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His silver eyes were like ice. Like he didn’t know her.
Then he looked at the door, where his brothers’ figures could be seen through the glass. With quick, angry strides, he reached the door and pulled it open.
Megan stayed on her kitchen stool, her hands over her mouth. The brothers backed up a step when they saw Alessandro. She wasn’t the only one who found him frightening.
“E?” he snapped.And?
Leo began speaking in Italian, low and hesitating, but Alessandro interrupted him. “We are in America now. And I have a guest.” Megan’s eyes filled at how he spat the word out. From lover to guest. And to take their native language away from them. He wanted them at a disadvantage.
“You are here to ask for money,” he said.
“Alessio, I know you will think that,” Leo said. “But we are here to say we are sorry.”
“Oh, well. That is all right then.” He looked back at Megan. “They are sorry,cara.”
He might have seen the tears in her eyes because he froze before turning determinedly away from her.
“Alessio,ascolta,” Massimo broke in. “We did not know what they—”
“My name is Alessandro.”
“We were children too!” Massimo exclaimed, ignoring him. “We were at the Conservatory. We didn’t know you left until we got back for the holidays.”
“We told them to tell us where you were, but they wouldn’t,” Leo said. “They told us you’d assaulted them. They told us they would have called the police if you hadn’t left.”
Alessandro didn’t look at them. “No. I did not assault them,” he said quietly, coldly. “I had had enough of being beaten by my brothers. I would not do it to others.”
Leo and Massimo looked at each other. Megan saw the pain and guilt in their eyes and was glad of it. The tears fell down her cheeks. Alessandro was so polite, so gentle. And he’d put up with this for his entire childhood?
And Megan had told him to let his torturers into the house.
“We admit it,” Leo said. “Eravamo stronzi. They told us competition was the only way to succeed. And you did not compete. They told us we were… making you tough.”
Megan gulped back the tears and tried to make herself disappear.
“Sure, sure.” Alessandro was nodding, but Megan hated the sarcasm in his voice. “You were innocent in the whole thing. You never made me feel small for wanting what I wanted.”
The brothers looked at each other. “We know,” Massimo said. “We were… not good brothers.”
“There is another word for it,” Alessandro said. “Prepontenti. Bullies.”
“Si. We know.” Leo looked at the doorframe. “Can we come inside? We would not like to talk about this outside.”
“What do you think, Megan?” Alessandro asked, looking back at her and just as quickly looking away. “I think that my security training would tell me not to let two strangers into the house. Don’t you?”
“Just hear them out,” Megan said, but her voice was shaky and small and did no good at all.
“I…” He made a show of thinking. “I think I have a ceremony to get ready for. I think you should go back wherever you came from and be with the people who want you in their lives.”
He looked at Megan when he said it.
And he went to close the door. “Wait!” she cried. There it was. Her voice, strong and echoing through the room. She impatiently wiped her cheeks and walked toward him.
Megan always went for the easy way out, the path that led to peace. Even at her own expense. All she ever wanted was for everyone to get along. Most especially, she wanted her and Alessandro to get along. She should just put her arms around him, tell him she understood, let him close the door on his brothers. Go back to the way things were.
But she couldn’t let him shut them out. She just couldn’t. “’Sandro, please. Let them at least say what they came to say.”
He gave her that icy stare. He thought she was betraying him. She should be backing him up, letting him dismiss this painful part of his life. Letting him move into the future, never resolving this conflict.
