Page 112 of Love Him Like Water

She especially liked talking about her family, the love there so plain for anyone to see.

“You didn’t hate me because of him?” I’d asked when she’d told me a story about one of her brothers, Cesare, the tattooed, womanizing brother who had a penchant for getting into trouble.

“Hate you? For what?”

“Because I was the reason he had to go into exile for so long.” I’d approved the hit on Cesare after he’d made the epic fucking mistake of sleeping with one of my capo’s wives.

“I’m pretty sure Cesare was to blame for that.”

She was surprisingly good at that. Being neutral, even when she was talking about her loved ones.

I think we have all had undue prejudices against each other just because history told us we should, she’d said, speaking of the war between our families.

All the while she was talking, she was sitting there eating her fucking chicken fingers and fries like it was a goddamn Michelin star meal.

She was just… fucking perfect.

And all I wanted to do was get my ass home to her again.

“Fuck,” Dav hissed, pulling his hand back, cradling it to his chest. We’d all heard the crunch. The hardheaded kid’s face had broken one of his fingers.

“Take a break,” I said, nodding toward the door, knowing the pain would piss him off, and make him go too hard. Which wasn’t going to help anyone.

I waited until he was gone, then stood there looking down at the kid, his face a mess of cuts and bruises, his dark hair sweaty from the pain, his body slouched to the side, trying to favor his ribs that both Dav and I had worked over.

His words came back to me as he glanced up, eyes icy, daring me to hit him again, telling me it wouldn’t fucking work.

Believe me, I’ve had worse.

That was what he’d said.

And, fuck, I could feel those words down to my soul.

No fight I’d ever been in from being a punk-ass kid or a boss ever compared to what I dealt with from my old man.

With a sigh, I moved across the room, grabbing the other metal chair, and dragging it over, turning it to sit on it backward in front of him.

“When I was ten, I knocked into and busted the TV,” I told him, the memory fresh even after all these years. The kid was watching me, face blank. But I went on anyway. “Old man stood up, whipped off his belt, and beat the ever-loving shit out of me. Bad enough that he cut through the material of my pants and shirt. Had welts busted open and bleeding,” I recounted, remembering the way my poor excuse of a mother urged him on. Teach him a lesson. Fucking ungrateful little shit. “I accidentally turned once,” I went on, touching my lip. “Caught the metal of the buckle. Bled like a fucking river.”

“What? We friends now?” he asked. “Should I be sharing a sob story too?”

I didn’t fight the smile that tugged at my lips then.

Because, fuck, I had to respect this kid’s balls.

“Just making a point. You said you’d been through worse. I have too. Which is why I know if it was my ass in that chair, no amount of pain would make me talk either.”

“Yeah? Then the fuck you keep hitting me for then?”

Good question.

“How old are you? Eighteen?”

“Nineteen,” he said, straightening a bit. As if insulted I’d assume he was younger. Like there was any difference at all between those ages.

“How long you been on your own?”

“Since sixteen.”

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