He scrubbed his stubble with his palm. The nightmare had been an icy, subliminal warning of what could happen if Joaquin wasn’t vigilant.
“The dream was about my father.”
“And me?” She closed the robe tighter across her chest with her fist. “But it was just a dream, Joaquin. Wasn’t it? Joaquin, was he…abusive?” she asked in a whisper.
“Yes.”
Her breath hissed in. “Physically? Your ribs?”
“Yes.”
“Where were the authorities?” she asked with anguish. “Why wasn’t he stopped?”
“He told the doctors I’d jumped from the hayloft. Boys will be boys.”
“Your mother?”
“She had already left.”
“And left you with him?” She started toward him.
He put up a hand, holding her off. He couldn’t bear her tenderness right now.
“She didn’t know. Not until later. Don’t blame her. I was questioned, but I was worried I’d be separated from Fernando so I didn’t tell them the truth.”
“I don’t understand how people can be like that. Especially to a child.” She covered her mouth with her hand.
“I asked my mother once if I was the product of an affair, thinking that might explain why he was so petty toward me. I was barely old enough to understand that people could have affairs, but I wanted my father to be someone else. Desperately,” he said on a scuff of a laugh. “She said he was just a mean, small, jealous man. He was,” he said with contempt. “He was horribly jealous of his own brother. LVG was bequeathed to both of them and they fought over it until my uncle died. That’s one of the reasons Lorenzo always made sure I knew Fernando was the heir and I the spare.”
“But when Fernando died…?” Her brow was knotted with incomprehension, her chin crinkled.
“Jealous again. Of me.” He lifted a hand and a defeated breath left him. “I think that’s part of it. He’s always seen me as a threat on some level, stealing attention or questioning him or pushing back on his bad ideas. Fernando and I were close growing up, despite his efforts to divide us. Maybe I just reminded him of his brother. I don’t know, but it came to a head when I was fourteen and designed a relay component. We lived and breathed electronics growing up. In that way, I had a very privileged life.”
“Not if he was abusive.”
He looked away, trying to ignore the slash of pain that went through his chest. The wave of old helplessness that wanted to swallow him.
“In any case, I had the brain of an engineer and handed my father the schematic. I guess I thought if I earned his respect, things would change. It was the logic of a child. Of…” Wanting to be loved. Or at least accepted.
Siobhan was listening closely, searching his expression.
He swallowed. “It allowed LVG to become a leader in that pocket of the market. Two years later, I could see that it was a success. I wanted him to acknowledge that I had done something useful for LVG. That I was an asset. That’s all.” He was still baffled by his father’s reaction. “I wasn’t asking for money, only for him to say I had done a good job. He called me a liar, claimed he had designed it himself and threw me from the house.” He could still feel his father’s fist in his hair. The propulsion out the door. The gravel hitting his knees and palms. He could still hear the door slam behind him and the chill as rain began to penetrate his clothes.
“You were sixteen?” she asked in an appalled voice. “What did you do? Where did you go? Your mother?”
“She was in South America, losing her battle with breast cancer.” Not that she’d told her sons of her ill health. “We rarely saw her. Fernando was away with friends. The staff was forbidden to open a door to me. I didn’t have shoes or a phone. I started walking and, honestly, the farther I got from him, the better I felt.”
“Where did you sleep? How did you survive?”
He almost smiled at how maternal she already sounded.
“Someone picked me up, took me to a shelter for teens. A few weeks later, Fernando brought me some things—my clothes and my ID. He gave me money. By then, I had a job selling souvenirs from a kiosk at festivals and cleaning up the site afterthe concerts were over. I was living in a house with ten other people, all of us down on our luck. Half of them were doing hard drugs. Others were hiding from immigration authorities or the law. The place was full of mold and infested with fleas, but I was so damned happy.”
“Joaquin.”
“Don’t pity me,” he said sharply. “It was the most agency I’d ever had. The most peace. I already knew what hell looked like. That was merely inconvenience.”
“You didn’t go to the police?”