Page 96 of Monstrous Travels as Wicked as Sin

“Actual demons, then? They’ve been known to steal human children and?—”

“No.” Joe smiled and clasped Percy’s hand. “They were just shitty people, Percy. Really, really shitty people. I’m not saying it was the right thing to do, from an ethical perspective, but from my perspective… It wasallI could do. I did what was right for me at the time.”

Giordano dropped an incredulous laugh. “And then lied to the whole country about it.”

Joe retorted, “It would have been pretty stupid to tell the truth, don’t you think?”

“Exactly right,” Percy agreed, every facet of his mind fast at work building a supportive framework to keep the Joe he thought he knew intact. “Truth is only useful when it aids you or those you love. And I can’t see how it aids anyone in this particular case.”

No doubt that was Percy’s own philosophy, because Joe had seen him live by it. But Joe wished he’d told Percy. There were so many opportunities. He knew it would come up, somehow, eventually. He knew Percy knew something was hidden, and Percy just let him have it, judgement free, that whole time. But now… Now his ex knew. Leo and Althea knew. And he had betrayed Percy by letting that happen before he found out.

Joe slid a hand over to his photo and rested a finger there, studying the boy. “I don’t feel like I lied to you, Percy. Not entirely. Because that’s not me. That person, who these things happened to, that’s someone who lived somewhere else, long ago. And I don’t think about that anymore. And I don’t talk about that. It’s not me, and to bring that up, it just feels like… It felt like it would have poisoned now. What we have and who I’ve become. I don’t want you to think of me like that, or to see me as someone else, because I’m not him anymore.” He glanced up atGiordano. “But clearly, I can’t outrun it forever.” As Giordano’s eyes slunk away across the floorboards, Joe returned his gaze to Percy. “You have strong links to Italy. I know we’ll be going back… And you have a right to know.”

But Percy was deep in caretaking-mode, fixing, fixing. “I know how important it is to keep those things in a lockbox.”

Joe’s heart pounded out a steady, calming beat with the solidity of Percy’s support. He wrapped his fingers tighter around Percy’s, took his hand up, and kissed it. He focused on Percy’s avoidant eyes, drawing them. “I want to tell you. Because it’s the last thing. The last secret between us. And it doesn’t feel right to me to have anything left.”

Of course, he did not expect Percy to reply, “Joe, I killed your Nazi.”

Joe’s strong chin tilted jutted sharply to the left. “What?”

“Back in book one. I killed him. Right after you asked me not to. I went back to the church, and I stabbed him in the throat. And brain. Sort of. An upward stabbing motion. Got both. But he’s very dead, and I’m sorry I kind of went behind your back there.”

A cloud crossed Joe’s face, and Percy rushed out, “It’s not that Ikeptlying, because I honestly barely gave him a second thought. Until just now. When you mentioned the last thing. I think he had it coming, and I understand that perhaps I should have discussed the matter with you before I killed him?—”

“Yeah, you should have.”

“You’re right. And I take full responsibility for the rashness of my behaviour. And I would like to point out that my communications skills have improved dramatically since that time. But I wanted you to know. Everything. All out in the open.”

Joe stared down at the table, a quizzical expression on his face. “You know, I wondered why he never called. I felt pretty bad about that.”

Percy gave his hand a squeeze. “You did? I’m sorry.”

“Well, only because I wondered if you were right, I suppose. That we should have killed him. And you know, after everything we’ve been through, I think maybe you were. Either way, it’s done now.”

Percy checked him over carefully. “Are you very mad?”

“No.” Joe searched his feelings, and was surprised at just how little it bothered him. The last thing he wanted was someone else with Percy’s name on their hit list. Percy was keeping them safe from the start, the way he always did. The way he was even now, when it was Joe, of all people, who had let him down. “No. I know you had your reasons. Good ones. And I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t keep that sort of thing from me now.”

“I wouldn’t.” Percy, sifting through his mind desperately, then said, “Though did I mention?—

Joe cut him off with a gentle chuckle. “Stop trying to protect me, Percy. It’s okay. I’m going to say it, and it’s fine. Really.” Percy’s lips opened in a protest that Joe silenced with a shake of his head and another smile. He then raised his chin across the room. “Giordano, come sit.”

Giordano waited for Percy’s approval, which came in the form of half a shrug. He took his seat in a swaggering way that belied the palpable tension between him and Percy. He searched his ex-lover’s face with quick, anxious eyes, but Percy was stone to him, and that empathetic pity touched Joe again. He wanted to kiss the hard edges off Percy’s cheek. There was nothing good in that victory over Giordano, because Giordano was right.

“So, I’m not from Rome,” Joe commenced.

“I know,” said Percy, taking a sip of wine.

“I know you know. And I love that you never said a word.”

“Even when I called you out,” said Giordano, but he said it on a gentler note, now he understood the way Percy had chosen to let it pass when it came up in Sicily.

“I’m from Castel del Monte,” Joe continued. “It’s tiny. A tiny little village way up in the Apennines, and there’s nothing there but sheep, a church, and an old cemetery. Or, there wasn’t much more when I lived there, back in the seventies. It wasn’t the sort of town you planned to get out of. You married whoever was available, and you raised sheep to milk or kill.”

Joe choked down a little wine, the flavour of dirty wool and raw, hot sheep’s blood forever on his palate. He glanced at Percy, who, whether he was thinking about the same thing or not, kept a neutral face. “You know I grew up poor, but when I say poor, I mean dirt poor. I mean nothing to eat for days sometimes. I mean living with an alcoholic father, who was unstable before he ever touched alcohol, and a mother who was…” Percy’s deeply faithful love for his broken mother was no secret to Joe, and the bond Percy shared with Giordano’s mother such that even in their darker moments the pair put it before their animosity. Joe could only try, and hope he’d be understood. “She was just as bad as he was. But not in the same way. In some ways, she was better. In some ways, she was much worse.”

He had been okay, but with those words, there came a flash of that old house, accompanied by the memory of an adult hand winding him with a punch in the stomach. He felt a weight fall across his shoulders, which he tried to work out with a nervous crick of his neck. Percy’s fingers pressed into his.

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