Page 12 of Bruno
“Then you’re lucky to have never experienced it. But if I had raised you as my own, I couldn’t have guaranteed your safety. You asked if we have family. We do. The summer my mother was killed in a car accident, the Falcones went to war. I still don’t know if her death was an accident or murder. I couldn’t take that chance. Not with you and your mom. Not long after that, my uncles were taken to Wolf Lake outside of Chicago and executed.”
I gasp. “I remember that massacre. It was all over the news. I never put it together. I was too busy… grieving.”
He nods. “That was when we went to war. I was twenty years old when it started, and it didn’t end for six years. By then, your mom had moved on, remarried…”
“To David, the man I’ll always think of as my dad.”
Bruno nods. “I’m not trying to replace him. I stayed away because I thought I was doing the right thing—”
“You’re so noble—”
“Chris, let him speak.”
I tried to do what was right for once. I killed my first man a few days before your mother told me she was pregnant. The guy came after my dad. I pulled a knife and stabbed him. You don’t know what it’s like to have a man bleed out in your hands. His arms gripping you while he tries to hold on to life. The light in his eyes dying until it finally goes out.” Bruno’s jaw tenses, and he swallows hard. “I threw up until I had nothing but blood left to spit out.” He’s speaking to Chris but faces me. “I couldn’t face your mom with my bloody hands. It stained my soul. Every time I looked in the mirror, guilt consumed me. I was hanging on by a thread, and that thread would not have held two other people.”
My eyes fill with the tears he cannot shed, but he faces Chris again. “I turned to drink, drugs, and a lot of other self-destructive shit to help me sleep… forget… survive.”
“All I hear is that you wouldn’t change a thing.”
I haven’t seen Bruno this sad since he told me his mother died. But his voice is steady when he answers simply. “No.”
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” Chris says. His dark eyes are hard brown marbles. “You made your choices, and we lived with them. So, let’s go back. I’m done with this conversation.”
“Chris,” I try again.
He shakes his head and walks back the way we came.
“We’ll give him a few minutes,” Bruno says as he sits down next to me.
“What you said back there…”
“Was the truth.”
“Not all of it. You didn’t have to choose.”
“Yes, I did. I made a choice that I can’t change. But I’ve lived with it. And I won’t lie to Chris about what I did. I don’t regret it, but I’m sorry he got hurt.”
“He’ll come around.”
“Will you?” Bruno asks, his dark eyes drilling into mine.
I turn away and shake my head. “I can’t.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Both,” I say. “I can’t. Not after all these years. AndI won’tbecause I won’t let myself be hurt like that again.”
“I understand.” Bruno nods. “I won’t push you.”
“Good.”
“But I also won’t stop trying to win you over.”
“Bruno…”
He puts a finger to my lips. “Shh, no need to say anything.”
But I can’t help it. “I don’t want to be hurt by you again. And I don’t want to hurt you either. I know you believe you were doing the right thing.”
