Page 3 of Contempt

Probably another reason for the enforcers.

With Siena gone, that left John and Lucia.

Alone.

Shit.

Lucia sighed, wanting to get this done and over with. At least with the buffer of Siena between them, she didn’t feel so out of place with her brother. Waving a hand at her brother and heading into the crowd, Lucia said, “Well, come on, then. It’s cold, and I don’t want to freeze out here for too long.”

John chuckled, and his footsteps followed behind. “You didn’t mind five minutes ago when Siena was here.”

Lucia stiffened.

Asshole.

He would have to say that, wouldn’t he? She wished he just wouldn’t start to begin with. Make this easy on her, and all that shit. Nothing could ever be that simple in Lucia’s life. It was never simple.

“Yeah, well …”

What else could she say?

Apparently, she didn’t need to say anything because John had all sorts of things to say. Fucking perfect.

“What do you need me to say, Lucia?” John asked quietly from behind her. She still refused to turn around and face him even as he spoke. Maybe it was rude, but it was better than him seeing the hatred shining back in her eyes. She didn’t want to hear anything he said, but here they were, it seemed. Just her luck, too. “Tell me what to say so that we can move on, and I will do that. Sorry isn’t going to be good enough—I get that. So what will do it for you?”

For a second, she stopped walking. Her heart stuttered—playing tricks on her again, as the emotions blew all around her like the people still swarming The Annex. The tension between her and John still felt thick and loaded with all the things she had said to him before this—things she knew hurt him because God, she just needed him to understand and feel the way he made her feel—and things they had yet to say to one another.

Did he really want to know?

Did he honestly want to know what would make this better?

Because she didn’t think anything would.

Slowly, Lucia turned to stare at her brother. The familiar prickling behind her eyes said the tears were coming, and she bet John could see the water shining back at him, but she held it all at bay. She would not cry. Not then.

“You’re right,” Lucia said, “sorry won’t be good enough, John.”

“But I am sorry.”

She believed him for no other reason than the truth staring back in his gaze, and the way he dropped every pretense he’d been holding onto before this moment. She heard the truth in his voice, and how it colored his tone thickly with emotion she understood all too well.

Regret.

Pain.

She knew that well because she felt it constantly.

So, yeah, she believed that he was sorry.

Lucia nodded. “Now.”

“The day it happened. The day I found you. The day Renzo was taken away. That very second, Lucia, I was sorry,” her brother muttered, his tone aching. “That was not what was supposed to happen.”

Oh, God.

There was so much she wanted to say to him. So many words that wanted to snap out of her tightening jaw just because she could. It would be easy, and it had become habit for her to cut her brother or father with her words to hurt them instead of trying to listen to them. She tried something different, and not for John, but because she was goddamn tired.

Way too tired to be angry right then.