The Hustle (Irreparable #4) (21 page)

Why the fuck he smiles infuriates me. I want to say more hurtful things to make him understand, to make him hate me. But his thick eyebrows draw inward and I see the pain I feel on his face. “No. It was the choices I made a long time ago when you and Maria were just children. I thought life in the cartel made me a man and money and power meant more than family. I could have married Maria’s mother, and while we would have been poor, we would have been happy. I’ll live with the burden of my mistakes until I take my last breath, but I don’t want you to.”

I’m fine with that. I’m not living anyway.

“You have Guadalupe and the kids.”

“You’re right and they’re the only reason I keep going. But they’ve seen things they’ll never forget. They’ll remember the times when I was like Eduardo. When hate and the need for power controlled me. You’re young. You have a chance to have a family who will never see you as a failure. You can cave to your hate as I did and live your life with regret, or you can do what a real man would do to honor Maria. You can find a way to be happy. She wanted that for you.”

All I can do is offer a faint nod as I turn my head and quietly look out the window. I have no idea what kind of man losing Maria makes me. I don’t even know who I am anymore. How does one move on when they’re lost? When every path they’ve ever chosen was the wrong one?

I
stand between my brother and Mr. Torrente, trying to draw from their strength so I can get through this nightmare. The crying surrounding me blurs as I focus on the casket. Tears flow out of my eyes, but I don’t feel sorrow. Perhaps I’m no longer capable. I’m a shell of man, who will spend his life alone and hollow. A sentence I accept.

The lowering of the casket isn’t something I can witness. There’s too much finality in watching Maria being lowered into the ground. I walk away, leaving behind my heart that will remain with her under the earth in the cold and the dark where it belongs.

My brother finds me leaning against the limousine and stands next to me as we watch Maria’s family grieve. He won’t say it, but I know he wants to tell me how all of this could have been avoided. Brady’s the one person who hasn’t told me this wasn’t my fault.

“You have two choices now, little brother.” I grind my teeth but avoid lashing out. Apparently everyone’s going to give me unsolicited advice on how to move on and try to forget the love of my life is gone. “You can cling to the hate you feel and be a man no one wants to be around. Or, you can accept the love of your family and friends as you recover from this. You can be a brother, and an uncle to two little boys who adore you. I know what choice you think you want to make because it’s the same choice I would make in your shoes, but the Hunter brothers usually chose wrong. So, whatever you’re thinking, do the opposite.”

That’s all he says before he walks away from me.

I spend the next couple of days alone in my living room debating my options. It’s only when I open the door to my office that I’m positive of my choice. That for the first time since I lost Maria, I feel something. The pink room forces a smile to spread my lips. The cheerfulness burns my eyes, but I know the man I have to be. It’s the man I was when I was with Peyton.

The doorbell ringing interrupts the first glimpse of clarity in my life without Maria. I’ve been expecting Maria’s father. He’s moving with his family to Guadalajara to be close to Guadalupe’s family. I asked him to come by so I could say good-bye to Javier. Although as I approach the door with a heavy heart, I don’t know how I’m going to manage to do it. Javier’s my son, a part of Maria, and for all it’s worth, a part of me. The only good part. Not by blood, but by the bond our time together created, which is somehow stronger than I ever realized.

I’m taken aback as Mr. Torrente wheels in several suitcases and Javier enters behind him with a backpack. The brunt of him leaving hits me hard as Javier hugs my leg tightly and I rub the top of his head.

“Can you turn on the TV or something for him so we can talk?” Alejandro asks.

“Sure.” I turn the television to one of the cartoon channels and nod toward the hall.

It’s only to my office, but the walk takes forever as I come to terms with letting my son go. Alejandro enters the office with his mouth open. “Interesting color,” he laughs.

“Long story,” I mutter. “What do you need to talk about?”

He takes in a deep breath, holds it in and releases it slowly. Whatever he needs to say is hard for him and I wait, giving him the time he obviously needs to collect his thoughts.

“Javier doesn’t want to move. He wants to stay with his father.”

“His father’s dead,” I remind him with all the bitterness I feel.

It’s when he smiles at me that I understand. “He wants to live with you.” He confirms my thoughts.

“What?” I ask in utter disbelief. Not that Javier wants to live here, but that Maria’s father would agree to it.

“That’s what he wants.”

“Jesus, Alejandro. How can you agree to this? I’m barely holding myself together. How am I supposed to raise Javier?”

He’s silent for a while, just looking at me like he’s waiting for me to realize he’s wiser and more experienced. It’s not condescending exactly, more like he understands my situation better than I do.

“The two of you will help each other. I believe it’s what Maria would want,” he says and although a part of me believes him, the other part feels like she’d never want me to have Javier because I failed her. And in time, I will only let Javier down, too.

“I can’t.” When I see his glaring disappointment, I want desperately to be a man worthy of his faith. But one can’t accept faith who doesn’t believe he can be saved. “I don’t know how to be someone’s father.”

“You did it before.”

“I had Maria before.”

“And you have your family now. They’ll help you.”

Keeping Javier feels so right, but it also feels selfish, like I’m doing it to hold onto a piece of Maria. But what if it’s a chance to do right my Maria and her family? What if it’s a chance to prove I care about more than myself or my pain? I have no clue why it feels right, when I know it’s wrong. “What if I fail?”

“You won’t.”

“You’re confidence in me is astounding.”

“Spend the night with him. We’ve postponed leaving until the morning. If you wake up tomorrow and you still feel you can’t keep him, then call me.”

I reluctantly agree because I want the night with Javier before I have to do the right thing and let him go. Much like Alejandro, experience guides me and in my experience there’s no way I’m capable of being Javier’s father. Never mind that I don’t deserve to be.

Alejandro hugs Javier good-bye and shakes my hand, sending me a parental look again before he leaves. I sit on the couch next to Javier without a clue how to start a conversation. I’m in way over my head. His big brown eyes look at me so full of questions that I don’t know how to answer. But I also see love in the innocent gaze of my son.
My son.

I have definitely misjudged the attachment this little boy has to me. His eyes continue pleading with me to accept him into my life, but he’s just a kid. He doesn’t know the man I am now. He remembers a time when I believed life was worth living. When we were a family. Nights of board games and pizza and living under the illusion we were meant to be together. Before I was broken and hollow and convinced I’m supposed to be alone. Still for tonight, I’m responsible for him and no matter how painful, I owe him a conversation.

“Your grandfather says you don’t want to go to Guadalajara. That you want to live with me. Is that what you want?”

He nods, tears cascading down his little cheeks. “I missed you.”

“I missed you, too,” I say, pulling him into my arms.

For at least twenty minutes I let him cry, allow him time to exhale all of his grief. I take it all in for him; feel all of the suffering he’s been holding in.

“I didn’t want to go, but mommy said we had to. I thought you didn’t want us anymore.”

Nothing can stop the tears from flowing. He’s speaking of the night Maria left me. My heart hurts, but it’s also full of joy, of love and of a need to protect him from everything ugly in the world. I’d assumed his tears were grief, but they’re more. They’re brought on by misunderstanding, from a time he was ripped out of my life and placed unwilling into a new life, where he was forced to be someone other than the sweet little boy in my arms.

“Oh, buddy. I always wanted you and your mom, but things happened.”

I want to tell him how it was his father that kept us apart, but I can’t. Javier doesn’t need to know what a sick man Eduardo was. I won’t taint him. I’ve lived knowing everything about who my mother was, always drawing comparisons simply because we share blood. No, I won’t inflict that kind of pain on Javier.

“My papa was mean to her.”

His having seen glimpses of who his father was hinders my ability to protect him. The ache in my chest grows stronger as I watch his tiny body tremble.

“That’s not your fault,” I say firmly. Maybe too firmly because he bursts into tears again. This is why I’ll fail him, because I don’t know what to say or how to make his world right again. How do you return innocence to a child that was stolen by his own parents? If I knew the answer I wouldn’t be so fucked up. I would’ve restored my own virtue and saved everyone I love a lot of grief.

“I couldn’t protect her.” He sobs uncontrollably as though losing his mom is finally hitting him. “I should have tried, but I was too afraid. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay to be afraid. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

There’s nothing left for me to ponder. My son is home and I’ll never let him go. Our love for his mother bonds us, and I will raise him to be a man she can be proud of. A man nothing like the one he shares blood with. I’ll give him the future Maria wanted him to have, the one she gave her life for. I’ll put aside all of my guilt and all of my grief and be the father Javier deserves. All that matters now is ensuring he doesn’t grow up blaming himself and the first step is giving him hope.

Month Three . . .

“W
here are the boys?” I ask, returning from the store with the items Tori sent me for.

Tori laughs, pointing at the table for me to set the groceries down. “They’re in the studio with Brady, pretending to be rock stars.”

I smile, setting the bags down on the table. Something wet hits me in the side of the face and then I hear Little A giggle from his high chair. Tori covers a laugh, apologizing.

“No assaulting Uncle Tug with green beans, kiddo,” she says, cleaning his tray.

“Someone teach that kid some manners,” I joke, adding, “he’s just like his father,” as I see Brady entering the kitchen.

“Daddy,” Javier sings, running over to me. “You’ve got to come listen to me play the guitar.”

“He’s getting pretty good,” Brady says. “Might be time to get him his own guitar.”

“Yeah, then me and Drew could start a band.” Javier beams and I realize how far he’s come and how happy he is.

“Oh, and we could go on tour.” Drew giggles.

“Seven-year-olds can’t drive tour busses,” I tease, tickling them both.

“We’ll get a driver like Daddy,” Drew argues. “Come on, Javier. We need to go practice.”