Page 122 of Pucking Them
Hearing him use my first name after all these years is like being stabbed.
Robyn freezes. “Your brother.”
Bruno doesn’t look away from me. “Why are you here, Jude? I fucking knew that you would be. You have to ruin everything, don’t you? Are you trying to wreck this for Maria?”
He’s pulverizing my heart.
I shake my head.
“Liar.” Bruno studies me contemptuously, as if I’ve been reduced to a kid again. “I’m a busy man. I have afamily, unlike you. Children, three of them. Not that I would allow a person like you around them.” I fight hard not to show on my face how much that hurts.A person like me…?“But I had to drive here to make sure that Maria was safe. Go home, Jude. I knew that you’d pull something like this.”
“Like what?” I grit out. “I’m only going to watch her play.”
“She doesn’t want you to.”
My heart breaks. “Did Maria say that?”
“Mysister didn’t need to. Mom and Dad sent me. They told you to?—”
Sudden anger flashes through me.
I am not Bruno’s younger brother any longer. He killed any right he had to boss me around or have a place in my life after what he did.
Why should I let him talk to me like this?
“I know precisely what they said to me,” I reply, as cold as ice. “I didn’t intend to talk to anyone.”
I grab his hand, which is pressing me against the wall and bend it back, until he is no longer holding me down.
Bruno blinks in shock like he can’t believe that I am stronger than he is now.
He has no idea how much stronger in every way I am.
I am shaking with the urge to kick his ass.
I used to lie awake, imagining what I would do if I met Bruno again.
Sometimes, on bad nights, I dreamed of driving to his home and beating him like he’d beaten me.
I didn’t feel better the next morning and I never did it.
Now, my eyes flare with fire. “You don’t get to touch me. Ever. Again.”
Bruno backs away, gesturing at the door. “I’m waiting.”
He would say that when I was in trouble.
It slams me back to being a tiny kid. Sometimes, it meant that I was meant to trail up to my room, when he sent me to bed early. Or sometimes, to wait nervously for Dad to return from work todealwith me.
I’m not that same kid anymore.
I slip the recital tickets out of my jacket pocket. “Look, I have tickets. Is this your new job as an usher? Are you going to show us to our seats?”
Bruno raises his hand like he’s about to backhand me.
Robyn gasps.
I don’t flinch. Instead, I steadily stare Bruno down.
