Page 140 of Ruthless Sin
I wait.
“I watched my Papa die of grief after Mama. Years he carried it. Some kinds of grief eat a person from inside until there’s nothing left to bury. He didn’t have to die from it. He did. I’m not watching another person in this house waste away from grief I can stop with food and water and sleep. I’m not watching you do what he did. I’m asking you not to.”
My throat tightens.
“You don’t have to forgive my brother. You don’t have to talk to him. You just have to eat.”
She stops. Then, quieter:
“One more thing. As his twin. Not as your doctor.”
I wait.
“He hasn’t slept either. He hasn’t eaten. He sat at the bench in the garden last night for hours. He’s a wreck.”
She looks at me steady.
“I’m not telling you that to make you feel sorry for him. I’m telling you because I think you should know what he is right now. He doesn’t know I’m telling you. He’d be furious.”
She breathes out.
“I had a brother who disappeared from his own life three years ago. Came back from Moscow and he was gone. I watched him perform. I watched him drink the way men drink when they’re trying not to sleep. For three years I had a copy of my brother.”
She looks at me.
“Then you walked into this house. And he came back. He’s been back since the night you let him sleep on your floor. He thinks he’s hidden. He’s not.”
I don’t move.
“He lied to you. I told him to his face he didn’t deserve you. I meant it. But what he is to you, Mila, he hasn’t been to anyone. Including the woman he was supposed to find. He’s known it for some time and didn’t know what to do with it. That’s not an excuse. That’s what’s happening to him on the other side of this house. And you should know.”
I don’t answer.
She nods. Like she didn’t expect me to.
“Eat the food Nonna gives you. Drink the water Cassia leaves. Sleep when your body lets you. Soon.”
She steps aside.
I walk past her.
The back hallway has a window. It faces the garden.
I stop.
Nico is in the garden.
He’s at the iron bench. His father proposed to his mother at that bench.
His back is to the window. His hand on the back of the bench. He’s not sitting. He’s leaning.
He’s in black. The cufflinks are on. The watch is on.
His shoulders are wrong. The set of them, too rigid, the controlled stillness of a man holding himself in place by force. He hasn’t slept. His spine says it.
My chest pulls tight and heat crawls up the back of my neck and I hate it. My pulse is fast and wrong. My body is doing this without asking me.
I slide down the wall. My back against the plaster. My knees against my chest.
