Page 4 of Lorenzo & Lily

Eddie shut the door and crossed his arms over his lean chest. “We came to help.”

Irritation scratched at Lorenzo’s skin. “I told you I had things under control when we talked yesterday.”

“Of course you do,” Marcello said easily. “But a dock workers strike impacts the whole country. Not to mention, with all the shit the Royal Council’s pulled recently, we need to be on our guard.” Marcello was Valleria’s Minister of Security and Defense, and knew all too well that certain members of the Council hated the monarchy.

“I can still handle it.”

“Of course you can.” The way Marcello said that, however, sounded as though he didn’t even believe that himself. “Alex is coming down tomorrow, too.”

Irritation was bubbling steadily into anger. “I’ve handled shit like this before. I don’t need your help.”

Marcello shrugged again. “You’re getting it anyway. Deal with it.”

Lorenzo couldn’t deal, not with this. If he’d had more time to recover from the nightmare, if he’d been able to have just a fucking hour to himself, he could have faked his way through the conversation, and been the Lorenzo they approved of, the Lorenzo they trusted. Since the army, he hadn’t been trusted very much.

Without sparing either his elder brother or his almost-brother-in-law a second look, he turned towards his balcony, then ran down his stairs and as far away from them as he could.

He heard the pounding of feet following him soon after, and he knew that Eddie was behind him.

“Go back,” he called, without bothering to look.

“No way in hell you’re running alone,” Eddie called back.

He stopped abruptly, and watched as Eddie ran past him before he, too, stopped. “There’s an agent with me.” He jerked his head toward the man that followed them.

“You’d rather have an agent over a member of your own family?”

“You’re not my family. Not yet, anyway.”

Eddie crossed his arms over his chest. “I am. Just because it’s not legal yet, doesn’t mean it’s not official.”

“We’ll see,” Lorenzo muttered.

“Damn it, Lorenzo. You–”

“We’ll meet later this morning to discuss the strike.”

“Lor–”

He didn’t bother responding further, deciding instead to take off running again, and heard Eddie cursing but didn’t hear his feet following.

Progress.

He preferred the relative anonymity of an agent over the keen gaze of his family members. The agents knew the score: a hard hour’s run – sometimes two or three hours, if the memories had a firmer grip – and he’d settle again. He’d never be whole, not after the army, but he could fake it.

What he couldn’t do was fake it and recover from the memories with his family watching. They knew he was half the man he’d once been. They were always pestering him, interfering in his business. Now, practically all his nosy brothers were descending on him once again.

He took a deep breath, inhaling the sea air once again. He focused on the hard pounding of his shoes on the asphalt, then the soft thump of them against the sandy Masillian shore. The water lapped gently and rippled as the thick, black night gave way to a brilliant fall sunrise. The refreshing sting of cool wind was marred by a current of heat; the wind still clung to summer, though the fall was quickly biting at its heels.

The water now, in November, would be too cool for most. Sometimes, he skipped the shower and chose instead to dive head first into the sea. He ignored its pull today.

The gentle horns of ferries warred with the foghorns of cargo ships and freighters. The ferries – which ran fewer in the fall – transported people to the small string of islands off the shore. He – not the royal family, but he – had a small chateau on one of them. He escaped there on the anniversary of the incident. He called it a ‘vacation’.

His family understood. Sometimes he wished they didn’t. Other times, he wished they understood even more.

When he reached Rocky Point, one of the city’s seaside tourist spots about three kilometers from the castle, he stopped. He bent at the waist, gasping lungfuls of air, his hands on his knees. Eventually he squatted, then laid down on the sand.

“Are you all right, Sir?”

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