Page 107 of The Lost Kings
I replayed them, reshaped them, and tried to look at them from every angle and I just couldn’t come to terms with it being the truth.
So I sought out the only person I knew that would help me unravel every possibility.
“He said his brothers are security when you visit?” Scotty clarified while writing something down in his notebook.
I sipped my hot chocolate and agreed. “Benni and Renzo Adesso. Two of Adrian’s closest guards. I know them both…Gio said they are his brothers, and all three of them ordered the hit on Dad all those years ago.”
Scotty looked confused. “There’s no way they’re connected to that family. The blame got put on the Yullivi family.”
“Gio said they were connected to someone else…someone from years before that, back when dad was The Joker.”
My uncle sat still on his stool and then took a sip of water. “That could be literally anyone.”
“Well, Adrian confessed to knowing who I was at that ball we attended when I was sixteen.”
I had yet to tell Scotty about the marriage proposal. For all I knew, he’d force me to accept before we worked through any of this stuff, and while I still didn’t believe Gio, there was something that was bugging me about the entire thing.
“How would he have known who you were?”
I held my hand out. “That’s what I’m saying. Was there anything that linked him to the men who made the hit on Dad?”
Scotty shook his head. “Nothing at all. I already checked all of that before agreeing to this.”
So what the hell was Gio talking about, then?
“We need to have the twins come in here and just explain what they know because this is ridiculous.”
I got up, about to head over to their room, when Scotty spoke up from his stool.
“It won’t ever work with them,Lánya.”
Pausing mid-step, I kept my eyes forward, which allowed him the chance to continue talking.
“They’re putting on a show for you that the three of you could be together some day but really, they’re just insecure about Adrian. They’re working together to remove him; once he’s gone, they’ll make you choose.”
I spun on my heel, eyes burning. “Why would they make me choose?”
“Because they don’t know how to share you…they never have. It took them years to even admit that they cared about you, fought their own feelings for a decade, worried the other brother might get to you first. Now you’re in love with them, and they might share you now, but they won’t forever. You need to let them go.”
I didn’t even care that my uncle seemed to know more about my sex life than I wanted him to; I was desperate to have him see exactly how I could make it work. “What’s wrong with sharing?”
“Nothing at all,Lánya. It’s just that they don’t know how to do it.”
“So I just stop loving them?” I cried, frustrated beyond belief.
My uncle left his stool and rounded the counter until he was in front of me. “You never stop loving them, Presley. But you love them enough to stop hurting them. Let them go.”
I was too selfish for that. I could never picture them kissing someone else. Loving someone else. Marrying someone else.
I’d die first.
Tears tracked down my face as I stood in front of my uncle, breaking. “Have you ever had to do this? Can you show me how?”
Scotty pulled me into his arms and whispered near my ear, “Yes, one day I’ll tell you about the man I let go, the one I still sometimes watch through the safety of a lens. He’s happy now, married and in love. He leads a life I could have never given to him. That is what loving someone looks like. You will tear them apart if you continue to give them hope. Say your goodbye in whatever shape it will take, but say it just the same.”
An endless stream of tears burst from me with choked sobs and a broken heart.
I would break, so they wouldn’t be torn apart.
