Dad's Capos Swore to Guard Me, So I Made Them Break Every Oath novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: Rafa's POV

Rafa's POV

On the ninth day I stopped leaving plates on Dom's step and knocked on his door.

He lived in a yellow house in Ybor with a porch, a rocking chair and a pot of dead geraniums his wife had planted.

He opened the door in his shirtsleeves, without a tie, and I almost did not know him.

Eight days had taken something off the bones of his face.

"Rafael," he said.

"Don't Rafael me."

I walked past him into the front room and turned around.

The room was spotless and cold.

On the table lay a rosary, a legal pad and a pen, and the pad was covered in his small exact handwriting.

"I am writing it down," Dom said. "All of it. For Valentina."

"I don't care what you're writing."

I was shaking.

I am a big man, and I talk to cover it, but nothing came out of me now except the truth.

"You were my friend for twenty years," I said. "You stood at my mother's grave."

"Yes," Dom said.

"And you stood in that hospital hall at five in the morning and told me the old man made me swear."

"Yes," Dom said.

"I believed you. For nine nights I felt I was stealing every time I touched her."

"I know," Dom said.

"Do you? I confessed it, Dom. The morning after her mother's funeral."

"I told the priest I wanted her. He gave me ten Hail Marys," I said.

"I said them every night for eight years."

He did not move.

"Eight years, Dom. I prayed it out of me, and you could have said the truth."

"I could not," Dom said.

"Why not?"

"Because I wanted her too," Dom said. "And I could not bear to be the only one."

It hit me harder than the lie had.

I looked at him, at the thin gray man in his empty house, and what I felt was not hate.

It was worse.

It was that I understood him.

So I hit him.

I hit him once, hard, across the jaw, with my right fist, and he went back against the wall and slid halfway down it.

He did not put his hands up.

He sat on the floor with blood on his lip and looked at me, waiting for the next one.

I stood over him with my chest going.

My knuckles split, and my knee screamed, and I could not do it a second time.

← Chapter 16 · All chapters · Chapter 18 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend