“Funny,” he huffs. “Your dick found a home in her cunt and you’ve conveniently forgotten you weren’t the only one changed by what our father did.”
I want to punch him for talking about me and her in this way but I feel as though I’m close to something and I need to take some shit to let him get it out. So I grit my teeth and nod for him to continue.
“He made us watch when he beat you.”
I swallow spit that tastes like rage. I wish I’d killed my father with my bare hands but instead I gave Nicoló Di Santo that honor.
“I know.”
“But that was just the beginning.”
I frown. “What do you mean?”
After I was beaten so hard I chose not to speak again, I directed my energy into enforcing and gaining a sense of purpose in a line of work I could vent all my rage into. I didn’t really pay much attention to what happened to my brothers afterward.
“He made me watch…” he swallows. “Everything.”
I go still.
“He didn’t just beat you. He beat other men. Desperate addicts off the streets who’d let him kick in their faces for a hot meal. Men who betrayed not just our family, but others’. And he’d beat to the death if he could. He was a shit fighter, but fuck did he like getting his hands dirty.”
I look out over Manhattan, sensing he’s about to disclose something deeply uncomfortable.
“It wasn’t just men he beat,” he says, quietly. “And it wasn't just his fists and feet he used.”
I hold my breath.
“I had to watch him rape women.”
Plural.
“How many?” I ask, low.
“Lost count.”
The air thins and devastation wracks me again for the fiftieth time tonight.
“Fuck. Remo. I had no idea.”
He shakes his head like he’s shaking off a guilt that’s been inked to his shoulders.
“I learned early,” he continues, “that watching meant I wasn’t the one it was happening to.”
My eyes close and my fingers grip tighter around the railing. All this time I’ve been directing my rage at my brother and I had no idea what he’d been carrying too.
“Watching meant my turn never came around.”
Jesus Christ.
Remo laughs again, but there’s no humor in it. He rubs a hand over his mouth, then drags it down his face.
“There was this one time,” he says, slowly. “I was twelve, maybe.”
My stomach hollows out.
“He brought someone in. A girl. She wasn’t much older than us.” His eyes go distant. “She was crying—begging.”
My vision edges with red and my fists clench so hard around the metal it wouldn’t take much to yank the whole thing off.
