Page 90 of Jordan

“I’ve been thinking back over the years to all the women. You know, the ones I’ve been with?” he starts, staring into his glass.

“If you’re looking for girlfriend advice, you’re looking in the wrong place, Marco.”

He chuckles, shaking his head. There’s something in his tone rubbing me the wrong way. It isn’t like him to be so damn depressed.

“No, nothing like that. It’s—there were a lot. I mean, why wouldn’t there be, right? I had nothing holding me back, no reason not to enjoy everything that came with this life. The partying, the expensive shit, the women. But there was never a scare.”

“A scare?” I ask. Does he mean feelings? Is he concerned he’s a psychopath who can’t form connections with people? I’m not the one to diagnose him with something like that, so again, he’s barking up the wrong tree. The words that come out of his mouth next aren’t what I’m expecting.

“You know; a pregnancy scare?” His gaze is on me now, sharp and serious.

Ah. That.

“Don’t you use condoms?”

He huffs out a laugh, waving me off. “Hell no.”

“And your dick is still attached?” I smirk.

“Attached and well,” he says. He clears his throat, his face serious again as he brings his gaze back to his glass. “Anyway, it had me thinking about why that was. Why I didn’t have women banging on my door asking for child support. Over the years, I guess I thought it was because they were too scared. That if there was a kid out there with my DNA, the mother didn’t want them to know me because of all this, and I just let it be. But I had some of my guys look into it, and nothing.”

I truly wish I knew why the hell he chose me to spill this too. I don’t care about his problems, about why he can’t get a girl pregnant. He should go talk to Elio about this shit. He’s the one who’s good at this sort of thing. Not me.

“Marco, what the fuck is your point?”

He takes in a breath. “I went to the doctor about two weeks ago to get checked. They did a few tests, but one thing they checked was my sperm count. It’s low.”

“Low?” He nods, finishing his scotch. “What do you mean?”

“I mean it’s low. Bad, actually. I guess the number is supposed to be around fifteen mil, but mine is less than five mil.”

My brows shoot up. I’m pretty sure I know what that means, but—

“Meaning?”

“Meaning it’s unlikely I’ll ever have children.” He holds my stare, not a single bit of emotion to his voice. But I am his brother. I can see he’s doing it just to stop himself from feeling it and not because he doesn’t care.

Well, fuck.

“That’s—” I blow out a breath. “I don’t know what to say. That fucking sucks, Marco. I’m sorry.”

He shakes his head. “I don’t know how I feel about it. I mean, I never thought about having kids. Never really cared. Taking over for dad sounded cool, but deep down I knew it wasn’t for me. Guess the universe knew it too.”

I say my next words carefully, not wanting to piss him off, but needing to know why. “Why are you telling me this, Marco? Why are you here and not at Elio’s house?”

He nods and says, “I just wanted you to know because of everything going on. If continuing the family line is what’s going to keep us afloat, I can’t help you. And I need to be honest about it.”

“There are other ways, Marco. Don’t get stuck on the kid situation. What about a wife? There’s adoption. What if you find someone who has a kid already?”

He huffs out a laugh. “I’m not taking care of someone else’s brat.”

“Classy, Marco. Real fucking classy.” I finish my drink and get up to grab the bottle of scotch. I fill my glass and top off his before putting the bottle on the table in front of me.

“I’m just being honest,” he says with a shrug, like it isn’t a big deal.

“Have you told Elio?”

“Not yet. Wanted to tell you first.”