Dark Saint [Romano Brotherhood, #1]

36 | Santo

"Look, I know I messed up, but do we not have another vehicle? We're not destitute."

Simo cuts me a look, and I manage to keep my mouth shut, though I know my anger will come out later in what will surely be another argument between me and my younger brother. It doesn't matter that he knows downing enough shots of whiskey to put me to sleep before getting behind the wheel is stupid, because that's the point. He's acting stupid. Nothing is serious to him right now.

It had been the ensuing fight between me and him that had truly delayed us from getting another vehicle ready, but there was no way we were going to delay and risk anything regarding our plans.

"Just... be quiet," I force out. "If we didn't have more important things we were doing right now, I'd remove your spine from your body."

Tommaso shuts up. I can practically taste his anger, but at least there's silence. My thoughts begin to drift.

I feel oddly peaceful. The closer we get to our destination, the more my limbs relax, the more focused I feel towards our goal of putting a stop to Luciano's operation and towards my own goal, one that nobody else knows about. And the closer I get to feeling Luciano's bones break in my hands, the better I feel.

And yet, I still feel torn. Like I should be in two places at once. It doesn't feel right to be separated from Nina, and I mentally will our driver to go faster so I can make it back to her quicker. Without her here, my heart thrums painfully in my chest—a gutting, uneven beat—and I know it will only settle when she's in front of me again. 

When I can look at her and hold her and know that the man who has caused her immeasurable pain is dead and fucking gone. 

My body thrums with energy and I feel almost invincible. I'm careful not to lean into that too heavily, not to become stupid with my confidence, but I feel it still. I'll be back home before the end of the day. I'll be with Nina, and there won't be anything on this earth that could conspire to destroy us. I'll make sure of that. 

For the first time, I feel true excitement at what I'm about to tap into. The darkness is there, it's coiled somewhere deep inside me, dormant for now, and I can't wait to use it. It doesn't quite feel like dread, or something damning. Senseless violence doesn't feel so senseless when it's protecting her.

I love you.

I just can't stop replaying the words. It's a taste of heaven, respite for a monster who doesn't deserve it, food and water for a dying man. It's everything I never thought possible and it's enough. It's fighting to crawl out of me, and fuck—

"Turn the car around."

Stunned silence greets my panicked outburst. I'm not even sure I'm the one who said it until everyone is fucking staring at me.

That was my voice? That desperate, grating thing?

"We can't do that," Simo says, and there's a question in his eyes.

"I need—but—we need to... shit, fuck!"

I've been so selfish. She's scared too. She's fucking terrified. And I should have told her. It is suddenly the most important thing in the world that I haven't told her. It's absolutely unacceptable.

"Um, is he finally having his mental break?"

Tommaso doesn't even sound like he's trying to be funny. Looking around me, I can tell the men are worried and above all, surprised. I've never shown this level of emotion to them, never been one to thwart a mission or shy from what needs to be done.

"We can't do that," Simo repeats, cold resolve in his face, and he doesn't look away from me until I give a choppy nod.

But now, dread coils in my stomach. Not for me, not for this mission, but at the widening chasm between me and her. Each second it gets larger and each second my panic grows.

We should've posted more guards at the house. We should've checked seven more times that Luciano wasn't planning an attack on the house while we're all gone. We should've—I should've looked deeper into the cameras and talked more with my associates and—

I'm yanked out of the car and I blink in sudden awareness at the bright sun that's still shining today despite the biting cold. Simo stands before me, both hands on my shoulders. We've reached our destination without me knowing, and everyone else stands a distance away, arming themselves and acting like they're not secretly stealing glances at me being a headcase.

"We've looked into everything a hundred times. We've done the very best we can," he says slowly, but with confidence behind every syllable. "It's not time for you to lose it right now. Lose it later. Not now."

I can't get enough air on each inhale, I'm left panting like an idiot. "I need to—"

Sharp pain. Radiating through the side of my face. Simo fucking punched me.

All my life, I've never seen him punch anyone, never seen him want to dirty his knuckles with bruises and blood, and now his ring has opened up a cut on my face and his hand is stained red.

I gape at him. I don't have time to register the way his chest seems to be rising a little more now too, because he immediately steps back.

"If you don't pull it together, Santo, you're going to ruin this for us. Meet me over there in thirty seconds."

Fifteen seconds later, I'm angry. That Luciano thinks he can shake us up, that he fucking succeeded, that Nina isn't my my side, that she was made to feel small or unsafe, that she was ever hurt, that my brother punched me. I'm angry. At Simo for leaving me to deal with everything alone and at Tommaso for being so difficult; at myself for not knowing how to love them.

Without my anger, it's almost impossible not to sink to the ground, let the world have its way with me, so I grasp ahold of it now, even when it feels like the rest of me is trying to fall apart; I let it own me, even when I know it might be the end of me still. Because it's worlds easier than the pain and Simo knows that. And if he wants me to drown in it, I will. I'll fucking love it too. Nobody ever said I was a saint.

Simo's head rears back when my fist makes contact with his face, and everyone's mouths are dropped, horrified as they stop whatever they were doing.

Simo cocks his head at me, swiping a drop of blood from the corner of his mouth.

"Since you have a fucking hard-on for being even," I tell him, smiling at the matching scratch his face now sports from my ring.

His eyes flit to my chest and I watch the weight of the scars we share settle on his face. Then without a word or sign of acknowledgment, he strides off and we follow him.

And despite the fact that I let it take control, the anger fades, leaving me thinking about things I shouldn't be. About how grief rarely brings people together because it cuts away at everyone differently, and at the end of it you can only hope that your broken pieces can still fit together. About how my broken pieces align with Nina's, how we fit in a storm I never anticipated, and I'm afraid to accept it; because if I do, the world I know won't let me keep it.

And about how I'm terrified that somehow what my brothers and I have is hanging on by a thread because our broken pieces don't fit, and they never will.

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Everything is definitely going to be fine.

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- G