Page 18 of In Love and Revenge

A smug smile plays on his lips. ‘Did the guy a favour. Now he can get plastic surgery.’

I slam my palm against the ‘emergency stop’ button and the lift shudders to a halt.

Angelo’s eyes slide to mine before he rolls them. ‘Come on, bro. No harm done.’

‘No harm done?’ I hiss. ‘Despite the fact I just parted with a huge amount of cash to help compensate your “victim” to keep this off the record—’

‘Yeah, Jake did us a solid.’ Angelo grins.

‘Sergeant Howarddid you a solid!’ I snap. ‘You’re the luckiest idiot I know, to have a mate answer the call to arrest your arse.’

‘Jake said the guy deserved it.’

‘Fuck!’ I slam my fist against the inside of the lift, inches from my brother’s ear.

The move finally evokes a reaction from him, and he squares up to me, tipping up his chin.

‘Little brother,’ I seethe. ‘You want to get into it with me and see where that gets you?’

Angelo’s nostrils flare, but he remains silent, indicating I’m finally getting somewhere.

‘I can’t keep bailing you out like this. You’ve got to get a grip on yourself. You represent this family. You represent our business.’

‘You sound just like Dad,’ he spits.

I tilt my head, boring my eyes into his. ‘The man who built this company from the ground up, you mean? The man who raised you, fed you?’

‘The man who never wanted me.’ Angelo holds my eyes defiantly, but I see it. It’s always there.

His Achilles heel.

I screw my face up, dropping my fist from the wall.

‘He loves you, even if he has a hard time showing it,’ I say, all the anger dissipating from my voice and being replaced by brotherly love in an instant. I’d die for all of my siblings, butespecially Angelo. He’s my kid brother. The youngest. Barely twenty-five. I was fourteen when he was born. I’ve fed him, changed his damn nappies, wiped his goddamn arse.

He’ll always be a little kid to me, no matter how old he is.

‘You standing up for him now? You two best buddies all of a sudden?’

‘Yeah, best bloody pals,’ I mutter, my chest tightening the way it inevitably does whenever I think of our father.

He throws me an apologetic look, and I brush it off. There’s no real malice in his voice. He doesn’t blame me. He blames himself. It’s Angelo’s default setting – self-blame and loathing.

‘He didn’t want to get rid of you, though, did he? Sorry, bro, but you can’t understand how it feels to catch your father looking at you, knowing he’s wondering if life would have been easier if you didn’t exist.’

‘That’s not true,’ I say, not adding, ‘I know how it feels for him to look at me like I’m a failure, though.Like I’m weak.’

‘Come on, I’m not stupid.’ Angelo screws his face up, losing all the bravado he had when I picked him up from the police station with bloody knuckles and the leftover adrenaline from a fight he could have avoided but sought out anyway.

I know exactly what’s making his dark eyes flash with a look that makes my heart fall to my feet.

‘Hey.’ I pull him to me, and he tries to resist, but within a few seconds he’s sinking into my arms, burying his head into my shoulder as I grip the back of his head inside my palm, letting the silky dark strands spill out between my spread fingers.

‘You know it’s true,’ he mumbles, thinking he’s hiding the waver in his voice. But this is my kid brother; I hear it loud and clear.

‘It’s not,’ I rasp.

‘He said it himself.’