Luca’s POV
“Whoa, whoa… slow down.” I said as soon as I pushed myself into a more straight sitting position, as soon as all what he was saying started to sink into my head. I stared at him pointedly, and our eyes only remained locked for a few more seconds before he was averting his gaze. The inside of the car wasn’t all that bright because the sky was already really dark at this very moment, but a little bit of light had managed to bleed through the windows from lit up companies and passing cars rear end lights. I puffed out a deep breath after a few moments before starting to speak.
“Armani…” I started to say but he cut into what I was trying to say without me getting more than a word past my lips.
“We both know it’s the truth, don’t try to…” He started to speak but I shushed him after a few seconds, making him trail off on a small sigh.
“Relax, Armani. You’re so worked up at the moment, can you try to take in some deep breaths?” I said after a few moments, and although he didn’t audible respond to me, the sound of him doing what I had just requested made me relax a little as I listened to him drag in deep breaths into his lungs to puff it out after a few moments, and he repeated that motion for a little while.
“What makes you think I’m going through so much stress because of you?” I asked after a moment and watched as he hesitated at first before shrugging his shoulders a little.
“I used to stress you a lot back then.” He started to say after some time, voice low but still being able to reach my ears just fine. I remained silent after what he had just said, because I knew he wasn’t done yet, and after a few moments had passed, he continued to speak after shifting a little in his seat.
“When I was still growing up and all, I used to put you through a whole lot of stress. I remembered getting you into a whole lot of trouble with dad, all because you wanted to protect me.” He passed after that and gulped a little before talking silently. After some time, he decided to continue to speak.
“Because I was weak as fuck, and couldn’t do a damn thing on my own, you always had to take my fall for me, to take the blow for me if there was one, to take the blunt every time, and so on. You’ve always willingly faced dad’s warth each time, and most times I was the reason for having you raise your voice at him.”
“Armani…” I started to speak but decided to trail off when he shook his head at me without saying a thing, as I watched as he blew out a small breath before continuing to speak.
“I used to feel really guilty back then, because I just couldn’t be the son father wanted me to do. Father used to talk to me about how I was supposed to be as strong and fierce as you, and I wanted to be like you so much, you know?” He paused and breathed out a small laugh before continuing, and I remained silent throughout.
“I wanted to be like you so much at a point, wanted to make you proud of me for once, instead of you having to always protect me, so we’d be able to protect each other and both make father proud, because that’s what he wanted so much…” He trailed off and puffed out a slow breath before continuing.
“But then… Then, I realized at a point that I couldn’t be like you, because for one, I couldn’t be a little bit fierce to begin with, compared to you. All what you were, I wanted to be so bad, but it was like my body and head had just chosen to not cooperate with me during that time. It was so hard to watch and listen father staring at you with pride, but then each time he stared at me, it was always with disappointment inside of his eyes, or anger, one or those two emotions and nothing more.
“Whoa there, where did you get all these from? For one, Dad was never proud of me to begin with.” I said to him as soon as he made to drag in a deep breath into his lungs and I watched as he pinned me with a look right before he began to speak once again, fingers starting to move around on the seat between us absentmindedly.
“Oh, he was. He was proud of you a whole lot of times, a whole lot.”
I started to shake my head immediately. “Armani, I don’t know what made you come to these conclusions but he was never ever proud of me, he isn’t that kind of parent…”
“I take it he didn’t tell you to your face then… but he was pretty proud of you. He was always using you to make comparisons each time he was speaking to me, and those times when you’d be training and he’d make me stand beside him watching you, in order for me to try to master some of your moves by just staring at you. He used to talk about how proud he was of you, and how you were such a quick learner, and how he was sure you’d take over from him really well, and how his enemies were all going to be afraid of you because of how fearless and fierce you were, and about how he was sure I’d never be able to become half of what you’ve already become, but I should still try either way, to avoid being killed at a point.”
As Armani continued to speak, I started to realize just how messed up my father had been, because he didn’t ever say any of those words to me, and had instead said all those to my little brother, to make him feel really bad, like he wasn’t even needed around to begin with. I’ve never hated him more in my life like I did in that moment, because I was sure that all those words which father had said to Armani, despite how young he had been back then, had still managed to stick deep inside of his mind. I puffed out a deep breath and racked my fingers through my curls, and after a few seconds had passed, I decided to continue to speak.
“Armani, do you know how messed up our father was?” I started to speak and Armani blinked at me at first before starting to nod his head. I shook my head at him before continuing.
“No… I don’t think you understand what I meant. Father never said any of those words to me, not one. Not a single one. So why was he saying all those about me behind my back, and saying it to you? He was doing all these to make you feel really inferior… and I was sure that back then, he might have been thinking that he was motivating you by all what he had been saying to you, not knowing that he was doing zero to zero level of help to you back then.” I paused and puffed out a small breath before continuing to speak.
“Also, who cares about if he’s proud of me or not? He wasn’t actually proud of me, he was just a selfish bastard, that’s all. He only cared about himself and felt like he was proud of me because I was an asset in which he can trust to leave his fucked up mafia and thousands of enemies to, and nothing more.”