It made sense, but the analogy didn’t sound like a conclusion Luis would’ve come to on his own. Counselling, perhaps? Do they even do that in prison? Shamefully, Paolo had no idea. “Tell me what happened.”
Luis shrugged. “Dante’s a shit fighter, always has been. People are scared of him because he’s manipulated them into thinking he does his own dirty work. But he doesn’t; he’s got a payroll full of muscle for that now.”
“And before? It was you, right?”
“Some of it. I hadn’t done anyone serious damage until that day, though, because he’d never been there to make me. But this dude . . . fuck, he didn’t want to give that phone up. I fought him hard, and I might’ve won, but Dante threw me a crowbar and told me to hit the dude with it.”
“Then what?”
“I did what I was told.”
“Why?”
“Because I was twenty-one and as sucked into my brother’s rep as everyone else? Because I was a piece-of-shit mash man who didn’t care that I could’ve killed a dude just doing his job? I don’t fucking know.” Luis wrapped his arms around himself and rocked back and forth. His eyes were damp, but no tears fell. “Dante ran away. He was screaming at me to follow him, but when I looked down and saw the blood by my feet, I couldn’t move. I fell over—I don’t know if I fainted or just lost my fucking mind—but Dante didn’t come back for me. He got in the car and left me there, and I didn’t even care.”
Paolo had stopped breathing. His head pounded, and his cheeks felt numb. He let out a shuddery breath. “I can’t believe he left you.”
Luis hissed through his teeth. “I can. And I’m glad he did. I stayed with the Securitas men and tried to stop the man I’d hit from dying. When the police came, I gave them the phone, and told them the man with the red mask was me.”
“You never told them who Dante was?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Luis finally lifted his red-eyed gaze to meet Paolo’s. “Because he doesn’t deserve redemption.”
14
It took Luis a week to figure out Dante had got his phone number from the teenage girl who worked in the bank, the one who wouldn’t unlock his account without photo ID. He’d asked her three times. Begged her. Then he’d just so happened to be outside the bank when it had closed, and she’d left. A blacked-out car had picked her up and driven her towards the Moss Farm tower blocks and guided her towards Luis’s childhood home. Good for you, sweetheart. He won’t be banging you for long.
Or maybe he would. Maybe nothing had changed about Dante except his propensity for treating women like shit. Perhaps he’d marry this one.
“What are you raging about?”
“Hmm?” Luis refocussed. Paolo was beside him, face caught between a frown and a glare. “Sorry, what?”
“You look really pissed off.”
“Find a mirror, dude.”
Paolo’s scowl deepened. “I’d rather find the order slip for table four. She reckons she’s been waiting half an hour for beans on toast.”
“You don’t do beans on toast.”
“We don’t do beans on toast. I don’t remember anything that happened in my life before you.”
“That’s sweet.”
Paolo huffed. “If you say so. Where’s that fucking order?”
Luis didn’t have it. Since Paolo had been ill, he’d forced himself back to the grill, and he kept every slip of paper Paolo passed him in a bulldog clip by the bacon. The beans on toast order wasn’t there. “Do you want me to cook it anyway?”
“Fuck no,” Paolo snapped. “She didn’t bloody order it, and we don’t even have beans, remember?”
He stomped away, leaving Luis to marvel at how someone so bad tempered could make him feel so damn good. But the further Paolo was away from him, the quicker his humour faded. His thoughts returned to Dante and the barrage of messages he’d sent since Luis had stood him up. They’d all come from different numbers, but even though he’d dropped the “bro” bullshit, Luis knew it was him.
Who else would warn him it was only a matter of time before the “pretty boy” in his life found out who he really was?
Luis didn’t want to think about what Dante would do if he found out Paolo already knew. That Luis had told him everything about that fateful day and more.
Paolo came back with the order slip he’d found by the till. Luis took it without gloating and cooked the plate of tomatoes on toast it had been amended to. Paolo didn’t appear to collect it straight away. Sighing, Luis picked it up and turned around, facing the cafe for the first time since it had opened. Table four was at the back. It was occupied by the girl from the bank, and she wasn’t alone.
Fury darkened Luis’s vision. He gripped the plate so hard it tipped sideways, sloshing hot, olive oil slick tomatoes over his hand.
He barely felt it. In his head, he crossed the cafe, throat punched Dante, and hurled him out onto the street, but in reality, he didn’t move. Couldn’t. It was the third time he’d faced his brother since he’d got out, but seeing him here, in Paolo’s cafe, chilled him to the bone.
Paolo was at the next table, clearing it onto a huge tray. He hadn’t noticed Dante yet, but other people had. How long before they saw Luis too? Dante wouldn’t be ignored, and what then? Paolo had told him a dozen times he couldn’t have Luis’s bullshit in the cafe. What if he told Dante too?
Dante’s reputation was scary as fuck, but Luis knew Paolo well enough to know he wouldn’t give a shit if Dante wound him up. Which Dante would, because he was a manipulative motherfucker who’d always known Luis’s weak spots.
And there was no doubt that Paolo was Luis’s weak spot now. He didn’t care about his job, his crappy flat, his freedom. Nothing mattered more than Paolo.
Fuck. I love him.
The realisation nearly sent Luis to his knees. Only Dante’s presence kept him upright. He set the plate down, wiped it clean with a paper towel, and rinsed his hands. His skin was an angry pink where the oil had burned him, and the stinging pain merged with the rage building inside.
He took the plate to the table and dumped it in front of Dante’s girl. “What do you want?”
Dante’s grin widened. “Chicken sandwich. Mayo, no salad.”
Of course he did. That bland shit was all he ever ate. Luis bit back a sneer. “Don’t do them here. Read the fucking menu.”
He walked away, blood roaring in his ears, skin hot with the worst kind of heat. Instinct urged him into the kitchen and away from Dante, but that meant leaving Paolo alone with him, and Luis couldn’t do it. Not now, not ever.
More orders came in. Luis cooked without seeing the food he was putting on plates. Dante’s presence behind him burned every moment he was there, and Luis knew the second he wasn’t.
Tension flooded out of him with a dizzying sigh. He leant on the worktop and hung his head, ignoring the frantic sizzle of the bacon he was about to char to an inedible crisp. Bastard, bastard, bastard. He’d known it was coming but had clung to the hope that he’d had more time. That Dante would give him a little longer with Paolo before he took it all away.