“Of course you do. What’s the problem? Is he not washing your dishes well enough?”
“Luis is a good worker.”
“I know that. He used to work for me.”
“Are you trying to get him to work for you again?”
Dante lit up and blew smoke in Paolo’s face. “Why would you say that?”
Because he’s out there somewhere losing his fucking mind, when he should be safe at home with me. “Because he’s . . . distracted. And your visit the other week freaked him out. Why did you come?”
“Not a crime to visit your baby brother at work, is it?”
“No, but if you were that fussed, you’d have showed up months ago.”
“If you think that, then you don’t know Luis at all. He didn’t want to see me when he first got out. Otherwise, you’d have seen my face at the start.”
“Why did I see your face at all? Why can’t you just leave him alone?”
“Is that what he said to you? That he wants me to leave him alone?”
Sensing a trap, Paolo went with the truth. “He hasn’t said anything to me.”
“So why are you so sure I’m the problem? My brother’s a complicated person, man. Dude is never happy unless he’s fucking miserable.”
“Maybe you’ve never given him the chance to be anything else.”
“Expert on my brother, are you?”
He had Paolo there. The only masterclass he could give on Luis was how to make him come in two minutes flat, and even that was only when Luis wanted him to. When he didn’t get to Paolo first and make him such a juddering mess he didn’t know which way was up. “I’m not saying that.”
Dante smoked more of his joint, regarding Paolo with lazy, weed-hazed eyes. “Do you know what I think, homie?”
Paolo fought the urge to roll his eyes. “Go on.”
“I think you’re a convenient hole for my brother to get his dick wet while he figures out how to be a real man again. That prison shit got him good, though you’re not the first pretty boy to turn his head on the outside, so don’t be thinking you’re special.”
“What if you’re wrong?”
“Then I’m wrong, and you get your way, don’t you?”
“You’d leave him alone if he asked you to?”
“That’s not what I said.”
The weed smoke was getting to Paolo. His brain worked sluggishly to collate anything Dante had said that actually made sense. “What are you saying then?”
Dante sat back on his vulgar couch and spread his legs. “Does it matter? What people say isn’t important, it’s what they do. But I have an offer for you if you want to negotiate, pretty boy.”
Paolo’s gaze drifted to Dante’s crotch, to his cock, where it strained against his underwear, and hysterical laughter bubbled out of his chest. “Are you for real? You want me to suck your dick? Yeah, okay, mate. I’ll jump right on that.”
Dante moved like a snake. He lunged from the couch, grabbed Paolo by the throat, and shoved him against the TV unit. He lacked Luis’s strength, but knowing there was a posse of rude boys outside the flat, Paolo let it happen.
He fell slack in Dante’s grasp, resisting the urge to break free and punch him in the face.
Dante leered. “I wasn’t asking you to suck my dick, bro. I don’t swing that way.”
“What were you asking me then?”
“I wasn’t asking you nothing. I’m telling you. My brother’s a road man, and he makes his own choices. The Luis I know would lose his shit if he knew his little bitch was up in my face making claims on him like this, so why don’t you take your homo self out of here before you get hurt?”
Frustration ripped through Paolo. He squirmed in Dante’s hold. “You really don’t care, do you?”
“About what? Your opinion on what my brother should be doing?”
“It’s not my opinion. It’s got nothing to do with me.”
“So why are you here? Why are you in my yard talking about sucking my dick when my family business doesn’t concern you?”
“I don’t give a fuck about your business. I only care about Luis, and you’ve got to know whatever you’re doing to him is fucking him up. You can’t be so dense that you don’t understand that.”
Dante snorted. “That kid has always been fucked up. It don’t matter if he’s on the road or working at the damn supermarket, he’s never going to change, so if you’re waiting for him to turn into your ideal husband or whatever, you’re wasting your time.”
Paolo was beginning to believe he really was wasting his time, but not with Luis. It was Dante who was a gold-star oxygen thief, and the urge to tell him so danced with Paolo’s simmering temper. Only the knowledge that he’d be playing into Dante’s hands kept him quiet. Talk to him like he’s human. You might be the only one who ever bothers. But there was a reason for that. Dante wasn’t human. He was a cold pit of a man who’d forgotten how to be anything else. “Please,” Paolo ground out through gritted teeth. “Just leave him alone. He did his time for you so you could get on with whatever bullshit you do out here. Six years of his life. For you. Why can’t you just let him go?”
Dante’s expression changed. For a fleeting moment, he looked just like Luis; hurt, bewildered, and so lost Paolo almost felt sorry for him. But a heartbeat later, his face morphed back to the icy sneer that made Paolo hate him so much. “Newsflash, Paolo. Luis didn’t serve that time for me. He took the years to get away from me. Told me himself, so guess what? That’s how we roll now, so if your boy wants out of the life, he’s gonna have to do more years in the box, you feel me? And don’t count on him making it out alive this time. I got shanks everywhere, man.”
Paolo wasn’t up to speed on street talk, but the sentiment wasn’t lost on him. And it was clear the conversation was over.
Dante let him go.
Paolo straightened his rumpled clothes and walked to the door. With his hand on the cheap wood, he turned back, but Dante had already lit another smoke and reclaimed his place in front of the TV. He didn’t look up as Paolo backed out of the flat and left.
Outside, Asa escorted him down the stairs. Paolo ignored him, desperate to escape the stuffy building and feel the winter wind on his skin, as if it could cleanse him of Dante’s spiteful apathy. He felt dirty, inside and out. Scared, too. Dante was a caricature gangster, straight from a cartoon joke book. Alone, he was nothing. But Dante Pope was never alone. He had a network of mash men at his disposal. Men who’d cut someone to bits if Dante told them to. Cut Luis to bits. Until that moment, Paolo had never believed Dante would hurt Luis in that way.
What if Paolo had changed his mind?
Brain racing, Paolo drifted home. Only the vague memory that he needed something from the shop stopped him going straight there.
He ducked into the Londis at the end of the high street. The after-work queue for cheap booze was long. Paolo considered joining them, but he’d been drunk all week, and his body was starting to protest. Running a cafe solo didn’t mix well with a skinful the night before.
Head down, he retreated to the chilled aisle and picked up a bottle of milk. A big one. Like Luis still spent days and days at his flat, brewing Paolo strong instant coffee while he drank his builder’s tea. Idiot. Stop acting like he shared your bed your entire adult life.