Fade To Midnight by Shannon McKenna

to fight. Consequently, Bruno was lethally skilled, with the advantage of being ten years younger, buff as an Olympic athlete, and not currently recuperating from going over a waterfall. Kev’s bones were still knitting. He was far from a hundred percent. He might prevail, but he’d pay a price he couldn’t afford.
    He decided to suck it up. “Whatever. Be bored, then.” He put the sunglasses back on. “Don’t bug me, though.”
    Bruno stared at Kev’s face, trying to see past scars, skull, into the brain inside. Bruno was persistent. And ferociously intense. Two things Kev loved and respected about his adopted brother. They were also huge pains in the ass. But life was like that. Full of trade-offs.
    â€œTony’s been asking about you,” Bruno said.
    Kev stopped in the act of lifting coffee to his lips. He took a sip, not breathing so as not to smell the stuff. “Oh, yeah? And?”
    â€œHe worries about you,” Bruno said. “He’s your family, too.”
    Kev stared at the screen, but did not see what was on it. “Ah.”
    Bruno cursed under his breath. “C’mon, Kev. Tony didn’t take advantage of you on purpose,” he said gruffly. “He was just, you know. Being Tony. He can’t help himself. And besides, he thought he was doing you a favor. Keeping you out of sight.”
    â€œWhile doing unpaid menial labor for him, for years? Yeah. He’s a real prince,” Kev said. “Tony doesn’t do favors, Bruno. Nothing’s for free. Not even for you, and you’re his own flesh and blood.”
    Bruno didn’t deny it, since he couldn’t. “He worries about you,” he repeated. “He really does. He’s a mean old son of a bitch, but he does.”
    Kev’s silence was more eloquent than words could have been.
    Bruno’s mouth hardened. “What the fuck do you think he should have done for you, anyway?”
    â€œNothing,” Kev replied. “He was under no obligation to do anything. I have no reason to complain. If he hadn’t saved me, I would have died. If he hadn’t given me a place to be, I would have been homeless. I would have frozen to death on the streets that first winter.”
    â€œSo why are you so pissed?”
    Kev shook his head. “I’m not pissed,” he said wearily. “Sure, I owed him. I owed him big. But I think I’ve worked out my indentured servitude by now, in sweat and blood.”
    â€œHe never thought of you that way,” Bruno said. “And fucked if you’re not pissed. You’re mortally pissed.”
    Kev didn’t have the energy to deny it again. He thought of those miserable, stifled years. Lying on a cot in the narrow, smelly room behind the restaurant where Tony had parked him during off hours. Freezing in the winter, roasting in the summer. Steeping in smells of stale boiled vegetables, and the reeking Dumpster in the alley behind. Washing with a plastic bucket and rag because the squalid bathroom back there had no shower. Splitting headaches, night after night, so bad they made him vomit. Nights filled with horrific dreams.
    Crying into the dingy, flat pillow every night. So fucking alone. Unable to speak, but wanting to so badly, it made him want to explode. A big rock was sitting on top of his mind, squashing him flat. He knew he did not belong there, but he couldn’t get any grip on where he did belong. He couldn’t think a straight thought through from start to finish. Couldn’t focus, or orient himself. He was locked in a purgatory of tedium and fear. Tony had shoved a dishrag in his hand, pushed him in the direction of a pile of greasy plates, and there he stayed. For years.
    Until Bruno came to stay with Tony and Rosa. He was their grandnephew. Tony and Rosa’s niece, Bruno’s mother, had begged Tony and Rosa to take her son for a while, to get him away from his abusive stepfather.