Carlo took three angry steps forward, ignoring Luca’s warning mutter of his name, and stood towering over Jenny. “See, you’re not. You signed your rights away. You are officially not his mother.”
She crossed her skinny arms over her chest, and Carlo saw a break in the unfamiliar, artificial calm she’d been projecting. “Rights can be reclaimed.”
Thinking about Trey’s recent weeks of confusion, his renewed memories and questions about his mother and where she was, and thinking how all of that turmoil had settled in him again since they’d come back to the Cove, how he was back to himself and happy in the life he had now, without her, and thinking of Bina and how good and calm and maternal she was already, how easy and true she was with Trey just by instinct, and how much better they all were now, and how this bitch before him could fuck with that, Carlo snapped. He reached down and grabbed Jenny by the neck and yanked her to her feet. “Are you really that fucking stupid?”
He squeezed, and her hands clawed at his wrist. His hand clenched and clenched; Carlo didn’t feel like he was operating his own body. He was having an out-of-body experience, his sense gone and his fury left behind.
And then Luca was there, and Carlo was being shoved back by his brother’s brawny arm. “And this is why I stayed. Okay, you little cunt, put that bony ass back down and shut the fuck up. You’re fine.” Luca turned and grabbed Carlo by the shoulders, forcing him to sit in their father’s big chair. “And you sit here. I’ll just stand right here in the middle.”
Luca stood between them like Mr. Clean, his arms crossed over his broad chest. Carlo ignored him and glared at Jenny. She was rubbing gingerly at her throat.
“Now you know I will hurt you. What you did to Trey—you will never get the chance to fuck with his head like that again. You walked away. You disappeared in the night like a coward, and you left my son to wonder why. So no. I will kill you before I let that happen again. And if you are so stupid to think that I will let you even try to take this to court, then you deserve to fucking die. I will unleash everything to keep that from happening. Do you understand what I’m saying, Jenny?”
“And if I’m sorry?” Her voice had taken on a rough, wavering edge. Her façade of cool control was gone.
“I don’t fucking care. There’s no sorry that fixes this.”
“Carlo, I really miss him. He was the only thing I was ever good at—being his mommy.”
That struck him funny—outrageously funny—and he laughed hard enough that Luca cocked an eyebrow at him. “You think you were good at being his mother? Jenny, if you were good at being his mother, you’d still be his mother.” He stood. “I’m done with this. You’re leaving. On your own feet or thrown over my shoulder, you are leaving now.”
Jenny just sat there and stared at him. But he hadn’t been exaggerating, so he moved toward her with every intention of yanking her up by her hair and throwing her over his shoulder. She must have sensed that, because she stood, quickly, her hands up.
“Okay. I’ll go. But will you please at least give him the present? It’s a solar system mobile. He’ll love it.”
“He doesn’t care about astronomy anymore, Jenny. That was last year. A lot has changed. Take it with you. He doesn’t want it. He doesn’t need you or your present. Get. The fuck. Out.”
They glared at each other for several poisonous seconds, and then Jenny simply drooped. She nodded, and Carlo stepped back. When she walked away from the gift on the table, Carlo retrieved it.
“Take this with you.”
She turned and accepted it from him, and he could see that she was fighting back tears.
He didn’t care—no, wrong. He cared. He was glad. He hoped she felt searing pain right now.
Luca dropped his hand on Carlo’s shoulder. “I’ll see her out, make sure she goes. You go back to your kid and your woman.” He laughed sourly. “And Jesus fuck, I am never hooking in with a chick. What a fucking mess.”
~oOo~
Before Carlo could go back out to the party, before he’d be fit for the company of Trey and Bina, he had to get himself under control. He went into the kitchen and grabbed one of Luca’s ‘good’ beers and drank it dry while he was still standing in the open cold of the fridge.
He thought he really would have killed her if Luca hadn’t been there. He wanted to kill her now. He closed the door and leaned his forehead on the cool stainless steel.