Page 32 of Driftwood Daffodil 2

“Then whose is it?”

“Kato’s.” He snapped. “He got himself in this situation.”

“He was protecting Veda.”

“He didn’t have to kill him, Nova.” He reached out and grabbed my hand. “This isn’t your problem to fix.”

Tears welled up in my eyes. “He’s my brother, Memphis.”

“And he’s in jail for murder!”

“Atlas…” I tried to interject but Memphis cut me off.

“It doesn’t matter what Atlas did. Kato beat him to death in the middle of a bar. Was he thinking about you when he did that? Or what this would do to your family?”

His words hurt because they were true. I should be pissed at Kato for abandoning us, but I understood why he did what he did. Besides…

“It’s too late. I already made the deal.”

Memphis slumped back and muttered, “Of course you did.”

There was nothing he could do now. He knew that and so did I. That’s why I didn’t say anything before.

“I won’t let him kill you.”

“He’s not going to kill me.” It was so much worse than that. “He’s going to marry me.”

GIOVANNI

Iran my hand over the smooth top of an oak bookshelf and clenched my jaw at the furniture to my left. Atlas’s bed should be where the two leather wingback chairs sat. He would’ve never chosen that color.

My brother liked dark hues, but not brown. Once upon a time, this room was filled with various shades of navy and blues. Now it was all fucking brown.

From the wooden floor to the tan paint on the walls. Everything was that color. Even the liquor filling the crystal decanters on the bookshelf and the table between the chairs were amber. There wasn’t a single smidge of blue left in this room.

Three weeks after we put Atlas in the ground, my father turned his bedroom into a parlor. The dresser, the couch we used to play video games on, and the plush rug were all removed. And why? So my father could have another room filled with alcohol and first edition books he’d never read. Even the bathroom was remodeled into a cigar room.

It pissed me off every time I came in here, and could hear my shoes clack off the floor. Atlas hated the feel of hardwood. He said the world was a cold place, that a man shouldn’t feel more of that harshness when he went to bed.

That’s why he had a plush rug laid out. So that comfort filled the one warm room he had. I didn’t know what my father did with it. He didn’t seem to have a problem keeping the fucking rug in the hall.

I guess that’s how my father dealt with loss. By forgetting it.

The room he shared with my mother was sealed up like a tomb, and my brother was erased. Along with every memory I had of him. Wiped away as if he’d never existed. Everything was gone. Atlas’s clothes, the pictures of him that used to hang on the wall, and the mug he’d drink out of in the morning.

All of it was disposed of. The only trace that he was ever here was the mark in the corner of the left wall where I hit my head when we were wrestling.

That was the only thing my father forgot. But I saw it every time I walked in here. It was the first place I looked.

I strode across the room and grazed my thumb over the dip in the plaster.

It was hard to notice under the coat of paint. Nothing more than a small mark that no one would see. But I didn’t have to look to know it was there. I could feel it whenever I walked past the door. That was all I had left of Atlas. A scrape in a patch of drywall.

Sometimes, if I focused really hard, I could almost see my brother sitting on his bed with a smile. That crooked grin was permanently ingrained in my mind. It haunted me like the rest of the ghosts in this house. Dark shadows of memories that followed me around. One room smelled of citrus and spice, and the other, blood.

“Atlas would be proud, Little Brother.” Romeo sauntered over to a crystal decanter sitting on one of the bookshelves by the door, and poured himself some bourbon. “This is twisted, even for him.”

What the fuck did he know about Atlas?

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