“Vittorio! Micah!” Isabelle shouts. “Stop this. You are brothers.”
“Stay out of it, Isabelle,” Victor orders, his nostrils flaring. “If Mick thinks he can kick my ass, let him try.”
“Is that what you want?” She slams the oven door closed. “For Dwayde to come home and find the two men he respects the most going at each other?”
Temper is no match for the hot tug of guilt, which turns my anger inward. I should be past this shit. Past reacting like my old man. “I’m sorry, Isabelle. Victor.” I straighten and scrub my fingers through my hair. “After everything you and your family have done for me, I went to Dee because I owe it to you to fix this.”
“Christ!” Victor seethes, slumping back in his chair. “Do you have any idea how insulting that is? My parents weren’t thinking about repayment when you were only eight and lost your mother, leaving you with nobody but a drunk for a father. They gladly took care of you because they loved your mom, and they loved you like a son. You don’t owe us shit.”
He’s wrong. I owe them more than they realize. “I’m not talking about checks and balances, Victor. This is about my promise to Papa T.” I swallow around the fisted lump I get whenever I think of Cayo Torres—the man who for all intents and purposes was my father—dying of cancer.
“I gave him my word. I promised to always look out for his family. And I’ve let him down. I’ve let all of you down.”
Victor sighs, his own grief still heavy. “You haven’t let anybody down. Papa wouldn’t hold you responsible for this any more than we do.”
“If I hadn’t lost my cool—”
“When are you going to give yourself a pass on that? O’Malley was the asshole, coming at you and the kids like that. And whether you had hit him or not, the story still would have made headlines, because you’re news. And that’s just the way it is. So I’m asking you—no, I’m telling you—to let this go. Dwayde is our son and we’ll make the call on who should represent him. And it sure as hell won’t be Deeana Chase.”
“Fine.” I shove away from the table, tension grinding in my every muscle. “You don’t want to hire Dee. I’ll stay the hell out of it.”
“Iwant to hire her.”
We swerve our heads in Isabelle’s direction, and Victor asks in disbelief, “You’re siding with Mick?”
Isabelle walks over to her husband and embraces his stiff shoulders. “We’re all on the same side, Victor. Dwayde’s.”
“He went behind my back.”
“Out of love for us.”
Victor curses under his breath. “What do you think seeing her again is going to do to my mother?”
“I think it will finally give her the closure she’s needed. That you’ve all needed.”
“Isabelle—” he protests.
She smooths her cheek over the top of Victor’s crew cut. “The Franklins are threatening a court order. Dwayde’s scared. I’m scared. Let Dee help him. Please, Victor. Don’t fight me on this.”
I witness my friend battling himself in silence. I’ve never known him to deny his wife anything that was important to her, and I doubt he’s going to start now. True to character, he releases a breath and says with all the reluctance he obviously feels, “Don’t count on this being a cathartic experience for me, Isabelle, but I’ll do whatever you want.”
“Gracias, mi cielo,” she whispers in gratitude and Victor’s expression softens.
Not so when he turns to face me. His features darken with judgment and censure. “A leopard doesn’t change its spots, Mick. So word to the wise, don’t go losing your head over Dee again.” And with a pointed look at my zipper, he adds, “Either one.”
THAT NIGHT, THE MEMORY I haven’t let my conscious mind relive in years haunts my dreams. I’ve just turned eighteen and my life is supposed to be my own. But it isn’t. It belongs to my father, and he never lets me forget it.
I don’t want the basketball scholarship to North Carolina State University. As an aspiring writer, I want to go to New York University. A month earlier, right after Christmas, I finally gathered the nerve to tell my old man. It went about as well as I should have expected. Malcolm Peters grabbed my throat and threatened to break my neck if I ever mentioned NYU or writing again. End of subject.
But it isn’t the end for me. I send away for the application and have it delivered to Victor’s. The day after it arrives, fire burning in my belly, I ditch school. As soon as my father leaves for work, with the morning sun streaming through my bedroom window, I dig into the required submission.
For hours, my fingers fly across the keyboard as the short story pours out of me. A mythical world where heroes exist and anything is possible. Worlds I created as a kid to escape the reality of my existence.
I smile as I describe Dionna, the princess with dark, curly locks, golden eyes, and brickhouse curves. My Dionna’s no tiara-wearing, ivory tower princess, though. I give her thigh-high boots and a bustier that barely covers the goods. She’s busting out of it and it’s freakin’ hot. Not that I have more than a dirty dream of what Dee’s plump body looks like beneath those bulky clothes. Papa T would have my ass for thinking this way about his foster daughter, and Dee would probably be shocked and embarrassed. But it’s my fantasy and I’m playing it out on paper.
As consolation, I make Dionna fierce in combat. Dee would like that. I’m completely lost in the scene where my heroine and the renegade hero, Dark Shadow—that’s me, naturally—battle the enemy with ninja moves to protect the citadel and its people. I don’t hear him until my bedroom door swings open with a force that knocks it against the wall.
I can’t shut off in time or cover the application forms on my desk.
