By the time I reached the station, my heart had about as many cracks in it as the sidewalk I just ran down.
I was riding down the escalator when I heard it.
“Roxy!”
My head automatically jerked around, so startled was I by the furious roar.
I spotted Ace immediately, trying to shove aside other passengers to reach me. In true New York attitude, most people didn’t take too kindly to being pushed and met him with furious looks and a few cross words.
He acted like they didn’t even exist.
He just kept his unblinking focus on me.
And he was getting closer.
Following his example, I more politely scooted around people, offering my apologies even as I bumped many of them with my bulky bag. My heart was galloping around in my chest, though I wasn’t entirely sure of the reason. I didn’t want to talk to him again, I knew that. I didn’t want to hear more of his excuses. What I’d overheard was bad enough.
I hadn’t had control of my own life ever since I came back to this city.
Decisions had been made behind my back. Information had been kept from me. Secrets had been hidden. Lies had been told.
And no one had once thought to consult me.
I felt disrespected, unappreciated, ignored, used, stupid, and worst of all…powerless.
Ace had been part of that. He was partially responsible for making me feel that way, and I wasn’t sure I could ever forgive him for it.
“Roxy, stop!”
Of course, this had to be one of those ridiculously long escalators. We still hadn’t reached the bottom yet.
I glanced back again to see a frantic Ace still scrambling over people, looking determined and desperate and a little…manic. His clothing was stretched and askew. His hair was a mess. And is that blood on his knuckles? Had he punched one of his brothers in order to break free and come after me?
In any other city, someone might have actually tried to intercede when they saw a woman being chased by a crazed-looking man. But this was New York, and people around us merely watched with fleeting curiosity.
Finally, my feet reached the platform.
But no train.
Damn it all!
I looked around everywhere, but there was no place to go. Nowhere to hide.
I had to face him.
He rushed up to me seconds later but wisely didn’t touch me. To add insult to injury, he wasn’t even winded from what surely had to have been an Olympic sprint to catch up to me.
“Please, Roxy,” he pleaded. “Just give me a chance to explain everything.”
“There’s nothing to explain, Ace. You know how I feel about my father controlling too much of my life. How he never takes my feelings into account. He dragged me back here for the summer without even considering talking to me about it first. My independence is important to me. And you knew all of that before you schemed with him behind my back.”
He shook his head vigorously back and forth. “No, it wasn’t like that. I didn’t know what he was doing when he first brought you back. I only found out about it a few weeks ago, I swear.”
“And you think that makes it okay?” I screamed without meaning to.
Thank God, I heard the train approaching from the tunnel behind me.
“You think that since you’ve only been lying to me for three weeks instead of the whole summer that I should just brush this whole thing off? I guess in your mind Papà’s sin is much greater than yours, so I shouldn’t be as mad at you, right? Well, newsflash! It doesn’t make a difference to me. Both of you took decisions out of my hands because you’re both overbearing, domineering asses. You thought you had the right to control my life. For me, there is no greater sin than that.”
The train burst through the dark tunnel and abruptly came to a screeching stop. The high-pitched sound of grinding metal drowned out the noise of my breaking heart.
His brows drew together as he took a step toward me. “You cannot imagine how sorry I am. And I’ll do whatever necessary to prove that to you. But I am begging you right now. Stay. With. Me.”
How can I if I can’t trust you?
I slowly shook my head as my feet moved backward toward the train’s doors. Passengers walked around us, but neither of us noticed.
We were the only two people in the universe.
I could already feel the loneliness that would come for me once I left him.
“This is one decision I’m making for myself,” I whispered. “And you’ve got no control over it.”
Another step forward.
Another step backward.
“Please, Rox. Please don’t do this.”
“Goodbye, Ace. Don’t follow me this time.”
I backed through the open doors and grabbed hold of the metal pole without breaking his eye contact.
He walked to the edge of the platform, stopping just feet from me. He looked like he was about to hop on any second, but he respected my words and remained where he was on the other side of the doors. His chest was heaving, his fists clenched at his sides.
If he looked like he was in that much pain, I couldn’t imagine what I looked like.
“Rox, I—” He pursed his lips. “I love you.”
I never knew a heart could soar and sink at the same time.
“Then mission accomplished. Because I loved you, too.”
The doors closed on his desolate face.
The train took my body back to my father’s home in Hell’s Kitchen that day.
But I left my mangled heart in Brooklyn.
It should have taken me longer to pack up all my things.
The house I’d grown up in in Hell’s Kitchen felt even more foreign after living in the home I’d made with Ace in Crown Heights.
I stood in Filip’s old bedroom, staring at all of his belongings that Papà and I never had the heart to pack away. Posters of his favorite bands on the walls. His basketball trophies. Framed pictures of his old group of friends.
Today was his birthday.
My brother would have been twenty-four. Same age as Ace.
Would he have finished college by now? Gone on to graduate school? He used to always talk about opening up his own Italian restaurant. Would he have accomplished that by now if he were still alive? Would he have gotten married already, or stayed a bachelor for most of his twenties?
I would never have the answer to any of those questions. Because he was taken from this family far too soon.
But at least he and Mamà were up in Heaven together.
It thundered outside, the loud boom followed by a bright streak of lightning. The ominous weather was a perfect match to my morose mood.
“You cannot just leave, Roxanna,” Papà said from the doorway. “What about Ace? He truly cares for you.”
His words from a week ago echoed in my ears for the umpteenth time since I’d left him standing on that platform.
I love you.
And like every other time, the accompanying pain immediately followed. Why did the only two men in my life who supposedly loved me think they had the power to dictate the course of it? Why did I have to feel like a marionette being controlled by not just one puppet master, but two?
I speared him with silent accusations when I finally looked up from my suitcase. “Even if that were true and he actually does care, did it ever occur to you when you cooked this whole thing up what would happen when I found out? How I would feel? You ruined whatever future Ace and I had before we’d even had the chance to begin it.”
Papà’s gaze was downcast. Guilt had kept his shoulders perpetually stooped ever since I’d stormed through the doors last week, spewing my fury.
We’d barely spoken to each other in those seven days. I’d needed to finish up my last week at my internship and smooth the waters over that my abrupt, premature departure would surely roughen. Thankfully, my supervisor had been extremely understanding and was overall pleased with my work. The doctors I’d shadowed had agreed with h
er assessment. She’d even offered to give me whatever recommendations I might need in the future.
“I was trying to do what was best for you,” Papà murmured apologetically.
“What you thought was best for me. Same as when you thought it would be a good idea to ship me off to boarding school a mere month after Mamà and Filip died?”
His head snapped up, his eyes puzzled. “I thought you liked boarding school. You always told me you were happy there.”
I sighed, suddenly wanting to do nothing but go back to bed for at least two days straight. “I didn’t hate it. But I was also alone for a while. It took some time to make friends since in the beginning, everyone wanted to steer clear from the girl who was crying all the time.”
I watched as emotions twisted his features, his throat bobbing as he swallowed.
Chief among those emotions was grief. Always grief.
“I thought getting you out of the city would help,” he rasped. “To get away from all the pain here. I thought it might be easier for you to heal if you weren’t surrounded by their memories all the time.”
I genuinely believed he thought he’d been doing his best by me.
“It felt like I’d been abandoned, Papà,” I whispered. “I had just lost my mother and brother. The last thing I needed was to lose my father, too. I felt…unwanted.”
I hadn’t seen my papà cry since the day of their funeral.
And it was just as painful to watch now as it had been then.
“God, I’m sorry, lina.” His voice cracked as he choked back a sob. “I didn’t think about it like that. All I was concerned about at the time was protecting you. I had just lost my wife and son. I couldn’t bear to lose my daughter, too. The only person I had left. I was determined to keep you safe. Even if that meant sending you away from me.”
I knew he was referencing his suspicions about the cause of the crash—the possible Gabbiano involvement—though we’d never once spoken about it. It had been too painful to talk about years ago, the wounds left by their deaths still too fresh and unhealed. And after so long, the subject was avoided altogether. I’d never wanted to cause him further pain by asking.
“I would have done anything to protect you,” he continued. “That includes what I’ve done by bringing you back here. As long as the Gabbianos remain suspect of my loyalty, you are in danger. It was only a matter of time before they discovered my renewed attempts to extract ourselves from the organization. I knew I had to do something to safeguard your future.”
“You could have talked to me about this.”
He shook his head sadly. “It wouldn’t have worked if you’d known. Not to mention, you wouldn’t have liked it.” I opened my mouth to speak, but he put his hand up, cutting me off. “I always knew how you felt about Ace. And I knew how much affection he had for you back then.”
I scoffed. “He saw me as another sister. He treated me just like he did Gia.”
“Not entirely. You remember Tony Scolaro?”
“Of course. He was the little d-bag who teased me relentlessly in junior high after I got braces.” And the second I’d gotten those braces removed, he’d tried giving me my first kiss. One I’d never asked for.
Papà nodded. “Remember when he came to school that one day with two black eyes and never bothered you again?”
“Yes. Filip punched Tony after he tried to cop a feel with his tongue.”
Papà flinched. “I didn’t need to hear that.”
He looked as surprised as I felt when I smiled. It had been far too long since I’d smiled at my father.
“Anyway, it wasn’t Filip who beat Tony up. It was Ace.”
I frowned. “What do you mean? Filip told me after I saw Tony’s eyes that he would never bother me again.”
“Filip knew Ace had done it, but Ace asked him not to say anything.”
“Why?”
Papà shrugged. “I’m not sure. Ace was clearly protective of you, though. I knew that if those feelings went beyond friendly affection, he would lay down his life for you, if necessary. Not that I would ever want it to come to that. But as far as a father is concerned, that’s the best kind of man for his daughter. And call it fatherly intuition, but I had a feeling you two would connect. You just had to be here for it to happen.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, dropping onto the edge of the mattress. “I thought you and Enzo had become enemies. Why would you want me to end up with one of his sons?”
Pain once again marred my father’s expression. “I’ve never hated Enzo or any of the Rossettis. He was always my closest and dearest friend. I never wanted to distance our families, but Santi demanded it after the car accident. I had to prove myself to prevent his attention from diverting to you. I hated to separate you from your best friend, but he would have come after us if I’d refused.
“I’ve always trusted Enzo. And watching his sons grow up and lead their own lives and start their own businesses, I would trust any one of them as I do their father. They’re honorable, loyal, and faithful. They protect what belongs to them. All traits that are quite rare in young men these days.”
You don’t have to tell me.
Ace was one in a million.
“So, you’re telling me you would have tried to stick me with any of the Rossetti boys? And I guess my crush on Ace just made the selection easier, huh?”
Papà’s mouth thinned. “No, Roxanna. Despite what you might think, I’m not that cold. I wanted you to be with Ace for many reasons. For one, yes, you seemed to like him when you were younger. I figured you still had those same feelings on some level. For another, he’s around your age. Neither of you are quite ready to start your own family. Most importantly, the two of you share the same drive in all your pursuits. He’s just as ambitious as you are, that was noticeable even from a young age.
“And you’re both highly intelligent. You can challenge each other, a quality I think is important in a marriage. As such, he would support any of your endeavors, such as medical school. A father can only hope to find a man like that for his daughter. And lucky for me, you were already halfway in love with him.”
Okay, he’d managed to pull another smile from me.
As mad as I still was, it gave me some comfort to know that he would never have actually approved of my marrying someone like Dominic. Even though I’d been away for five years, my papà still knew me. In fact, he understood me better than I’d thought he did. He just tended to go about fatherhood in an ass backwards kind of way.
“And I know my word doesn’t carry much weight with you right now,” he went on, “but I believe Ace has fallen in love with you, too. I know I’ve disappointed you, but don’t take that out on him. He truthfully did not find out about any of this until very recently, so everything that happened between you two prior to that was all genuine. It was real.”
He walked over to me and laid his hand on my shoulder. It was the first gesture of comfort he’d offered me since I’d returned to the city.
“If you sincerely love him, lina, don’t let the ill-conceived actions of an old fool stand in the way of your happiness,” he said softly. “And I say that not only as a father who wants to see his daughter protected and cared for. I say it as a father who more than anything wants to see his daughter with a man who makes her smile, like Ace does you. All your mamà and I ever wanted was for you and Filip to be happy.”
Great, now I was crying, too.
I launched myself into Papà’s arms and did what every girl needs to do when another boy hurts her: cry on her father’s shoulder.
He held me to him tightly, until I eventually eased back minutes later, leaving his suit a slobbery mess. He cupped my cheek with his hand, wiping away my tears with his thumb.
“You don’t have to go,” he said. “I promise to stay completely out of your life from now on. I drove you away once. I don’t want to do it again.”
I mimicked him and rubbed the tears from his cheeks. “You’re not. This is my
decision. School is going to start in a few weeks, anyway. This will give me enough time to prep and get through the rest of the required reading.”
I had already been enrolled for on-campus housing at the Yale School of Medicine come August. I’d just made a quick call to the housing office and asked if I could get in early, which they approved. Maybe leaving the city wasn’t going to solve all my problems, but I’d come to the conclusion that space from Ace would probably do me good.
This summer wasn’t supposed to be about finding that one great love, anyway.
It was about getting myself ready to embark on the next chapter of my life, one I’d worked tirelessly hard to get to.
So, I was leaving to get back to that chapter.
“I still think you should talk to him before you leave,” Papà said. “Straighten everything out first.”
I sighed. “I know that would be the mature thing to do, but I’m going to take the coward’s way out. I’m kind of tapped out in the emotional upheaval department. I’d rather just make a clean getaway.”
Even though leaving without telling Ace goodbye—leaving him at all—was enough to fill my heart with a crippling, bitter sadness. More like agony, really.
Papà looked like he wanted to argue, but he resigned himself to nodding. “Very well. I’ll take you to the airport.”
“Do you mind if we stop by the church to light some candles first?” I asked. “I want to visit their graves and tell Filip happy birthday before I leave.”
Even though it was the same church where Ace and I had committed about twenty sins in that coat closet, I could handle it.
“Of course.”
I would go to the church to pray for Mamà’s and Filip’s souls.
And I would not think about Ace.
Then I would go to the airport and fly back to my life in Connecticut.
The life that did not include Ace.
But I had survived heartbreak before. I could do it again. No, I wouldn’t be with the man I loved, but at least he was still alive. It wasn’t like I’d be leaving another dead body behind when I flew away this time.
Little did Papà and I know that we weren’t the only ones who’d gone to visit their graves.
Scars and Sins (Brooklyn Brothers Book 2) Page 22
