“For the love of…” David sighed and stepped forward, taking a grip of his younger brother’s wrist. He tugged him roughly over to Jai and guided his
hand back before cracking it across Jai’s face. The sting of the smack flared up his left cheek and he closed his eyes, feeling the heat follow in its wake.
“See!” David smirked. “Now do it yourself but this time punch him. If you don’t… I’ll punch you.”
When no rebuke came from his mother, Stephen turned back to Jai with tears in his eyes. He punched out but it barely grazed Jai’s chin.
“That was pathetic,” David snarled. “Get out of the way.” He shoved Stephen aside and drew back his fist.
It caught Jai in the cheek and sent him careening back in Tarik’s arms. The eldest immediately let him fall, his head cracking against the black and white checkered flooring. As the kicks and punches rained down on his body, Jai sent his mind to another place, to a sparkling ocean and sandy beach where no
one else was around, where he could feel no pain and no torment. It was his place whenever the abuse got violent.
“Enough!” Jai heard Tarik growl through the ringing in his ears. He eased open his right eye since his left was swelling shut and saw Tarik nodding at his mother as he wiped blood from his knuckles. “Father will be angry if we go too far.”
Jai tensed with hope – hope that it was over – and he rolled a little, catching Stephen’s eye. The young boy blanched and turned to his mother. “I think Tarik’s right, mom.”
In response Nicki shoved Stephen towards the door. “Get out,” she snapped. “All of you. Out.”
As soon as the boys left, Nicki glanced back at Jai. Her lip curled in disgust as she strode carefully towards him. “Is that what you think, boy? You think Luca actually cares if you live or die?” She bent down beside him, her face so close he could feel the touch of her Irish breath on his face. “He doesn’t.”
Think of the beach, he pleaded to himself, the agony of those words still cutting him despite all the walls he’d tried to build up against his father’s hatred.
“All he cares about is his honor,” Nicki continued. “If it weren’t for that, you wouldn’t be here. You remember that, boy. You remember that always.”
Tears of anger glistened in her eyes as she leaned close enough to show him the torment in them. “The only thing of any value a person can have in this
world is hope. Hope lifts us out of the darkest of places, the ugliest feelings and the greatest heartbreaks.
A long time ago… Luca was my hope. I would look at him and all my sadness went away because I had my hope— the profound knowledge that he would
always be there for me, that we would always share the kind of connection so few people in this world are lucky to find.
And then your mother broke Luca. She slithered inside him and she stole from him. From me. And still I hoped.” Tears began to roll down her pretty face.
“I hoped that we would make it through what she had done to us, that we could repair what was broken. Until… you landed on my doorstep. A constant
reminder of what she had done. And as long as you live I will never have hope again, no hope of ever recovering what was lost.” She brushed hastily at her tears and growled into his ear. “And so I will take what you have taken from me, boy. I will be your constant reminder that there is no hope for you. There will never be anyone who could love you. Not true, deep, abiding love, because I will make it so you are so broken, so unloved, that you’re incapable of connecting with it. You’ll be forever unloveable.” She pinched his arm and Jai squeezed his eye shut along with the swollen one. Although his body ached with the beating he took, it was nothing compared to the cutting, ripping feeling that was tearing apart his chest and causing tears to fall when they never had before. “Yes,” she whispered in satisfaction. “No one will ever love you. No one. How could they, when even the beings that brought you into this world cannot.”
… Jai shuddered from the memory and turned to gaze at Ari, completely forgetting where they were. Feeling his gaze, she looked back at him in surprise and
whatever she saw in his expression turned her ever-changing eye color dark with sadness.
I love you, she whispered in his mind. I know you’re mad… but I love you.
Despite what Nicki had tried to do, despite how much she had taken from him, Ari stil loved him. And best of al, she seemed to understand that even though he couldn’t say the words back to her just yet, it didn’t mean he didn’t care about her, that he wasn’t struggling with his past in the hopes of having a future with her. Ari loved him without expecting anything in return. And although that scared the hel out of him, and he didn’t want to hurt her or be hurt by her, Jai was going to see this through. He was going to be there for her. No matter what.
I’m not mad, he promised. We’ll work it out. Together.
She smiled slowly, the tension seeming to leak from her body and the fact that he had that kind of effect on her made Jai feel a lot euphoric and a little scared shitless.
A throat clearing broke their gaze. Michael Roe was staring at them with narrowed eyes from his perch on his huge library desk. They were in his office in his home in Burlington, New Jersey, surrounded by tradition. The room was richly appointed in expensive walnut flooring, doors, desk, bookshelves. The bookshelves were crammed with leather-bound books and colector’s items. A Persian rug lay under foot, and a top-of-the-line computer was perched on the desk. A locked display cabinet held some ancient looking weapons in them that drew Jai’s interest. He reminded himself to ask about them later.
Indeed the whole room screamed money, and Jai remembered from his own enquiries into the Roe Guild before they joined them in Phoenix that the families had
invested their money into a number of successful restaurants, bakeries and even a movie theater. They paid other people to manage their businesses while they took the money and used it to fund The Guild hunting.
“Are you alright, Mr. Bitar?” Michael asked curiously.