“She’s not coming back!” Her cheeks turned a light shade of red. “My little sister is not coming back. Not to me. Not to you. Never.” She took a step back into the house. “I don’t know what you did, Dante. All I know is because of you, I will never see my fucking sister again.”
And with those words, she slammed the door shut in my face.
I stood there, stunned. Everything around me faded to gray. There was no sound, no movement, as if someone had pressed the goddamn pause button on my life. Within less than two minutes, my dreams, my hope, my fucking life came to a crashing halt. Every goddamn happy emotion I had felt on my way here had drowned in the pool of pain that now occupied every part of me.
I glanced down at the envelope, and with every beat of my heart, I knew whatever was written in that letter would destroy me.
Slowly, I bent and picked it up. It felt like the flimsy piece of paper weighed a thousand pounds. The words hidden between those pages held so much power over me, I could feel it crushing me, suffocating me…killing me.
As I tore through the paper, fear started to squeeze the air out of my lungs. No matter what I was about to read, the pounding ache inside my chest told me I had already lost her—the love of my fucking life. I lost her.
I pulled out the letter, then sucked in a breath when I saw her familiar handwriting. I didn’t know what to expect, but what I found written wasn’t it.
Please don’t look for me. I beg you not to search for answers you will never find.
Just let it be.
I’m sorry.
Four little sentences. That was all it took to rip my heart out and allow the darkness to take its place.
I took a deep breath after swallowing my second glass of bourbon. The memories felt like daggers piercing the flesh of my heart over and over again. I hated that they still held so much power over me. After all the time that had passed, the memories still tortured me.Shestill tortured me.
“It’s a little early for a drink, don’t you think?”
I looked up at Antonio, who took a seat across from me by the bar. “You want one?”
“Fuck, yes.”
I snorted and poured my brother a drink while refilling mine.
That was another thing I hated about all this—everyone knew. Everyone knew who Layla was to me, and what it did to me when she left. For months after, I was nothing but a walking corpse who lived on alcohol. I spent my days either drunk or hung over, and thoroughly fucked. Sex numbed the pain. It still did. And the more, the merrier. Gang banging and orgies while drinking myself into a stupor was the only goal I had for a very long time.
Antonio took a sip from his drink. “You sure it was her?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. The more I think about it, the more I wonder if I might be wrong.”
“Lorik is on it right now. We should have answers soon.”
I pulled out the bar chair and sat. “If it was her, why now?”
“Who the fuck knows.”
I let out a laugh. “Fuck. I don’t even know why she left. Now I don’t know why she would be calling me after all this time. That’s if it even was her.”
Antonio emptied his glass, cringing from the sting of the alcohol. “You know Lorik. He’ll have an answer within the hour.”
“Answers? Or just more questions?” I stared at him, and Antonio shrugged.
“I don’t know, little brother.”
For a second, Antonino looked worried—sympathetic, even. It was a rare occurrence for my brother to show any emotion other than anger and disappointment. On the odd occasion, I kind of understood why he was the way he was. Our dad was harder on him while we were growing up. Antonio always had to set the standard, be the example. Day in and day out, our father would remind him that one day the responsibility of the family’s wellbeing would be his, and he needed to be prepared.
God knew I never wished to be in Antonio’s place. Never envied the burden that lay so heavily on his shoulders. No wonder he never had a sense of humor, or a need to just fuck up every once in a while.
Antonio cleared his throat. “So, what if it was her?”
“What do you mean?”