“Dean.”
His eyes locked onto mine, but it wasn’t anger or frustration that watched me. It was worry and subtle determination. And a gentleness as he considered me for a moment.
No walls.
“You might not like what you hear, Lily...”
He was worried about what I thought?
I kept my voice quiet. “I can handle it.”
Dean watched me for a moment like he expected me to change my mind, but I only waited. When he realized I meant what I said, he slowly slid his empty plate aside and braced his forearms on the table, thinking for a moment as he schooled his features and dipped his head to run his fingers through his hair. A million thoughts seemed to cross his mind before he found a place to start.
“It was a suicide...just not in the way you think,” he said.
“Okay.”
He clenched his jaw and sighed through his nose. “Gio was an abusive alcoholic who took his frustrations out on my mother and I... As I got older and stronger, he confronted us less. At least when I wasn’t around. He knew if he tried anythin’, that I could stop him... The day I was recruited by Antonio when I was 18, I’d gotten into an argument with Gio. He got frustrated over somethin’ my mother did and tried to hit her... She was seven months pregnant.”
The thought that Dean could’ve had a younger sibling made my heart ache. He would’ve been a perfect big brother.
I slid my hand out across the tablecloth and gently brushed his hand with my fingertip. His hand uncurled at the touch before he took my hand in his, focusing on them as he continued.
His voice was a little softer this time. “I wanted to make sure they were safe, but my mother wanted the house calm. Once she managed to talk Gio down, she suggested I take a walk to clear my head...” A muscle ticked in his jaw but his hold on my hand remained light. “I left her alone with him and went to where some of the local kids held street fights for cash. It was an outlet for my anger and frustration.”
I stroked his scarred knuckles with my thumb. “And that’s how Antonio found you?”
“Yeah.” The slight sway in the storyline seemed to ease the tension from his shoulders. At least for a moment. “He’d been watchin’ from outside his car. When I won, and then confronted him for starin’, he said he could offer me way more than what I was gettin’ in a street fight... I didn’t know who he was, but I also didn’t wanna go home yet, so I went along with him anyway. He showed me the basement, the fighters, and told me about how much money I could win fightin’ for him...” He scoffed in sarcasm. “He told me I had potential.”
“He wasn’t wrong,” I offered, earning the slightest of smiles from him.
“I met Seb that night. We were the youngest and newest fighters there, so we sort of just became friends,” he shrugged. “After winning our fights, we decided to celebrate by gettin’ stupidly drunk.”
I knew vaguely of this part of the story, based on what Seb told me at the garage.
Worst hangover ever, Seb had said.
Dean shifted in his seat as his throat bobbed. “By the time I got home, it was the next morning... I just remember thinkin’ how quiet the house was...” His eyes drifted to the kitchen tiles before he muttered, “I found her there. Bleeding out.”
The reason Sofia was in a wheelchair dawned on me, and I quickly blinked back tears.
“We didn’t even know he had a gun... There was so much blood—” He frowned at himself; at his hands again as if he could see the blood there. A single tear rolled down his cheek before he wiped it away with his arm. “She was only worried about the baby.”
It only took a few seconds for this vulnerability to quickly strip away that outer shell I had grown so used to. Hidden behind it all was a broken boy who only wanted to protect his family.
No wonder he hated hospitals.
I stood quietly, keeping my hand in his as I rounded the table and came to his side. He watched as I got down on my knees and sat beside his chair, interlocking our fingers.
“He took away her ability to walk and my unborn sister. He left us with nothin’,” Dean muttered.
“So, you went to Antonio again?”
“He paid for everythin’. The renovations to the house, to make it wheelchair friendly. The hospital bills.” He took a breath, visibly shifting his mood a little as he pulled himself together. “In return, to pay off the debt I owed him, I agreed to stay on as a fighter. In a way, I was grateful for the fights. It kept my mind from thinkin’ about where Gio had run off to... Until three years ago. Antonio found out he was livin’ in upstate New York. In some fucked up twist in fate, Gio owed him money.”
It was a suicide...just not in the way you think.
I straightened in preparation for what came next while his eyes flicked to me, his gaze questioning if he should continue or not. But he had come this far in the story, and he needed to get this off his chest. My hand remained in his, resting on his thigh.
