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“Are you okay?” I ask. “I know he hit you again, Johnny. I heard it.”
Johnny pulls his shirt up, looking down at the same time as he reveals every inch of a red splotch over his abs. “He punched me. Not in the face this time. I think he realized how nervous it made everyone to see me like that, so he did it some place no one could see.”
My fingers trail over the mark lightly, and he shies away. “We should get you some ice.”
“Ice isn’t going to fix this, babe.”
“One problem at a time,” I tell him. I retreat to the freezer, grabbing out an actual ice pack I asked housekeeping to deliver before the night of the accident. For as much as we need it, we should buy stock in these damn things. Maybe we’d get a free lifetime supply.
I pull his hand and make him sit on the couch with me. “Shirt off,” I tell him.
He grins at me. “You always want to get me shirtless.”
“Stop being so hot, and I wouldn’t have that problem.”
Heat burns behind his eyes as he slowly shucks his shirt off, tossing it on the arm of the couch. I place the ice pack on his welt, and he sucks in a breath.
“Sorry,” I cringe.
“It’s not your fault.”
“It’s kind of my fault. It’s because of me you’re getting hurt.”
He cringes. “I hate that you even know this. If he hadn’t hit me in the goddamn face, we wouldn’t have this problem. I’m not weak, Kyla. I just—”
I cock my head. “Are you serious? I know you’re not weak, Johnny. Your father is beating you.”
“That makes it sound worse.” He lays his head against the back of the cushion.
“How long has he been hitting you, Johnny?”
His face closes off. For a moment, I don’t think he’s going to answer, but then he opens his eyes, staring up at the ceiling. “On and off since I was a kid. Only when I would piss him off, not do something right. My dad knows violence, Kyla. That’s how he speaks. It’s his language, and it’s served him well over the years. He thought it would work well for me too.”
“It’s not right.”
“I know that...,” Johnny says, and it’s as if he’s left the wordnowoff the end of that sentence on purpose. “I just don’t want you to think I can’t handle this.”
I pick his hand up, kissing his knuckles like he always does to me. “Sometimes, the strong thing to do is to lean on people. You don’t have to be a macho man all the time. You can have different facets of your personality other than ruthless son of a gangster,” I tell him. “I know you don’t trust Brawler and Oscar, but they’re here to help us.”
“Help you, you mean?”
I shake my head. “Both of us.Allof us.”
Johnny eyes me with uncertainty. “Been here a few months and already found people who’ll lay down their lives for you.”
Embarrassment barrages my cheeks. “No one’s laying down their lives,” I tell him. “Be straight with me.” I hold his gaze. “I’ll give you a truth if you give me one back. No getting angry.”
“Sometimes the truth is the hardest,” Johnny says.
I nod knowingly. The truth can hurt worse than lies sometimes. I swallow because what I want to tell Johnny right now could rip him from me. He’s only known allegiance to his father and the Crew, but he has to see that he can’t live like that anymore. “My truth is… I think you deserve better than your father.”
Johnny’s body locks up as if he’s a mechanical part in a working cog that’s frozen in place, refusing to work. Slowly yet surely, he relaxes, and with each breath he takes toward deflating, my heart rate returns to normal. “That’s my truth, too,” he admits.
The pain in his eyes is very real. “My father is my everything, Kyla. I understand it took a lot for you to say that to me. You feared how I would react, and you have every reason to. People have died for lesser infractions.” He pauses for a moment. “I didn’t see it until you. I thought my life was one gang problem to the next. An endless succession of things that needed to be fixed for the good of the Crew. You showed me something different. You showed me what life could be like. You showed me what love is supposed to be.” His lip trembles, and he bites down on it like he can’t stand for me to see the vulnerable side of him. Little does he know I want to see all his parts. The vulnerable part of him only makes me believe he can be saved. That he deserves it, and that I would do anything to give that to him. “Going against my father upheaves everything I’ve ever been taught. It feels so wrong in here, Kyla,” he says, pulling his other hand up to his chest, placing his palm over his heart. “My head is telling me one thing, but my heart is telling me another.” He licks his lips. “My head is whispering traitor. Traitors get gutted. Traitors don’t deserve to live. It’s only my heart that says anything differently.”
I kiss his knuckles again. “I think you should listen to your heart more often.”
He shakes his head. “My father...” He clears his throat and starts again. “My father...I know he acts tough, but if he ever heard the words I just said, it would be like stabbing him in the heart. He’s wanted me by his side since I was a little kid. It’s all he’s ever talked about.” He glances over. “You sure you don’t want to leave? I can’t get out Kyla. It would kill him, but you can.”