Cortello - D'Angelo (New)

c h a p t e r o n e

Chapter One - Avery

avery

The old man finally bit the bullet. Serves him right, the asshole. Imagine never having the useless sperm donor for all seventeen years of your life, then suddenly he dies and you have to act like you care.

I don't. Good riddance. Fuck him.

Elijah thinks that's harsh because he's -oh right, was- still my dad but I disagree. He was never fucking there. A phone call once in a while and a text here and there didn't make up for the years of abandonment.

Six years old and my brothers and I were being shipped off back to LA. Dad and Andrea apparently "couldn't deal" with so many kids, plus a baby Adrian and instead of trying, they just got rid of us. Luci, 'Lijah, Kaden, Xander, Reece and Hayes to Lorenzo and Dari, Ryder, Nix, Blake, Damon and I to mom.

It's not a wonder why dad and Andrea divorced a year later. They were just a problem together, it was never us.

Even after the divorce, they still never cared. The calls and texts just got less and less, from once a day, to once every week, to once every month.

Over the years I used to question why. When I would see dad's and their sons together, I would question why mine was never there, why we never wanted to be there.

I used to blame me, us. I used to think there was something wrong with us. It manifested itself into self-loathing for not being good enough.

Then I started hating him. Hated him for not wanting us, for not being there when everything happened with mom, when Dari and Luci begged Marianne to let mom and sign over custody to her just to we'd all stay together. I had never seen Dari or Luci beg to anyone but they did for us.

I learned pretty early on in life that my brothers are the only people who I know will always be there. They're only people in my life I could count on.

All he fucking cared about was her. He stayed in New York for her, one kid, when he had six others he didn't give a damn about.

Now she doesn't have him either. Good.

But she's going to be here. After the funeral, Dari and Luci are bringing her back to LA with them. There's never been anything I hated more in my life than knowing she's about to infiltrate it.

"Avery," Dari's voice broke me out of my reverie, "am I understood?"

"Perfectly."

I don't even know what the fuck he said. It's an instance that happens quite a lot. I learned to agree and move on and find out later.

"Good," he keeps his back perfectly straight, eyes revealing nothing about what he was think yet they stay on me. His eyes on me feels invasive, like he's seeing right into my mind and knows exactly what I'm thinking. Like he knows how much I despise the idea of her coming to live with us and that I hadn't heard a single one of the rules he put in place for when she does.

Dari's gaze is enough to make a grown man squirm, I've seen it happen. Fortunately for me, I grew up on the other side of those penetrating eyes. Internally, I squirm, externally I put on the mask of indifference I've been taught to wear by seeing it being worn by every one of my brothers.