Shifting in my chair, I got comfortable. Somehow, it felt like Dante shouldn’t have told me this information, but I wasn’t going to stop him. I knew there was more to Luc than the facade he put on, but I didn’t realize just how much he might have gone through. I remembered the sadness that had filled his features the night he had come home drunk, but pressed down on any sympathy towards him.
“Thing is Mia,” Dante said. “A broken bone between brothers doesn’t mean much. We’ve scrapped a lot over the years over all sorts of things. He was mad. I think he probably still is, because you found out about, it but we’ll sort it out.”
I narrowed my eyes, unhappy with how he seemed to just brush it off like Luc had pushed him. “It’s not right, Dante. You shouldn’t just forgive things like that.”
“Do you forgive your father for the situation you’re in?”
“That’s different.”
“Why?” Dante asked curiously. “Because he’s your blood? Luc is mine.” He finished his cookie and instantly reached for another.
“Dad didn’t physically hurt me,” I pointed out to him.
He shrugged his shoulders, apparently not caring for my logical argument.
“You are so different. I just don’t understand how you are even friends, let alone family,” I said.
Suddenly, Dante sat forward and placed the cookie on the table. “You think we’re different?”
“Well, yes,” I said, although I felt unsure now.
He chuckled and shook his head. “Oh, Mia. You really aren’t a part of our world, are you? You don’t think I’m like Luc because I keep my temper in check around you?”
“You’re nothing like him,” I said with more confidence than I felt.
“In my general disposition? Sure,” he agreed. “I like to look at the bright side, but I’m his right hand, Mia. Make no mistake that what you think he’s capable of, I can and have done exactly the same. A broken arm isn’t much for us because it could be a lot worse.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat as my chest tightened with anxiety.
“And even though he’s done this to me to prove a point,” Dante said, surveying the arm that’s in a cast. “A point, may I add, that was about you and the importance you play in his life, it doesn’t mean I wouldn’t take a bullet for my brother.”
The sheer intensity of the loyalty that came from Dante made me feel like I’d misjudged the entire relationship between both men. When Dante called them brothers, when he said Luc was his blood, it wasn’t just words. It was a fact.
“You treat me like a friend and yet you won’t give him the time of day,” Dante pointed out. “Trust me when I say he’s trying, Mia. He’s no angel, but he’s better than me in that sense. At least with Luc, what you see is what you get. He doesn’t try to be anything else.”
I sank back in my seat and let his words wash over me before I spoke. “Everyone keeps trying to defend him.”
“Funnily enough, all of us have known him for most of his life,” he said.
I sat with Dante for a little while longer before Dom arrived to take me home. I kept quiet for the drive back to the house, Dante’s words swirling around my head. He knew Luc better than anyone, so if he said Luc was trying then it had to be true. But if this was Luc trying, then I didn’t want to know what he was like when he didn’t care. As we pulled up, I noticed that Luc’s car was already in the drive.
“I’m surprised he’s home,” I commented.
“Same,” Dom agreed.
Not in the mood for conversation, I made my way up to my room. The visit to Dante had exhausted me. It was easier to believe Luc was a monster than a human who was more flawed than average. As I walked into the room something caught my eye. Sitting on the bed was a blue velvet box with a note. I walked over and picked up the note, reading,‘I’m sorry. Maybe we can start again? Luc x’
I placed the note back on the bed and picked up the box. It felt heavy in my hands, and when I opened it my jaw dropped. Sitting inside, snug against the deep, dark silk lining, was a choker entirely made of diamonds. I was holding more money in my hands than I had made and could hope to make in my entire life. The jewels had been intricately crafted together, and my heart ached at how beautiful the piece was.
Snapping the box shut, I walked out of the room on a mission to find Luc. I searched the house and heard a high-pitched laugh. Following it through to the kitchen, I could see Luc through the glass doors lying out on the grass with a young boy who couldn’t have been older than five or six.
“My grandson.” Lydia’s voice drifted over to me.
“Oh,” I said. “I didn’t realize you had grandchildren.”
“My first. His sitter had to cancel so I offered to take him for the afternoon,” Lydia explained.
My attention turned back to Luc and the way he pointed to the sky and spoke. Whatever he said made the little boy laugh again.
