There are too many missed calls and texts on my phone to look through, so I turn and walk back to where my uncles and Nonna are standing watching me. “What’d he want?” Uncle Donny asks.
“I think he’s sweet on you,” Nonna says.
“He’s not,” I say, rolling my eyes and holding up the phone. “He was just giving back the phone.”
“Uh huh,” Nonna says, sounding unconvinced. “How many of these handsome blond men can we count on seeing with you?”
“None,” I say, my insides twisting at the thought of Devlin in a jail cell somewhere, waiting for his father to get back from wherever he is and post bail. I admire what he did for his dad, but I can’t ignore the fact that his dad knew where Royal was. At least for a while. And Devlin knew. Maybe for only a day, but that day might matter.
“Well, as long as you don’t use the secret ingredient on all the boys,” Nonna says. “That’s a recipe for disaster right there. You’ll have ‘em fighting over you for the rest of your life.” She smiles, her small teeth slightly stained from the tobacco use, her eyes crinkling at the corners, but still looking as young and lively as ever.
I’m suddenly overcome by emotion, and I pull her into a hug. I can’t help but wish she was my mother instead of my grandmother. She managed to raise a whole mess of kids without buying a ticket on the Nolet’s Reserve and heading for Tipsy Town.
Nonna laughs and pulls away, swatting my arm. “None of that,” she says. “Can’t have any carrying on in the street, can we now?” It strikes me that maybe the Dolce image didn’t start with my father making millions in the candy business. Nonna has the steel spine of a Dolce running through her every bit as much as the rest of us. Maybe that’s where we all get it.
“I’m going in,” I say. “I can’t be away from Royal any longer than I have.”
It’s not until the next morning that Dr. Swift says we can go in. Duke and Baron are off raiding the hospital cafeteria and flirting to get extra chocolate pudding. I know they’d want me to wait, so we can all go in together, but I can’t bring myself to wait any longer.
I stand over the cheap hospital bed where my twin lies, a tube up his nose and an IV running into the back of his hand, and hold back the flood of tears that wants to come. Last night, his face was caked with dried blood, but somehow, seeing it clean is even worse. I can see every bruise and cut and scrape on his battered and swollen face. Both his eyes are blackened and sunken, and the center of his lower lip was split so deeply it’s now stitched up with black thread. More stitches are scattered over his face in various places, and I can’t find a single spot on his cheeks that’s normal skin color. They’re yellow and green, blue, purple.
I gently take his hand in mine, careful not to jostle the IV. Royal’s lids flutter open, and he looks up at me. The corner of his mouth tugs the tiniest bit. I can’t tell if it’s a grimace or a smile.
I smile, and the tears come.
“That ugly, huh?” Royal says, his voice slurred with sleep and the drugs he’s on, raspy and hoarse from…
God, I don’t want to know. Was he screaming? Denied water until his throat was too parched to speak?
“I’m so sorry,” I manage to choke out.
“What’re you sorry for?” Royal asks. “You found my carcass.”
He smiles, but all I can think is that he used a word that’s a little too close to the truth. How long would he have lasted up in that attic? A day more? Two? A week?
A sob wrenches free of my control, and I dive onto my brother, burying my face in his chest and letting them come. When I finally wear myself out, I get up and grab some tissues, clean up my face, and return to my twin. I can’t bear to let him out of my sight. I slide onto the edge of the bed, wrapping my arms around him as well as I can while he’s lying on his back.
“What happened?” I whisper.
“I was fucking ambushed,” Royal says, his eyes falling closed again. “What happened to you?”
“Nothing,” I say, touching the tender bruise on my forehead. “Do you know who attacked you?”
“I know who sent them,” he says. “They were just a bunch of rednecks-for-hire.”
“How’d they get the jump on you?”
“They had guns, for one thing.”
“Shit.” I shiver at the thought of Royal trying to fight his way out of a group of guys, only to be held at gunpoint. I swallow hard, forcing the bile down as it rises to my throat.
“They took me to this house first,” he says. “But a couple days later, they took me out of there. I don’t know where they took me. They put a fucking bag over my head and drove me somewhere. And then I sat in some basement for… I don’t know how long. It felt like forever.”
“Did they hurt you?” I ask, silent tears leaking from my eyes, falling onto his thin blanket.
“Yeah,” Royal says quietly, his eyes still closed.
“Did they give you water or food or… oh, god… Let you go to the bathroom…” I choke on my words, trying to keep the sobs from returning. I have no right to cry like that. He’s not crying. I wasn’t there. I can only imagine how terrified he was, what he endured for a whole week at the hands of those psychopaths.