corbyn swallowed and turned away from daniel, facing the window and the view, but not truly seeing it.
he shoved his hands in his pockets and tried to prepare himself for what rehashing his past was going to do to himself, to daniel.
"my mother had a daughter through a previous marriage when she met my dad. fresh on the political circuit, they got married quickly and had me. ashley was eight years older than me and spent a lot of time with her dad, so we weren't exactly close. neither of us harbored any resentment, there was just such a big age gap."
pressing his palm to the frame, he leaned into his hand and hung his head. "she married aldo tateco when i was ten, and none of us had any idea he was a legal aid for rizzoli. my father was part of the democratic party and went up against rizzoli in a few elections. aldo found out about misused campaign funds, but that was the tip of the iceberg. when the feds dug deeper, they found money laundering and drug pushing out of new jersey. we didn't see a lot of ashley during those years, either because the family wouldn't let her or it was some misguided way to keep us safe. they'd had a son, marcus, but he barely recognized us."
forcing himself to look at daniel, corbyn turned and checked his reaction.
pale but calm, daniel nodded slowly. "go on."
nervous energy skimmed under his skin, so corbyn paced. "the summer before my senior year of high school, she got pregnant with olivia. marcus was five. the feds were coming close to gathering enough evidence for an arrest on rizzoli. aldo was turning over particulars to avoid prosecution which, of course, rizzoli didn't know."
bone tired, he crossed the room and sat on the table in front of daniel. the ingrained part of him needing daniel's near was pacified by the move. "my father was concerned enough to have me looking into colleges as far from the east coast as possible. that's how i settled here." he swallowed hard, his gut churning.
as if sensing the story was about to take an ugly turn, daniel closed his warm fingers over his hands. "do you need a minute?"
the brunet man shook his head. he'd had nothing but minutes, endless agonizing minutes that accumulated into years. better just to spit it out fast. "the summer after graduation, rizzoli found out what aldo was up to and had aldo and ashley's house burned down to the ground. with them inside."
daniel gasped, fingers tightening over his. his blue eyes welled. "corbyn."
waving away daniel's sympathy, he got up to stand by the window again. the pressure in his chest expanded, the vise around his throat cinching. the fucking worst part was coming. "two days after the funeral, i got a call from the fbi asking to meet. turned out, a neighbor of ashley's saw the house burning and called the fire department before running into the blaze. he wasn't able to save the others, but he got olivia out."
corbyn paused, but there was no way to garner composure for the rest. he let himself break for the first time in a decade. "she had second degree burns on the left side of her body. she was only eight months old and couldn't escape the crib." his voice cracked. tears blurred his eyes, falling hot and heavy on his frozen cheeks. his chest cracked open.
daniel came up beside him, his eyes wet. smoothing his hand down corbyn's arm, he linked their fingers. the blonde moved in front of him, not wiping away the tears or offering pithy condolences. none of those things helped one fucking bit. but corbyn was grateful, so damn grateful, daniel was here.
