Chicago, 1941
Santo is drunk, exactly how he likes it. He has a half naked slut on top of him, one of her breasts in his hand. Someone plays music somewhere, not that he cares, but it mixes very well in his head with wild laughter.
Smoke clogs the air, making him crave tobacco. But he doesn't really care enough to track down a cigar, or take the slut upstairs.
Even knowing he's broke--again--doesn't worry him. He' a regular at this brothel, and always manages, eventually, to scrape together enough money to fit the bill. He has good credit, for the time being.
He picked this slut because she's a redhead, very busty, and dumber than dirt. He'll tell himself later, after he's fucked her brains out, that he didn't see Alice's face starting back at him.
No such luck.
He takes another pull of his drink, then pinches the slut's nipple. She squeals, playfully slapping his hand away. He's still smiling when Tom walks in.
"My beloved brother." Slurred speech or not, they're still bitter on his tongue. Santo takes a bigger pull, as he watches Tom shake his head at the brunette that sits next to him.
He looks, Santo thinks, so pale and pure and perfect in the haze of the smoke, against the gaudy colors, through the noise.
He wonders if Cain hated Abel as much as he hates himself right now.
He waits, jiggling the redhead on his knee, squeezing her breast as Tom looks around the place. When their eyes meet, there's a definite clash. Santo can almost swear he hears it clear as a bell inside his head. The sound of swords striking in battle.
"What do we have here?" he says as Tom approaches. "Are you finally accepting you're just as corrupt as the rest of us. My brother here needs a drink! A drink and a woman for the gentleman!" he calls out. "Though I highly doubt he'll take advantage of either."
"You're an embarrassment to yourself and our family, Santo. I was sent here to take you home."
"I'm not embarrassed to pay for a slut." Santo sets down his glass, running a hand up the redhead's thigh. "Now if I was married to one, that would be a whole different story. But you beat me to the punch, o'brother mine, just like you did with everything else."
Tom's face pales. "Do not talk about her in this place."
"My stepbrother married a whore from Salem." Santo says conversationally, jerking the redhead back when she tries to crawl off of him. He can feel her heart pounding under his hand, as the heat between him and Tom instills fear.
And her fear excites him like none of the other things she'd promised him had been able to do.
"Tom, pride of the Hortons, brought a slut into our home, and now he's moaning and groaning because she dumped his sorry ass for someone else, and left him with her bastard son."
He has to believe it's true. Over the winter, he'd drowned himself in oceans of booze, the look in her eyes as she stared back at him, the way her body had splashed into the river.
He has believe it, or lose his mind altogether.
"Get up." Tom orders the redhead. "Go."
"I like her exactly where she is." Santo's hands clamp down around her arms as she struggles.
Neither of them notice the room go quiet, as the music dies down and the laughter abruptly stops. Tom reaches down, dragging the redhead off of Santo's lap. She takes off like a dart even as Tom pulls Santo off the chair.
"Boys." The madam moves forward. Behind him is an enormous man in an official looking suit. "We don't want any trouble here. Mr. DiMera." Her voice is patronizing, hand sliding over his cheek. "Go with your brother, sweetheart. Family matters have no place here."
"Of course. My sincerest apologies." Santo takes her hand, kissing it. Then, he turns and lunges at Tom.
The table and lamp they land on breaks. While people around them try to get away, women screaming, they roll, fists flying, snapping like rabid dogs as years of resentment and violence comes out from the both of them.
The bouncer walks over to them, pulling Santo up by his neck. He quickly marches him to the door, shoving him through. Tom's barely on his hands and knees when he suddenly finds himself being lifted off the ground.
Cursing and screaming follow him out the door. Anger smothered by humiliation. Tom shakes his head of it, getting back on his feet.
He looks down at his stepbrother, a very opaque reflection of himself, and with it comes a different shame. "Is this what it's come to?" he says tiredly. "Fighting in whorehouses, waking up in the gutters? I want to bury the hatchet, Santo. Heaven knows I can't do that anywhere else."
Tom holds out a hand to help Santo to his feet, an olive branch.
But Santo's shame is a whole different species. And it's rotten.
He won't remember pulling the knife out. Blinded by the liquor, his anger, all on top of his guilt. Nor will he remember jumping to his feet, lunging again.
He feels the knife cut through his brother's flesh with a crazy thrill. And his lips peel back, eyes wild at the first scent of blood.
They struggle, Tom through pain and shock, Santo through the rotten haze, with the knife's hilt slippery in their hands.
And the blinding horror paralyzes him as Santo's eyes widen when the fatal blow is turned on him, into him.
"My God." Santo murmurs, staring down at the knife in his chest. "You just killed your own brother."
