Page 105 of Koroleva

I was so absorbed that I didn't notice the music notes had stopped and that Romeo had poured a couple of glasses.

"You seem to need this," he muttered, offering me one.

"Thank you." I downed it in one gulp. "Fill it again, please." The clear liquid fell into it again and I emptied it into my throat, needing to feel that burn to digest what my mind refused to accept. "I don’t understand."

"That we were friends?"

"That he hid it from us."

I looked up and saw myself reflected in his eyes, incredulous, betrayed.

"It couldn't be any other way. Our parents refused to listen. Remember, we tried, we wanted it to work, to merge the two companies, and they insisted it couldn’t be. We didn’t want to stop being friends."

And all that material, arranged chronologically, proved it.

"In the end, it turns out your mother wasn’t so wrong to name you Romeo, only in your case it was Yuri who died, not Juliet."

"His death, along with my mother's, was one of the worst moments of my life. Your brother died, but a part of me went with him. If Aleksa and my sister hadn't intervened... I don't know how it would have ended, probably accompanying him. I went several times, high as a kite, to confront Cheng's gang members, I became a damn suicidal. Once, I almost didn't make it. That last beating, which forced me to make a pit stop at the hospital, led my father to give me an ultimatum. Either I focused, or he was sending me to Calabria to live with my uncle Salvatore. As you've guessed, I can't stand my cousin.

"I've noticed, yes." I pondered. "Did your sister know about your friendship?"

"Let's just say she added two and two when she saw my state, and came to a conclusion on her own, albeit a wrong one."

"Which was?"

"Juliet thought I was gay and Yuri was my partner."

I laughed.

"My brother wasn't gay."

I rummaged in the box again and pulled out another photograph.

In it, Yuri and Romeo were dressed as bikers, holding each other by the shoulder, smiling broadly at the camera. From the angle, it was a selfie taken by my husband.

"This was one of the last ones we took. The weekend before Cheng screwed us over. I convinced your brother to take a road trip along the coast, we slept on the beach, drank beers in front of a bonfire. We shared dreams about the future." My husband sighed. "We were naive. We dreamed that one day our parents would accept that things could change, be different because of us. It's not good to dwell on the past; it doesn't let you evolve."

I returned the image to the box and saw another one that made me purse my lips, it was me, the day I turned twenty-four.

"And this photo?" Romeo smiled. "Why do you have one of mine there?"

"Don't make fun of what I'm about to tell you, okay?"

"Do I look like I'm laughing?"

"Okay, I'll tell you. I had a corkboard of desires, ever since I read a book that said everything you want should always be in sight."

"I know that theory, it's from The Law of Attraction."

"Exactly, well, I had it hanging in my flat in Puerto Banús, before moving to this house... It was full of things, some that I already have, like the Harley you drove or the Bugatti. And others that are still pending... In short, your brother knew about its existence and how much I believed in it."

"I didn't take you for someone who was into these kinds of things."

"Yeah, well, everyone has their quirks, and it worked for me, or at least I believed in it."

"Not anymore?"

He shrugged.

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