“At least you had each other.” I tried to offer solace where I knew there was none.
“I didn’t have Rome. I’ll be honest with you because you look at him like you may be able to connect with him. Rome never connected with anyone. His mom was gone in a flash when he was born, and his father was our right-hand man for a reason. Our uncle was a sick, vicious thing that I wouldn’t call human. He turned in the end. Rome doesn’t say it, but he is the way he is because his father was who he was. And after all that time, we all thought we had him figured out. Rome may have hated him, but he thought he understood him too.”
“But he didn’t?” I was on the edge of my seat, my heart beating fast like a hungry animal scrambling for scraps. I wanted to know Rome’s story more than I’d wanted anything in that moment.
“He shot his father when he tried to take my dad’s life, Katie. My uncle wanted the power and was willing to kill his own brother for it.”
“What?” I whispered.
He nodded solemnly. “Rome doesn’t trust anyone because he almost missed it. We all did. He saved my dad’s life by taking his own father’s. It’s a mind-fuck. And the damn power of this city did it to all of us.”
I shook my head in disbelief. My mouth opened and shut as I tried to form words and wrap my mind around what he’d said. Rome was seen as the monster, but he was the monster that saved them all. “Maybe I understand him because he knew what his life could be, only to have it ripped away just like me. I had the love of my father and lived a life full of joy and being cared for until he died. It was all stripped from me then, and I had to adapt. Adapting and changing is sometimes the hardest thing to do. I knew what love was and was used to it.”
He studied me. “True. I’ve always known this life, known what was coming for me. You both seem to have had a twist along the way.”
“And I can’t speak for Rome, but after my twist, I had to live a lot of different lives, none of which were good ones,” I said quietly.
He stared at me, and I knew he was waiting for me to admit more. He commanded a lot from just one look, and I knew he could break most into admitting anything with it. But he wasn’t looking at me that way. There was softness in his normally hardened features.
“Did you ever meet my daddy?” I asked after I took a bite of the ramen. “Aside from the time you all came to my house.”
“Only once that I remember. He was trimming bushes in pants and a long-sleeve shirt. His shiny bald head sweat bullets in the humid summer air, but he kept moving quickly. I remember thinking his need to finish was astounding.”
“He was always a hard worker.”
“And proud of his work too. I walked over his freshly cut grass that day, and he yelled at me for not taking the sidewalk. He was the help, but he told me not to walk over his freshly cut grass.” Bastian leaned back and chuckled at the memory. “I think he even scolded my dad for not teaching me better manners.”
I smiled, soaking up any information about my father I didn’t already have. “That would have been him. Proud as hell of his work always.”
“His work was just that and raising you. He must have been proud of you too, then.”
“I like to think he was proud of what I could have become, but not of what I was. He knew I got involved with Jimmy.”
“Mm.” He mulled that over as he stared at me. We were different in that sense. Bastian had always known where his life would take him. There was nothing else. “That’s a hard pill for a father to swallow. Maybe for any parent.”
“I’m sure your father worries about you too.” I wasn’t sure at all. Mario didn’t seem to worry about his sons much. I liked to think it was because of the respect he carried for them, knowing he’d raised them for their roles the right way.
“My father doesn’t care or worry much about anyone, Katie. My mother turned toward something else to numb her anxieties before she passed.”
“I see.” It wasn’t my place to dwell, and when he glanced away, I let him know he wasn’t alone. “My mother’s been gone a long time too. It’s probably better that way.”
“Yes, maybe.”
“Anyway”—I slurped up the last of my ramen—“I’m happy and full. Ramen hit the spot.”
I started to clean up the table, but his hand went to my wrist. “I got it. Why don’t you go relax, huh? I need to make a call anyway. Cade has been calling me.”
“Your phone’s not ringing.” I pointed to it lying face down on the table.
“I silenced it. We were eating together,” he said as if disgusted that I would think he wouldn’t.
“You realize this is an arrangement, right? I don’t care if you take a call while we eat. I don’t care if you—”
“You’re my guest.”
“I’m your bait, Bast.”
He rubbed a thumb over my wrist before he let it go and stood to collect the wrappers and bowls left from our food. “You’re never just bait, Katalina. I enjoy having you here. If nothing else, you make good conversation and are pretty to look at.”