“We grew up dirt poor. In some pretty shitty conditions.”
“I saw.”
Tobias pauses, eyeing me. “Her piece of shit of a husband left her a few months before my parents died. She drank a lot and was heavy-handed at times, especially with Dom when he started to act up. It wasn’t all bad, but it…” he sighs. “Well, you saw.”
I nod, batting a tear away.
“A few weeks after we moved in with Delphine, we got a curious visitor.”
“Sean?”
“Yeah,” he says softly. “He was younger, but he just kept coming around. He and Dominic took up together fast, and I was often in charge of watching them and walking them to and from school.” Tobias shakes his head, a soft smile playing on his lips. “He was a fucking mess. His hair was always jacked, always. He was a dirty little shit, always hanging from the trees and never going home until way after dark. He used to sneak into my room at night, and the three of us would go off into the woods. He was fearless, even at seven-years-old. Almost every morning, he tore the clothes off his mother dressed him in and put on the same raggedy shirt. He refused to follow rules, even back then.”
We share a smile.
“Tyler came along just after. We didn’t have much at Delphine’s, but we made do. And the men from the brotherhood never forgot my parents and were our saving grace. They would come by and give us treats. Sometimes they would send clothes and money by mail—little things to help us along the way. My aunt would allow it, and not long after they died, she started hosting meetings in her home. The more time that passed, the more time I would sit in. Delphine was far more extreme. Her ideas on how to fight back were argued about, but for the most part, she was the leader. There were only a handful of the originals left by then. Most of them had died out or left the cause because of what happened to my parents. But the more I listened in, the more I became involved, and on my fifteenth birthday, I stood and spoke for the first time.”
“And they listened.”
He nods.
“Right before I left for prep, I was running the meetings, networking to get more people. And Sean and Dom were starting to pay attention. My plans for the brotherhood had grown exponentially. I would come back home during the summers to be with Dom and Sean, who were slowly becoming more involved. Dom was taking over meetings and running the local chapter by the time I returned after my sophomore year of college, and that was the first time I laid eyes on you.”
That’s when Tobias lifts his eyes to mine and looks at me, really looks at me for the first time, and I feel it down to my toes.
He pulls out my library copy of The Thorn Birds beneath his jacket. It fits easily in the palm of his hand. My eyes widen with shock.
“You were there when I stole it?”
“Dominic lived at the library. It was his favorite place in the world to be. He despised Delphine most days because she was a nasty drunk and escaped there when he wasn’t out gallivanting with Sean. I was there to pick him up, and I ended up browsing while I waited for him. You were a row over when I spotted you, and I didn’t pay you much attention until Roman walked up behind you and told you he would buy you books, and you didn’t need to rent them. You rolled
your eyes and called him a ‘butt munch’ under your breath before you stuffed this book in your pants.”
Stunned by his confession, my eyes drift to the book in his hand.
“It’s when I saw you that I knew you were just a kid. Innocent in this and with no knowledge of who your father truly was or his fucked-up business dealings. I knew you weren’t close. He ushered you out, and I followed you both out to the parking lot. You looked so miserable, but you wore this faint smile on your lips. Like you were happy about your silent rebellion in stealing the book.”
No doubt I was. It was the last summer I spent with Roman before we became estranged. Tobias runs his fingers over the tattered binding of the book. “You were just a kid, and I vowed that day to keep you out of it. I kept close tabs on you after, and when you didn’t return after that summer, I assumed it was for good.”
I rub my hands together. “So did I.”
“Dominic was still in school, and I wanted to give us time to gain strength in numbers before we made any serious moves. Sean was already running the garage we bought with Dom’s part of the settlement and heading up the meetings there. Dom secured his place before he left for college, and he made damn sure everyone knew of it. And Sean held it all down while we were both away.”
Snow continues to drift between us, and I shiver in my jacket as Tobias stands and crushes out his cigarette. “I was twenty-four when I made my first million, and I began networking on a corporate scale by the time Dominic graduated high school. Tyler went into the service. Sean kept it together here. So, I spent my time between here and France, strengthening the network, finding old relatives to help us. By my twenty-fifth birthday, we were more of an international movement, not a small-town organization. And for a while, I lost sight of our original goal. So had everyone else, and over the years we only got stronger.”
“And then I showed up.”
He dips his chin.
“By the time you came back, we had hundreds of members in all combined chapters, and we were growing by the day. Dom had graduated MIT and made it his mission to eradicate future money problems by stealing chunks at a time from white-collar thieves that I hand-fed him, all the while stocking our arsenal and recruiting more brothers. It was only a matter of time with Roman, but when you got here, and Sean and Dominic discovered you, they moved in thinking they had you under control.”
I nod, knowing that story all too well.
“Now you know I was searching for my birth father, which is why I was distracted in France.”
I nod.
“By the time I got to him, he was too far gone. I’ll never really know who he was.”