I was trying to act casual like this was an everyday occurrence, and not like I hadn’t seen my little brother in six years. Inside, my stomach was doing somersaults, both excited and nervous at the same time. I couldn’t even believe he was right here and sitting across from me. It was something I’d been imagining for fucking years. Maybe not in a prison visiting room, but it was what it was.
My little brother was no longer little.
He was taller and broader than I was, but honestly, not as pretty. The scar that cut across his right cheek fucked up the perfect skin and cheekbones he’d inherited. I wasn’t joking when I said he got Mom’s skin tone. The deep, rich tan of his skin and inky color of his hair always made people look at us three kids strangely.
Phee and I were all Dad with our white skin and sandy colored hair. He was your average literature nerd. How he’d managed to charm my mom was a mystery of its own.
Mom was fucking beautiful. She had deep Spanish roots which made her seem so exotic and out of reach, yet she was never embarrassed to hold Dad’s hand or let people know they were in love and happy. He wore her heart out there for people to see, and she let everyone know that intelligence for her was always going to win over looks.
There were times where I was jealous of Romeo. He was broader, taller, and rougher around the edges which meant that girls loved him the second they laid eyes on him. I wasn’t exactly lacking in the looks department, but back in school, I didn’t have that bad boy, dark and mysterious edge that Romeo owned.
Romeo’s nose twitched when he realized intimidation wasn’t going to work in this instance. “How’d you find me?” he asked, forcing me to sit a little taller.
Was he trying to hide from me?
“I changed my name when I got out of foster care.”
“One of the boys in my club can find anyone,” I told him straightforward. “It took a while, but here I am. So how ‘bout you tell me how you ended up here?”
“If your boy is really that good, then you’ll already know why the hell I’m here,” he glowered, leaning back against the wall behind him and placing his hands on the table. The chains hung down clanging against the table.
I gritted my teeth. I knew this was going to be hard. I’m lucky he’d even given me the time of day, but I desperately wanted it to be easy. I wanted to see him crack a smile, show me that cheeky grin I’d grown up with, the one that always told me he was up to no good. “I’d rather hear it from you. I don’t trust police records.”
He stared me directly in the eye assessing me, judging me.
He was trying to figure out if he could trust me, and man, did that fucking hurt. I had brothers at home, not blood like Romeo, but men who as far as I was concerned were my family, and none of them had ever looked at me the way he was currently staring at me. It was time just to lay it all out there on the table and let shit fall where it falls.
“I did everything I fucking could—”
“Well, it wasn’t enough, was it?” he snapped, and I knew we weren’t going to get fucking anywhere until we hashed this out. He tugged on the chains holding him captive, and for the first time, I saw the bruises and the raw red marks across his knuckles. “I sat up, night after fucking night, waiting for you to show up at my window. I had a fucking bag packed ready to run because that’s what I would have done if it had been you. Fuck the court. You’re my damn brother. We could have run, taken Phee, and gotten the hell out of there. If we’d stuck together, we would have been okay.”
My mouth hung open in shock. So that was it. “I was only eighteen, Rome. I fought as hard as I could. I spent every fucking cent that Mom and Dad left to try and get you and Ophelia back. There was a point where I couldn’t even pay my rent and had to live in a fucking shelter. I’m still paying back legal fees because I was constantly bugging the lawyer… fighting for you.”
People around us were starting to pay attention to our interaction, but I didn’t give a shit. This was my little brother, and if it were going to make him feel better to tell me what a fucking useless brother I was, then I’d take it. But I refused to walk out of here without knowing that I did fucking everything I could to connect us again.
“I don’t give a fuck about your legal shit,” he hissed, sitting forward, a few strands of dark hair falling across his face. It was longer than it had ever been, pulled back into a short ponytail at the back of his head. I wasn’t a fan of that shit on guys, but it suited him. It made him look dangerous, and with the dark flair in his eyes, it even made me think twice and start to question whether I was just too late.
“I just wanted my brother to be there for me. I wanted for you to care more about me than lawyers and cops and doing things right for once. You always did the best in school. Always followed the rules. Always did things by the book.”
I sat a little straighter. He was right, when we were younger, I was a good kid. I worked hard at school, I was good at sports, and I guess you could say I was almost a goody-two-shoes. I barely ever put a foot wrong, while Romeo was more of a free spirit.
“I wanted to know for once I was more important to you than the rules,” he whispered, his voice almost cracking. His eyes glistened under the fluorescent visiting room lights. I knew it wasn’t a good look, you can’t cry in prison without someone seeing and coming after you, but it was like he didn’t care. He needed me to see how much I’d hurt him. That sixteen-year-old kid that I watched them drag out of our childhood home kicking and screaming. The same one I should have gone after, that I should have protected at whatever cost, even if it meant breaking the law.
“I regret it all,” I answered finally. “I could have done more. I should have fucking done more. I should be where you are right now. I should have fought harder.” My throat burned. I traced the tattoo on my forearm, the one that represented my brother. A beautiful bright romantic rose for Romeo. “I know I fucking let you down,” I hissed, squeezing my hands into fists. “I’m here. You can hate me, punch me in the fucking face, refuse to see me. Whatever. I can’t change the past, but just know I’m not fucking going anywhere. I found you once, I’ll find you again.”
I wasn’t lying. I was fully willing to hunt him down again if he tried to run.
I’d do whatever I had to do to fill that hole in my chest that they left.
I could tell he was grinding his teeth together, his jaw moving back and forth as he stared me down like he was trying to figure out if I was legit. I couldn’t stop touching the tattoo on my arm, my thumb rubbing over it in circles absentmindedly.
“Jesus fucking Christ, what kind of pussies have we turned into,” he groaned, shaking his head. He blinked a few times expelling the moisture from his eyes before it could drip down onto his cheeks. Then his eyes settled once again on me, the anger dissipating, a smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth. “You always said you’d never get tattoos, that they were for criminals, remember?”
Romeo held up his arms as far as he could, the sleeves of his jumpsuit sliding back to reveal one very intricately decorated right arm while the other was left untouched—exactly what I’d done but on the opposite side. At a brief glance, I could make out some chains, a dragon, some fire maybe, but it’s the quote written across his wrist that made me smile.
“To be or not to be,” I muttered with a smile, rolling my eyes.
“That’s the fucking question,” Romeo followed it up with, that menacing grin I was hoping for making its presence now known.
Debatably Shakespeare’s most famous quote from Hamlet. It was like a kick start to my fucking heart telling me that while my brother played hard, he never wrote me off.
“Aw, so you didn’t forget about me,” I teased.
His smile faltered, and he shrugged. “I figured you’d show up one day.”
I grinned. “You got that fucking right.”
“So what’s this club you speak of?” he asked, leaning back against the wall, his eyes full of curiosity and interest to hear about my life.
“Man, where to fucking start.”