“I do, because you could have gone over the edge too.”
“I know.”
He would have died trying to save me. Truth is truth and that’s the thing that’s anchoring me to this world. People can tell you anything they want you to hear, but when they show you how they feel it’s irrefutable. So, I knew he cared even before he told me.
Days ago, I didn’t think he cared, and I had to make myself trust him. I had no choice in the matter. Now I know I can trust him with my life, and it still feels like he took the choice away from me with that too, but in a good way. And, despite my thoughts of myself
“What?” he asks. “I don’t know what you’re thinking when you look at me like that.”
“You.”
“What about me Summer Reeves?”
“Everything. Why do you care?”
“Because I get you, and maybe at some points and in some ways we’re more alike than we thought. But I don’t want you to be like me. I don’t want you to be like me at all and yesterday you were. The moment you jumped off that balcony you were just like me.”
The moment he says that I understand what he means, and it shocks and scares me at the same time.
Death.
He’s talking about death. As in he’s not afraid of death because he wants to die.
“No,” I breathe.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“My selfish mistakes could have cost my family their lives and it was only because of tact and miracles why it didn’t,” he explains. “Robert and I grew up together. I treated him like a brother. We did everything together and it helped that we shared the same interests in computer science and engineering. We went to college together and he went to work for my family’s company, Markov Tech. I trusted him with my secrets and that’s where I went wrong.”
He pauses for a moment and a wealth of pain so potent fills his eyes that it compels me to go to him.
I sit next to him, and he stares at me for a few seconds before drawing in a deep tired breath.
“What happened?”
“He knew my family situation and that’s what he used against me. My father was married to someone else when he met my mother. My sister and I were the children of an affair that never ended. My father’s wife wouldn’t allow him to leave her without the threat of losing everything, but I couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t give up everything if he loved us so much. He was in the Italian mafia and my grandfather was Bratva and both denied me of what naturally came to me. They didn’t want me to be part of that life, but I don’t think either of them knew that you can’t deny someone of who they are.”
Something that looks like embarrassment fills his face and he looks away from me.
“I rebelled and when I did it was easy for our enemies to ensnare me because they could see I wasn’t thinking straight, and Robert was right alongside me,” he adds. “We both ended up joining a terrorist organization who worked on a high level for politicians. I wanted power and the chance to be part of something I thought was bigger and better than the Bratva or the Italian mafia. The attention directed at what I could do went straight to my head, and I didn’t care about anybody besides myself. More importantly, I did what I did because I didn’t feel like my father’s bastard child.”
When he returns his gaze back to me the rage I’m used to seeing comes back to his eyes.
“I never knew they were only interested in me because they were after a weapon my grandfather designed before he died. One only I could make. And I would never believe that Robert was working in the background to betray me. When I tried to get out Robert helped them capture me. He staged an accident to make it look like I died in a car crash, so for five years my family believed I was dead.”
My God.“Five years? People thought you were dead for five years, Eric?”
“Yes.”
“Where were you?” I ask.
“Brazil.”
“How did you get away?”
“Nothing short of a miracle. It was my sister who discovered the truth and went through hell to get me back. You know what Robert’s like so just imagine the people who he worked for. I left my wheelchair bound mother and my sister at their mercy and they did all kinds of things to both of them. That happened because of me, and they were all destined to die. All of them, including me.”