Page 3 of Loss and Damages

Dominic

I can’t keep my eyes off the photos spread across the table between us. The shattered glass. The caved-in hood. The skid marks smeared across the highway. The scattered gravel on the shoulder of the road.

My father requested an autopsy, and the report came back indicating my brother died instantly upon impact.

Leo was going too fast, which isn’t a surprise considering he was driving his favorite Aston Martin Vantage, the one that looks like mine though the teal paint is a slightly different hue.

He loved that car, loved to let her stretch her legs, and an empty highway in the middle of the night would have been too much for him to resist.

“A deer, maybe,” the detective mumbles, pointing at the fishtailing black tire marks. Leo had slammed on the brakes. “No witnesses.”

I nod. It would be like my brother to try to avoid hitting a deer. That’s what I’d rather believe over any alternative.

The only other findings of note were the facts that he had alcohol in his system—not enough to charge him with driving under the influence but enough that perhaps he shouldn’t have been behind the wheel—and evidence he’d recently eaten a meal.

Those two things aren’t out of the ordinary, but Detective Hollis is asking me why Leo was on the road so late last night and where I thought he’d been coming from. “The coroner places time of death between three and four in the morning.”

“I have no idea,” I say, leaning back in a loveseat in my father’s office and dragging my eyes away from the photos.

I’m trying like hell to talk about my brother’s death like I would a business deal.

I can’t think too long or too hard that Leo isn’t going to slam into the office and accuse me of doing some evil thing I would deny but I’d be up to my elbows in.

He hated the way Dad and I do business and he wasn’t happy about the purchase of the 1100 block.

He never stopped to think about the billions of dollars of revenue the purchase and subsequent building of luxury apartments would bring in.

Never cared about the bottom line, the money accumulating and collecting interest in our accounts.

He all but called me a greedy, heartless son of a bitch, and I never argued because I know I am.

“Could he have known someone in Hollow Lake?”

My father scoffs. “I find that hard to believe. Why go all the way out there for pussy? He could find it just as easily here, and one snatch is the same as the rest.”

Detective Hollis curls his lip in disgust but only scribbles a note in a small spiral-bound notebook.

I rub my forehead and hold in a sigh. It’s one thing to believe something like that, a belief I whole-heartedly share, but it’s another to say it aloud and to a happily married man if the wedding ring on the detective’s finger is anything to go by.

Women are a dime a dozen to men like us.

I’ve never fallen in love, never met a woman I wanted to give my heart to.

They’re all selfish. They talk to hear themselves speak, and I have never been on a date, not even one, where she asked me anything about myself.

Not what I like to do in my spare time, not the kinds of books I like to read, my favorite movie.

Talk like that is boring and no one cares about the answers.

We go out to see and be seen, end the evening with a fuck (sometimes it’s good and sometimes it’s not), and I’m out the door.

My father has a mistress he keeps in an apartment on the other side of the city, and he treats her like I do my dates.

They trade sex for the benefits, and no one expects different.

“Not even a friend? He had friends?” Detective Hollis is surly now. He knows who he’s dealing with and he’s not impressed.

“In the city,” my father snaps. “I don’t see what these questions are going to accomplish, Detective. We want possession of our son’s body. My wife wants to see him buried, not lying in the morgue. I’m sure you can understand that.”

Detective Hollis flips his notebook shut.

“The medical examiner’s office is willing to release the body.

Alcohol levels were within the acceptable range, and the skid marks indicate he tried to avoid hitting an animal.

Your insurance company should have no problem processing the claim.

If they have questions, tell them to reach out to me.

” He flips his business card onto the table.

“Contact the hospital and notify them of your funeral parlor of choice.”

“Fine.” My father struggles to his feet. “I trust we’re done here.”

The detective presses his lips together and nods. “Seeing as you don’t care who was last to see your son alive, we’ll leave it at that.”

The detective lets himself out of my father’s office without looking back to see what kind of reaction his last comment elicited.

My father doesn’t give a shit who last saw Leo alive—it could have been anyone—but the detective’s throwaway statement needles me.

Who was last to see my brother alive? He had wine and food in his gut.

Had he been on a date? With whom? He never mentioned her by name, didn’t mention her at all except to tell me he was thinking of bringing a plus one to the fundraiser.

We’re alone now and I ask, “You don’t care whom Leo was dating?”

My father turns on me, his skin pasty white and misted with sweat. “Why should I care what flavor-of-the-week whore he was banging? If word gets out your brother had a mystery fuck, it’ll drop a shit-ton of false paternity suits on us and we’ll be out thousands while we wait for test results.”

I straighten, and I don’t know why, but all of a sudden my heart starts to slam in my chest. “What do you know? Was he sleeping with someone?” I could have a potential nephew or niece out there and my father doesn’t give a fuck because it’ll cost him money.

He waves me off. “I don’t know a goddamned thing except how the world works, Dom, and you do, too. I don’t give a fuck if he was jackhammering half of Hollow Lake. I’m not looking for trouble, and I suggest you don’t, either. Let it be.”

I can’t. I can’t let it go. All day I think of a woman who will cry herself to sleep for the next God knows how many nights, maybe for months, maybe for years, because my brother’s dead and our family didn’t have the courtesy to find her and say.

..say what? We’re sorry for your loss?

We’re sorry you lost a fuck buddy? We hope you’re not pregnant because we don’t want to pay you or acknowledge your bastard?

Fuck .

Maybe Dad’s right. Maybe I should leave well enough alone. Bury my brother and try to move on.

Two days go by, the wake is scheduled for tomorrow evening, and still, it’s all I can think about because I want to mourn. I want to mourn and I have no one to mourn with except my dead brother’s girlfriend, and I have no idea who she is.

Time stops for no one, especially me.

The day of my brother’s wake, I walk into a small Italian restaurant located below ground in an older part of St. Charlotte.

Red and white checked tablecloths and short, chunky candles decorate the tables.

Oregano, basil, and garlic scent the air, but it doesn’t trigger my appetite.

I can’t let my brother’s death make me look weak.

Not to my father who asked if I was keeping this meeting, a measured look in his eye that turned into a gleam of approval when I said I was, or to the mayor or the gentleman joining us. A weak opponent is a dead opponent.

There are sharks in the water and damned if I’ll let them know I’m bleeding.

My cousin, Jimmy, my father’s brother’s son, runs this restaurant.

I bought it and put him in charge after he was released from prison for breaking into, and entering, the wrong house, and by the wrong house, I mean a cop’s house.

He’s a good kid when he’s sober and not high as a kite, and the only thing he ever wanted to do was open a restaurant with his wife.

He’s happy now and off the streets. It helps Bianca bakes the best tiramisu in the country and keeps him on a short leash.

“They’re in the back. You sure you gotta do this today?” Jimmy asks as I step into the dining room. Milano’s will open for lunch in approximately five minutes, but he and Bianca will leave the tables to their staff to attend the wake tonight.

“I won’t need long. Send in some coffee, will you, Jimmy? Thanks.” I weave around the empty tables toward the back where the private parties are held.

“Yeah, sure.” He wants to say more, but I’ve heard all the condolences I can stand and ignore him.

Mayor Franklin Wilkins and Marshall Pitts sit at a table in the corner. The blinds of the ground-level windows are closed and shadows hide their faces as they talk in whispers. They abruptly stop when I enter the room, pushing the swinging door open and letting it shut behind me.

“Gentlemen.”

Wilkins stumbles to his feet, Pitts not far behind. They know who’s in control and they were undoubtedly trying to figure out how to tip the scales in their favor.

“Milano. We’re sorry for your loss. Leo was a decent guy. Wouldn’t hurt a fly,” Wilkins says, twisting a white cloth napkin in his hands.

“Thank you.” I take the insinuation as it was meant.

Leo wouldn’t hurt anybody or anything, but I would.

Without apology. I have a stone where my heart should be, yadda, yadda, yadda.

I’ve heard it all before. They can compare me to Leo all they want.

My brother’s a martyr now, and I’m a sinner who’s going to hell.

“Sit, sit,” I say, gesturing toward the table. “Jimmy will be in with coffee and if you want a bite to eat, by all means.”