Leo’s gaze moved to Maya.
“You’ve seen it?”
“Yes.”
“More than once?”
Maya remembered Marco’s shoe hitting the chair leg.
His smirk.
Connor’s hands striking the armrest in frantic rhythm while the men around him laughed.
“Yes.”
Eddie cleared his throat.
Every head turned toward the bar.
He looked as though he regretted making a sound, but after a moment he said, “So have I.”
Marco stared at him.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Eddie lowered the towel.
“No.”
For the first time that night, Connor looked toward Eddie.
A strange realization moved through Maya.
Connor hadn’t suddenly become visible because he had changed.
The room had changed because people had finally been forced to look.
Marco spread his hands.
“Boss, it was nothing.
I was messing with him.
Everybody knows I mess around.”
Leo turned slowly toward him.
“With my son?”
Marco’s confidence faltered.
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Then tell me what you meant.”
Marco looked around the room as if searching for somebody willing to laugh with him.
Nobody did.
The same witnesses who had once made Connor’s humiliation worse now made Marco’s excuses impossible.
“He doesn’t know the difference,” Marco finally said.
The instant the words left his mouth, he knew they were a mistake.
Connor stopped tapping.
Leo became perfectly still.
“Doesn’t know the difference between what?”
Marco said nothing.
Leo stepped closer to him.
“Kindness and cruelty?”
Marco’s jaw tightened.
“Leo—”
“Or respect and humiliation?”
“I didn’t mean—”
“You meant exactly what you said.”
Leo glanced toward the corner where Connor had been placed during dinner after dinner, month after month.
The chair looked different now.
Not because Maya had changed the bulb above it.
Because Leo was finally seeing what the corner represented.
He had told himself he was protecting Connor from noise and strangers.
He had told himself Connor preferred being away from everyone.
Sometimes Connor did need distance.
Sometimes he did need quiet.
But Leo had never asked where the line was between giving his son space and hiding him because his differences made other people uncomfortable.
Worse, Leo had allowed everyone around him to copy his behavior.
If the father treated Connor like an inconvenience, why would his men treat him differently?
Leo looked at his son.
