Page 116 of Veiled Amor

“So many fucking lives he screwed up because he couldn’t accept his own truth.” Capone gritted quietly. “I’d shake that little shit if he were here now. Do you know the deal he was trying to make against your father?”

“No, not until after the fact. Dad made it a point to let me know what happened to men who crossed him.”

“He went to the Mexicans, trying to sell out Cole. By the time I knew about it, it was too late to do anything. I was coming back from a run to Colorado, Santi called me, said he’d fucked up and he needed to lie low. I told him that his priority was to take care of his wife.” Sliding his hands into his front pockets, Lucia stood behind him, a few feet separating them like a chasm. The stiffening of his spine was noticeable as he recounted the memory, all he had left of his baby brother were memories and she was finding out they weren’t all good. “I warned him to stay put, that I’d take care of his shit one last time. He insisted he had it in hand, it would get better. Santiago’sbetternever came.”

Lucia frowned, her bare toes digging into the thick carpet beneath her. He felt closed off, like an invisible wall had erected in the last hour.

When he turned around, she took a step forward, smiling a little, but the look on his face stopped Lucia in her tracks. Unrecognizable. No sense of love on his face. She’d known this conversation could go many ways, had been prepared for it. It didn’t stop the air from losing momentum in her lungs. “Gi, can we…”

“I need to get out of here for a while,” he stated. Stepping around her, he was already swinging into his leather jacket and grabbing his keys from the bowl.

“What? Where? It’s late.”

It was then his emotions showed when his eyes blazed and his mouth tightened as he told her, “I have to get out of here.”

She almost recoiled, hearing the coldness. “Get away from me, you mean?”

“You should have come to me so many fucking times, Lucia. You kept this from me for years.”

She understood finally why he’d maintained a distance between them, because the air, as thick as it felt, as fraught as it was, was crackling, bouncing sparks. It was their connection. It had always been this way. She felt the truth of it. Strange, but there it was. Their connection, even in anger, was palpable as a living being taking form.

And then he severed their gazes, turned his back. Quiet like a jaguar, he prowled down the hallway and closed the door silently. Lucia flinched as though he’d slammed it.

Because he’d left.

Leaving her alone.

Again.

THIRTY-ONE

“You’re focused on the wrong thing, brother.” - Rider

There was no purpose to a ride through Aurora other than it took some of the steam out of Capone’s brain. When he got there, it was the middle of the night almost.

Not knowing what the fuck he wanted, he turned his bike around and headed back to Armado Springs, making it to the clubhouse within the hour.

Few were around. Prospects and Erin, the house mouse, who seemed to keep weird hours, or she had no one to go home to. He hadn’t taken the time to find out. And he didn’t stop to say more than “hi.”

Capone was too tired and didn’t want to get drunk, but he still headed to the bar and started up the coffee machine. Programming a double espresso, he straddled a stool, keeping his back to the room, putting his ‘do not fucking talk to me’ sign out.

He had so much to unpack in his head, he didn’t know where the fuck to start.

So much loss.

So fucking much.

Some days he thought the grief would cave his chest in. But this was more than grief because Capone was pissed off too.

They’d lost so much before they had a chance.

He thought he’d feel relief knowing Lucia was only his. She’d never been with Santi anddios, he did feel relief, though he’d loved her even assuming what he did. How many chances they could have had if only he’d known the truth made a hollowness inside.

He didn’t know who he was angry with.

Himself mostly.

The biggest mistake was leaving her behind.