He rolls his neck and scrubs a palm down his face, wincing in pain when he brushes over his bruised cheek. “What always happens. He showed up maybe an hour ago.” Antonio shakes his head. “I heard his car roll up and hid Sofia before he stepped through the front door. Made her promise not to come out and to keep quiet.”
I nod my head. That’s what we usually do when Raul comes around. She’s looking more and more like our mom as she gets older, and the sight of her alone has been enough to set him off the few times he’s dropped by recently.
“You okay?”
Antonio nods. “Yeah. I’m good. I don’t remember much after the second punch, but I didn’t fight back so he must have gotten bored.”
“You should go to the—”
“I said I’m good,” he snaps. Antonio hangs his head, palms clenched into fists at his sides. “I fucking hate this.” He moves further down the hall to the kitchen and pulls out a bag of frozen corn before taking a seat at the table. He holds it against his face and mutters out a few choice words.
I grab two beers from the fridge, open both, and hand one to him across the table before taking a seat. “What’s the plan?” I ask, hoping he’s come up with something. Raul is getting worse, and we all have shit going on. We do our best to protect Sofia, but one of these days he’s bound to come up on her alone, and none of us knows what will happen when that day comes.
“I don’t know, man.” He’s fighting exhaustion. Shit. We both are. Too much has happened today. Too many things to process. To try and figure out.
“What are you doing home so late? I figured you’d have been here earlier, or later if you crashed at Romans.”
I debate telling him about Luis, but before I can make up my mind, my brother proves just how well he knows me with his next words. “What happened?”
“It can wait.”
Antonio shakes his head. “No. Don’t do that. I know you’ve got your boys, but you got me too. Come on, Emilio. What happened?”
I grind my teeth down as frustration radiates through every cell in my body. I want to tell him. I want his support, but Antonio doesn’t do well when his plate is full. He’s like Roberto. He bails rather than dealing with it. He might be doing better than our oldest brother—when shit got too real, he enlisted in the military and never looked back. Antonio, at least, stuck around after his eighteenth birthday—but he still takes off sometimes for a week or more at a time.
“E?”
“Don’t you dare bail, you got me?”
His eyes widen, but he nods. “I won’t bail.”
“I’m serious, Antonio. I can’t deal with Raul and my own shit right now. Not by myself.”
He nods his head, his face twisted into a solemn expression. “I won’t leave.”
“Okay.” I hesitate and have to swallow past the lump in my throat. “I have a kid.”
His eyes widen to the size of saucers. “You knocked a girl up?”
“Yeah,” I rub the back of my neck. “A year and a half ago. I just found out tonight.”
He curses and drops his head into his hands. “Shit. Are you sure it’s yours?”
I nod. “I’m sure. The timing lines up and he looks just like me. Damn near identical to my baby pictures at that age.
“You should get a paternity test,” he suggests.
“I don’t need it. He’s mine. I haze zero doubts. You’ll feel the same when you meet him.”
He doesn’t like my answer, but thankfully doesn’t argue either. “We need to call Roberto.”
“What?” I shove away from the table. “Why the hell would we call him? He left!” I hiss, but Antonio just shakes his head.
“Can you think of a better option? Raul is a problem. A big one. And now you have a kid. What are you going to do if you have him here and Raul shows up? Huh? Have you even thought that far?”
My blood turns to ice as I digest his words because no, I hadn’t thought that far. I’m still dealing with the fact that I’m a dad. That Luis is mine. I hadn’t even considered just how vulnerable he is. How dangerous having him with me could be for him. Shit. If Bibiana found out what I was dealing with, no way would she let me be in his life. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
“He doesn’t have leave coming up. There’s nothing he can do—”
