I nod again.
“Speak, like a man. Don’t just stand there cowardly.”
I suck in a breath. “I understand, Papa.”
“Your brother has shamed me. The fag that he is, but you won’t, will you? You’re a good boy.” He reaches out to me and strokes the side of my face. Something about the way his fingers linger makes me feel nauseous.
I can hardly meet his eyes, he’s so much taller than me, and it makes me feel shaky.
“I’ll marry a woman,” I tell him. “Just like you want.”
“No, just like you want, Alessio,” he says sternly. “By the time you’re a real man, you’ll understand why it has to be this way…and I’ll be there to see you down the aisle.”
“Like I want to.” I repeat after him.
I barely know what I’m saying. I won’t understand it for some years, but what I do know right in this moment is that I want to be as far away from my father as possible. I want to be with my brother. I want to curl up beside him in our bedroom and cry.
Carmine cries a lot about our father. I know he’ll understand.
“From now on, neither of you will be seeing those Carvel boys. They’re nothing but trouble,” Father tells me.
“B-But,” I start, but he grabs me by the chin.
“Don’t talk back to me. You heard me. Now, go upstairs before you wake your mother up.”
I squeeze my eyes closed and wait for him to let go of my face. The second he does, I scamper out of the family room and up the stairs.
Tears drip down my face.
I wake with a gasp. I can feel the wetness traveling down my face, taste it on my lips. Salty and bitter. The contents of my dream, a memory that I have long since fought to forget; it’s right at the surface of my conscious now, and it hurts. My heart squeezes painfully in my chest. My breath quick and burning in my lungs.
I need to forget. I need something, anything, to help me forget.
I can’t take this.
“What’s going on?” Rosalie asks from the other side of the bed.
I sit up and wave a hand as I can’t speak. I feel like if I speak it might come all pouring out of me, and it’s the last thing I want her to know.
“God, just go back to sleep,” she mumbles and shoves her face back into the pillow. I must’ve slept all fucking day. It’s night and now my wife is trying to sleep.
My wife.
Those two words only remind me of my dream. I squeeze my hands into fists and pull myself out of bed.
Something to help. Something to take the pain away. Anything.
8
Chapter Eight
Damian
I’m sitting on the couch, watching the draft in one of the windows ruffle the curtains when I hear the door to the bedroom open. Alessio comes stumbling out, panting for breath, sweat on his brow and frustration on his features.
He heads to the kitchen, and his fingers grasp the counter tightly.
My first thought is that something is wrong, very wrong. I check the door. I check the windows. I stride to the bedroom quickly, open the door, and see nothing but Rosalie tossing over to her other side in bed. But no intruder, no gun shots in the windows, no glass scattered everywhere.
