My wife stood in front of me, hands up, trembling. “Brando.” She swallowed hard, speaking to me as one does when they’re trying to cajole a wild beast into stepping back into his cage. Her mouth opened again, Italian coming out in slow, pleading words. “Let him go, my husband. Please. Do not do this. You will leave me. Leave us.”
“My sons,” I said in the same language.
She called them over, keeping them close. Marciano took her hip, Mariano stood on her right, his side pressed against her body, and she stroked Matteo’s head on her left, her cool fingers running through his sweat-drenched hair.
The scene came into focus then. Romeo seemed to materialize out of nowhere, and so did Mitch. Guards hovered around, keeping people at bay. Parents shielded their children’s faces, some hurrying from the park.
Somewhere in the depth of my mind, I registered sirens.
I released the sheriff’s shirt, and he landed on the ground with a loud thud, a dusting of mud flying up from the impact. His wife’s eyes were wary, hesitating, but after I moved far enough from him, she flew to his side on the ground, touching his face.
Scarlett reached up and touched my face, her hands trembling. Her eyes were bright, but no tears fell.
“Brando,” she barely got out.
I said nothing to her, time for that later, and leaned down, coming face to face with Matteo.
“You okay, my son?” I touched his ear, but he moved his face, but not before I felt the heat pulsating from his tender skin.
He swallowed hard, soundless, but I saw the bob of his throat. “Fine, Father,” he spoke in barely audible Italian. Broken. His voice sounded shattered, even if the man in him stood up and kept him on his feet.
His ear didn’t look fine though. It was red and swollen, and the color seemed to flood my vision. Scarlett snatched my arm before I turned and went back to finish what had been started.
“If you go, I will follow,” she said to me, keeping her voice low, but strong enough to make an impression.
“We should go, brother,”Romeo said in Italian, glancing at the road leading to the park.
Juliette stood behind him, our group of friends huddled around, some of the women holding hands in that way they do when they’re either praying silently or holding on to each other for support.
The relationship between the sheriff and I was infamous in our town. Maybe the situation itself came as no surprise, but the trigger of my release had. I didn’t feel good about what had happened—if I would have had the choice of time and place, it wouldn’t have been in a park full of impressionable kids—but as a selfish bastard, if it came down to the safety of my children or the shielding of tender eyes, it would be tender eyes.
“Too late,” Mitch muttered.
Sirens exploded in the air. Florescent lights the colors of bruises pulsated against the cement as cruisers moved in closer. I was hauled from the premises, hands behind my back. For the second time in my life, I had been arrested.
As the sheriff was known to say to me, though, luck was on my side that it hadn’t been more.
7
Brando
“Fausti, your wife won’t quit, man.”
Looking up, I found Chris Durandon the other side of the cell, looking in. I had gone to school with Chris, and after we’d graduated, he’d gone on to be a police officer. He and his wife Destiny had moved to New Orleans for a while, and then decided to move back home to be closer to family.
Whatever he saw on my face, he raised his hands at. “I mean no disrespect, Fausti,” he said. “I have fond memories of Elliott and his little sister. But she’s not so little anymore, and neither is her temper.”
Grinning, I felt my lip split once more. A warm rush of blood invaded my mouth, and I automatically swallowed to rid my mouth of the coppery taste. Either the sheriff had gotten a lick in—fucking point to him—or his buddies did when they hauled me in. My sides were bruised, and my back would be too. The face went without saying.
I lifted my hands. What the fuck did he want me to do about in here? “All I can say, on my word, is that she’ll stop when I’m out.”
It had been two days, and Scarlett was feeling the strain. She hadn’t left the immediate vicinity of the building, afraid of what they’d do to me if she did. After what had gone down with the sheriff’s nephew, Brandon, a while back, she was worried about retribution. Brandon had been the cause of Romeo and Juliette losing their first child, and after, Romeo got his revenge, in the form of murder while Brandon was in jail.
If my wife was worried about vengeance, though, the law was getting in licks that went beyond skin. Rations were sparse, and so were blankets. For a man who ran hot, this cell held in the cold. After some time, though, the bite of it started to grate on the skin and seep into bone.
That was the least of it.
Even though I never let them see it, the separation from my family had started to cause me stress. Nemours’s presence could’ve been my imagination, but I wasn’t sure if it was.
