He sighs heavily, and sits on my bed. “Dino…”

“What?”

“The attitude, man. It’s terrible.”

I don’t reply.

“I got it when you were a kid. Marco isn’t… following Marco isn’t a fun place to be,” Sal says quietly. “But you’re grown. It’s time to back off. We’re a family, you know. Us and the Rossi’s. We’re on each other’s teams.”

Yeah. Fucking.Right.

“So my teammates would fucking tase me if they could?”

Sal looks up sharply. “Dino… “

“Elio and Gia might be on your fucking team, Sal,” I snarl. With my damaged vocal cords, the words are barely a whisper, and they hurt as they rasp over my throat. “You and Caterina might get along like a house on fucking fire with them. But I’m not you. I have never been one of you,” I hiss.

The last word seems to linger in the air.

Sal’s eyes drift over my torso and neck. Both he and Marco are built like our grandfather. Big, with big shoulders, muscles that pile up into pretty shapes.

If they’re built like an ox, I’m built like a fucking wolf.

I’m faster than they are. Strong, but more wiry. Both Marco and Sal look like linebackers, and I’m more…

Soccer. My body is suited to a different sport entirely.

That’s not what he’s looking at, though. He’s my brother, he’s seen me naked more than once. I also know that he’s not interested in the tattoos that cover me so thickly, there’s barely any skin showing through the dark patterns of ink on my body.

He’s looking at the scars.

I turn and snatch a shirt up and tug it over my torso. “Yeah. I know you know what the fuck I’m talking about, Sal,” I snap. “Elio is your fucking brother-in-law. Gia is your fucking wife. They’re my bosses.”

More than that, I’m alive literally because Elio decided not to kill me out of his devotion to Caterina. If he had his way, I’d be buried in the fucking lake, cement brick around my feet,my corpse a vibrant habitat for some fucking fish or shit like that.

No, Elio and Gia do not like me. They have clearly pointed out that I’m alive because they love Caterina and Sal.

And they never once let me forget it.

Sal looks at me, his lips curling into a frown that makes my gut twist. “You could fix that.”

“Yeah, fuck off.”

“The attitude, Dino…”

“If you don’t like my fucking attitude, then fuck you,” I bark.

Sal heaves a sigh. The little muscle in his jaw ticks as he stares at me. “Fine. Whatever. Your kids are in the house, man. If they see you like this…”

“They won’t,” I respond quickly.

I’m not a fucking idiot.

And, they won’t see me at all. Marisol kept them hidden from me. She kept them hidden from everyone, and for all I know, they have no fucking clue who their daddy is.

Unless she tells me otherwise, I’m going to keep it that way.

I spent so much time trying to protect Marisol and the twins from afar. Marco went into fucking witness protection to help me.