me without knowing, it's because he feels threatened by my return.
I smile. “You should use some of your advice. As he would fondly say, death has no friend,” I switch to my mask of being easygoing and likable, to be taken for granted with a grin plastered on my face.
“I will,” he scoffs, then looks at my mother who looks up at him with so much affection, “Breakfast?”
“Yes, please,” she nods.
Two idiots.
People that should be bundled up and thrown in a fucking asylum. They both vex me sourly and I know half the time he does it on purpose. Being extra sweet with her.
I roll my eyes at them and bounce into the manor, heading straight for my father's study. I take the stairs two at a time until I'm on the third floor.
I stop in the hallway, staring blankly at the door of Rosaline’s room which is in the opposite direction of the study. I haven't heard from her or seen her since after breakfast yesterday.
When I asked Evelyn how she was doing last night, she said fine. I know she is not fine. She can't be fine, not after what I did to her. That was why I had to find a way to soften the blow and do it quickly.
I know when she sees her family, she will feel more relaxed and also have something to occupy her mind and distract her from what I had done to her. I'm hoping that's the case. If anything, they sounded like they cared for her on the call when we were on our way to Boston.
I am now walking to her door when I realize what I'm doing. I halt, bite my lower lip enough to trigger intense pain, take a deep breath, and spin in the direction of the study.
The wound is still too fresh for both of us, she needs time and I need time too. I don't want to do something I'd regret for the rest of my life.
I take gallant steps to the study. I type in the code, use the key, open the door, and walk inside.
The warm light of the study comes on and I walk to sit behind the desk, where I have more magazines and newspapers with the news of my father’s death spread out but then stand almost immediately when I feel the wetness of my sweatpants reminding me I was jogging in the rain.
