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“When I was a newborn…” he starts. “My mother gave me up. I’m Raph’s twin, and she didn’t want me. So, as soon as I was born, she gave me to some nuns, where I spent sixteen horrible years.”
I blink back tears, knowing this story is not going to end well. Not with everything I know about him so far.
“You once showed me your scars, but what I didn’t tell you is that I have mine.”
He lifts me a little and places me on the bed while he rises from it, dragging up his shirt and showing everything.
I throw a hand over my mouth, anguished at what he endured.
“I’m so sorry,” I pant, knowing the agony all too well. Seeing his scars, it makes me feel even closer to him. “Who did that to you?”
He returns to me, placing me back on his lap, an arm swooping around me. “Those fucking nuns.” He scoffs. “All because of my mother. I vowed to kill her for leaving me at the hands of women who should’ve cared. Who should’ve shown me what it meant to love and be human. Yet all I found there was the cruel reality of human nature.”
He forces his head back and sears his gaze to mine, and I feel it everywhere. This man, he makes me want to hold him in my arms, like a broken little boy who just needs someone to love him.
“I’m so sorry, A.” My throat closes up.
“Don’t be. I met you.” His smile is wrapped with melancholy. “I’d take another sixteen years of that torture just to meet you again.”
“You stupid man,” I cry, wrapping my arms around him and holding on. “Why didn’t you just tell me? I wouldn’t have told anyone. I’d have kept your secret.”
He chuckles gravelly, staring back at me. “My beautiful Kayla.Had I known you’d be the kind of woman I’d want to lay down my life for, I would’ve. But we don’t get second chances.”
Don’t I know it…
“How did you come to work for your brother?”
He snickers. “Well, he doesn’t know who I am. No one does. Except my mother now.”
“What do you mean? How does she know?”
“I tried to kill her the other day.”
“Okay. Wow. Do go on.”
“I didn’t end up doing it. Nicked her throat a little.”
“Oh, crap. Is that why she had a scarf on at my birthday party?”
“Yep.” He shakes his head with resentment ripping through his features. “I waited years for that day. Years to find her and kill her, and I couldn’t fucking do it. All because of that damn picture!”
“What picture?”
He reaches into his pocket and retrieves it, handing it to me.
“Oh my goodness. Is that you?” My gaze jumps between him and the photo of a baby and a woman who looks like a younger Fernanda.
He nods. “Apparently. She had it in her wallet, said she never forgot me. That she loves me. Can you believe that?”
I slant my head to the side and feel for him. “Maybe she does. Maybe she had her reasons. Have you asked her for an explanation?”
“Whose side are you on?” His voice trips with irritation.
“Yours, of course. But I don’t want you to carry this anger that she’s the root of if there is maybe a good reason for what she did.”
“No. There’s no good reason. She left me and never even looked for me. Not once.”
I nod. “You’re right. I’m sorry.” I lay my palm against the stubble on his cheek. “Tell me more.”
