Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 64366 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64366 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
“It’s just not the way people of quality behave.”
“People of quality? Why do you talk that way, like some pretentious asshole? You can drop the proper act around me, Santori. We both know you’re no better than a street thug. No better than my father.”
“Well, now that’s where you’re wrong. Your father’s problem was that he lacked the Santori blood. We shared a mother, but where my father was a strong man of character and ability who built a good life for his family, Bobby’s father was a lowlife piece of garbage who couldn’t stay out of prison long enough to keep food on the table for his wife and child. Our mother was lucky to get out when she did. I felt sympathy for your father, of course. But Bobby was much older than me, and already out of control by the time our mother married my father. He stayed in trouble, just like his father. Spent enough time in juvenile detention centers and prison that he forgot how to be civilized. There was really no hope for him. I didn’t want that to be your fate, Michael.”
“You’re lying.” I paced across the room and back, my shoulders beginning to tremble with anger. “I know you’re lying, because they wouldn’t have let him in the Army if he had a criminal record.”
“Army?” Santori snorted. “What the hell makes you think he was in the Army?”
“He had the blankets and the food rations. And he always wore that camouflage jacket. I may not know much about my father, but I know that.”
The laugh that came out of Santori was cruel, and I knew before he even spoke that what he said was going to hurt. I just didn’t know how much.
“That’s why you got an eagle in your tattoo isn’t it?”
When I didn’t answer, he continued. “I thought so. Boy, you went and got a permanent tattoo in honor of something that never was. Your deadbeat father couldn’t even hold down a job, much less fight for his country. I don’t know about all of the other stuff, but I do know he got the jacket from the Goodwill, so I’m guessing maybe he got all of it there. He sure as hell didn’t work for it.”
“Shut up,” I growled, feeling the anger starting to trump the hurt. “I won’t stand here and listen to you berate my father anymore.”
He laughed. “Such loyalty to a man who left you. He didn’t even love you enough to tell you goodbye. Just disappeared and left you to deal with the death of your brother all alone. And who took care of you? I did. Where is my loyalty?”
“Take your loyalty and shove it up your ass.” I stormed out, so angry I was shaking. I looked down at the tattoo on my arm and the eagle so carefully crafted within the collage of objects I had once considered sacred. Now Santori had reduced them to nothing. Just like he did to everything. Just like he did to me.
Dammit, I couldn’t go in to see Jamie like this. I was a mess. I needed to just calm the hell down. Deep breaths, deep breaths. I closed my eyes and breathed, and after a few minutes, I was able to enter the apartment.
(JAMIE)
I was sitting on the sofa reading tweets again. I knew I shouldn’t have done it after Kage had been so adamant in the limo, but I’d gotten nervous while he was at Santori’s apartment. I’d felt so alone wondering what they were talking about, knowing it was probably me.
Whether he wanted to admit it, Kage was in trouble, and it was because of me. Maybe it wasn’t my fault exactly, but if he’d never met me, he would have been clicking along right on track in his new UFC career. He probably wouldn’t even need the distraction of Vanessa, because there would be no real relationship to try to hide. I wouldn’t let myself entertain the notion that if it hadn’t been me it would have been someone else. It was just too horrible to imagine Kage dating someone else, having sex with someone else, getting photographed in public with someone else. No, if anyone was going to be inspiring gay hashtags with him, I wanted it to be me.
I kept going back to that one message, though. The one about choking. I don’t know what it was about it, but somehow it had me fascinated. And jealous. How could I be jealous of a random suggestion made by someone I’d never met? Hell, someone Kage had never even met as far as I knew.
I’d known without asking what the guy was talking about, though. Even when I’d asked Kage what a gasper was, I knew instinctively what it was. So when I had scrolled through all of the tweets I hadn’t read, I opened up my internet browser and Googled the word.