Page 122 of Unsealing Her Fate

“I love landscapes mostly. I’m not super great at portraits, but I do them decently. I love exploring different color variations with landscapes. There’s more freedom. When I was in California, I did a lot with water, but now that I’m here, I hope to get some time to work on the mountains. Maybe even some forests.” I’m excited to finally talk about my passion with someone who will support me.

He smiles broadly at my enthusiasm. “When can I see something of yours?”

“Well, I have one up in the café, but that’s the only one I’ve done here. With everything going on, there hasn’t been time or frankly the desire. I can’t seem to concentrate on much else.” Even I can hear the disparity in my voice. I push my chicken around on my plate, lost in the overwhelming thoughts of what’s to come.

“I’ll have to look for it tomorrow. When I go in my focus seems to be on one particular thing, or person is more like it.”

I look up just in time to see heat pass through his handsome features.

I blush again when I see it. “Do you have any hobbies?”

“Umm, well, I like to hike. When I moved out here right after the police academy, I didn’t know anyone. My days off were quiet and I was angry a lot of the time. Hiking seemed to calm the chaos in my mind.” He turns thoughtful.

“Why were you angry?”

He sighs a full breath, “A lot of different reasons really but mostly I felt alone. And I was when you really think about it.”

I sit and wait patiently for him to continue, a moment to get his thoughts together.

“With my dad dying we all had to pitch in and do what needed to be done to pay bills and put food on the table. My mom tried her best, but she didn’t have an education to fall back on, and well four boys is a lot of mouths to feed.”

I reach over and grab his hand, intertwining my fingers with his.

“I mowed a lot of lawns, my brothers helped. We struggled but we made it work until one day things started to change.”

“What do you mean?”

“Silas and Colton ended up doing some things they shouldn’t have been involved in. I tried to tell them we could make do without. They ended up pulling Luca in too, he’s the youngest.”

I furrow my brows in concern, I’m not entirely sure where this is going but my heart hurts like it already knows.

“What happened?”

He looks over to me, “I spent years worrying about if my brothers were going to get arrested or caught up on the wrong side of a deal.”

“Was it drugs?” My heart starts hammering in my chest, I’m nervous to hear his answer.

“No, not that. It was underground fighting. They would come home beat to a fucking pulp, and I would have to stitch them up. Hell, one time Lucas broke his fucking arm. We had to look up how to set it because we couldn’t go to a fucking doctor.”

He shakes his head, his agitation growing by the second.

“I eventually told mom, it was at the last resort. I had begged and pleaded with them to walk away from the fighting. They refused, each and every time.”

“You know what my mother told me?” He doesn’t wait for me to respond.

“She laughed, said it was good money and I needed to leave them be. They would be fine.”

I gasp, unable to fathom a world where a mother would be okay with their child getting beat up for money. The pain in his eyes almost undoes me.

“What did you do?”

“The only thing I could. I kept my head down, went to school, got good grades, and got the hell out of there as soon as I could.”

“Where is there?”

“Vegas, the city of sin. Where they all still live.” He laughs but it isn’t one full of humor. It’s packed full of pain and regret.

A feeling I know all too well.

---