Dark Saint [Romano Brotherhood, #1]

31 | Santo

Tommaso turns to me, taking another long drink and purposefully letting it drip all over my front console. 

With extreme difficulty, I wire my mouth shut for the rest of the ride, not wanting to risk a blow up when we're cramped in a small space. 

Tommaso rips open the front door with me hot on his heels. I'm getting ready to yell at him when I hear rustling and turn to find Nina frozen, staring at us. She's holding a bag of chips and a few other snacks, clearly having come down to feed herself when she thought I wouldn't be here. She's been doing that for the last two days.

Seeing her for the first time in forty-eight hours puts an anvil through my chest, but I breathe through it. And before I can say a word, she's running off. Her hair brushes against my arm as she slips by and I'm definitely not able to fucking breathe through it anymore. 

For the last two days, there's been a steadily growing lump in my chest that has made it nearly impossible to take a full breath. It's getting harder to ignore, as well as the urge to follow her now, to make sure she's okay, that she's been eating, sleeping, that she doesn't hate me.

"Yeah, you definitely don't have your own problems to deal with. You should totally focus on mine," Tommaso mutters. Out of nowhere, he has a pill in his hand and swallows it dry.

"What did you just take?"

"Painkillers. So does this mean Nina's available now? I've been wanting to hit that for months. She's something else."

My fingers close in a trembling fist, Tommaso smirking knowingly. He gets like this when he drinks and will do anything to elicit a reaction. 

"You need to get ahold of yourself. You know that our father was an alcoholic and—"

"You think she'd let me?" Tommaso interrupts, but he slams the bottle loudly on the counter, beginning to lose his composure. "She's so fucking hot, and those tits—"

His words end in choked laughter as I pin him against the wall, forearm braced over his throat. "You overestimate the amount of control I possess right now," I say through gritted teeth.

"No, I don't," Tommaso grunts out, his smile starting to slip. It hits me so suddenly, because it's like looking in a mirror. This is the kind of shit I do—used to do? He wants me to beat the shit out of him.

"What is going on with you lately?" I snap, pulling back. "You're acting reckless. Never sober. We can't afford needlessly stupid behavior right now and you know that."

"Of course. You want to talk about everything except them."

"Who?"

"Our parents. The only time you talk about father is when you tell me not to fucking drink. And our mother—"

My heart scrapes to a halt. "Why are you bringing this up right now?"

His eyes are glazed, looking like he didn't hear me. "All I know about them is how they died. Simo killed her, our mother. And father killed himself. Right?"

"Oh, good," I grin mockingly, ugly words crawling up my throat, "so you know everything there is to know."

He's so angry he can't speak for several seconds, and I know I've fucked up, but I'm almost past caring. The memories he's drudged up in the last sixty seconds alone crawl like ants beneath my skin. 

My mind is frayed, torn at the edges from everything that's happened with Nina, and I can't push it back like I usually do. It rushes at me, that day, and I'm six years old again.

Sitting in father's library. Waiting for him. 

This beautiful room, floor to ceiling shelves of books. I want to have a room like this one day in my own house.