Page 95 of A Taste Of Darkness

My father stood by my side in seconds, but he didn’t touch me. He looked at my face as if he was making sure it was really me.

I couldn’t blame him, though I did expect a different reaction.

“Please, could you step back?” I asked. It was great he remembered that I didn’t like to be touched, which was probably why he didn’t even attempt to lay his hands on me, but being close to other people also wasn’t my thing.

He stepped back, still looking at me with an unbearable intensity. “Explain yourself.”

“It’s what I’m here for.” The next breath I took never quite reached my lungs. I should’ve been worried for my life, but my mind was with Sterlie.

I wondered if she woke up and noticed I wasn’t beside her anymore.

I wondered if Arlo and Dahlia told her that I left, and how she reacted to the news.

I wondered if she’d cry for me, like I was internally crying for losing her after barely having her.

“Do you remember the day you told me that I’d be just like you one day?” I asked, looking into my father’s eyes even if I wanted to look away. He nodded. “You never asked me if I wanted that.”

“But you did, Luca.”

“For a while, yes.” Because I didn’t know there was a better world out there.

He walked back behind his desk, took a seat. “Sit, Luca.”

I didn’t move. “Do you remember the girl I was talking about a lot?”

He hesitated but nodded. “What’s she have to do with anything, boy? I want to know why you left. Why you let your poor family believe you’ve died. Do you know what your departure caused?”

I expected more yelling.

“Yes, I do. And she has everything to do with the reason I left, and also the reason why I’m back now.” My father cocked his head but remained silent to let me continue. “I left because this life, the things we’re ‘allowed’ to do without further consequences, might be a blessing for you, Papà, but it was a nightmare for me.”

“Nightmare how?”

“You remember what Pedro used to do, right? What I told you he did to me, but you didn’t believe me? How you told me that I had to suck it up because there was no way a boy would ever meet this kind of fate?” My hands balled into fists, but I loosened them because I didn’t want to seem threatening. I came here to talk, not to start a war. “I don’t understand how you could look past it the way you did. It made me furious, but most of all, I felt alone. I was fourteen, dealing with the unimaginable, and you left me to deal with it on my own. Well, not even deal with it. You wanted me to bounce back an hour later and be as cold as ever.”

He looked indifferent, not an ounce of recognition for his own mistake in his features. No remorse. It only made me realize how little he cared about it. Of course, I knew he didn’t care, but I never grasped how unbothered he was by it; like it was a daily occurrence.

All he wanted was a soldier who’d follow in his footsteps; someone who wasn’t one of my brothers.

“That day was the first time I realized how little anyone cared about my needs—about anyone’s needs, really. It made me loathe this family. Made me wish I could’ve been born into a normal one.”

I could tell my father got angrier with every word I said, but he restrained himself.

“And the girl I saved… she was my only safe place. Every time something in this family went wrong, I thought about her and how much I wished I would’ve left with her when I brought her back to her family,” I said. “I didn’t leave because of her. But thanks to her, I knew how I didn’t want to live. I wanted freedom. I wanted to be able to walk around without tons of my cousins and uncles following my every step. I wanted to live without suddenly turning into bait. And if I told you, you wouldn’t have listened. So, my only chance for that life was to run away.”

He nodded like he understood, but I knew he didn’t. “Why come back?”

“Pedro’s kids and my brothers are tormenting her.”

His eyebrows rose in surprise, as if he had no clue what was going on. “Tormenting her how?”

I couldn’t tell if he was asking for details to be proud of my cousins' doings, or if he just wanted to know so he could stop it. Probably the former.

“They were after her to find Arlo at first, but they found me instead. And since they know I’m alive, she’s even more in danger as you can imagine.” How the fuck didn’t he know what they were doing?

“And you want me to stop it?” He laughed. “What makes you think I’d do anything for you anymore, Luca? You left. You betrayed us.”

Yeah, this was more like how I thought our conversation would turn out.

---