Page 102 of Thorns of Silence

DANTE

“How is my favorite sister doing today?” I strode onto the terrace where Reina sat. The last several months had been hard for her recovery. The revelations along the way interlinked the Romero and Leone family in permanent ways.

Her feet dangled off the ledge. She’d done this most days since we rescued her from the clutches of Perez Cortes—sitting out here, hands in her lap, her dull eyes looking out over the horizon.

Her bruises faded, but certain scars remained. Like the one she had from the accident three years ago, when she’d spent weeks in the hospital and my brother had been ready to level the earth. But that one paled compared to the ones that Cortes had given her—visible and invisible ones. The proof was in her screams that woke everyone in Amon’s manor in Jolo.

She flicked me a dry look. “As far as I know, I’m your onlyhalf sister.”

Okay, she’d emphasized thehalfpart. No big deal.

“How are you dealing with everything?”

She shot me a wry look. “Peachy.”

Okay, one-word answers. At this rate, this would be a long conversation.Fucking not.

“I… I was a—” The words got stuck in my throat. I kept trying to push them past my lips but my vocal cords refused to work. I couldn’t utter the words out loud. Fuck! I really hoped I’d be able to offer her some kind of comfort as someone who’d seen similar horrors, but I was failing miserably. “You’re a survivor,” I ended up saying. “It takes time to heal.”

I would know. It had been five goddamned years for me, and I still wasn’t sure where I stood.

“Yeah, so my therapist keeps telling me.”

Dr. Freud had been having sessions with Reina since her rescue. The ladydidtake house calls. Damn it, I should have asked for that all along.

“Are the sessions with her helping?”

She shrugged. “I guess so.”

“I find that they help me,” I admitted.

That got a reaction out of her. Her eyes found mine, the usual spark in them extinguished. Her shoulders were slumped and she looked too thin. Too exhausted.

It didn’t sit well with me seeing her like this, but I didn’t know how to fix it. The desire for vengeance had been replaced with genuine concern for her health, and worry for Nix who seemed to have disappeared from the face of the earth.

“It makes sense that you need therapy,” she muttered.Fucking ouch.

“I’ll let that one slide,” I retorted dryly.

“Whatever.”

“Anyhow, it helps to talk to someone. Or just let them talk and you listen.”

She snorted. “Why is it that I can’t imagineyoulistening?”

“Probably because you’re too smart for your own good.”

“Is that a compliment, brother?”

I grinned. “It sure is.”

Silence followed, stretching as the sound of distant waves and a soft breeze drifted through the air.

I looked her over, a pang of guilt piercing my chest for being rash and exposing her to Marchetti for murdering Leone. Not that Amon would let Marchetti judge her. Neither would I. Truthfully, I was surprised my brother didn’t kill me when I told him. His injuries probably saved my life.

I just wished I could spare Reina further pain. She didn’t need the Omertà judging her. She was still healing, but somehow I knew she’d come out of it stronger. After all, it wasn’t just anyone who could take down my father.

“Why are you staring at me?” she asked, not bothering to glance my way.