Sweetest Sorrow

by J. M. Darhower

  Dante walked past the abandoned information desk to the waiting room. This one was mostly empty in the middle of the night, just Gavin sitting alone, hands clasped together, his head down, eyes fixed on the shiny floor as his knee jumped.

  The guy was a live wire, ready to fucking spark.

  Dante slid into the chair beside him, letting out a deep sigh. He wasn't sure what to say. He knew what common courtesy told him to ask: How are you feeling? Do you need anything? It was bullshit, though, and he refused to spew it.

  How was he feeling?

  Like shit, obviously.

  Did he need anything?

  He needed his father to live.

  So Dante sat in silence, inhaling the putrid disinfectant, listening to the machines screeching, wishing like hell he could do something to fix everything. Gavin hadn't said a word, hadn't reacted to his presence, so Dante took that as an invitation to continue existing, planted in that chair so long his ass fell asleep.

  Eventually, Gabriella resurfaced, approaching them.

  "You guys okay?" she asked, the question making Dante cringe. He let it slide, giving her a small nod. "Just let me know if you need anything."

  "A do-over would be nice," Gavin chimed in, his voice raspy, "but I'd settle for a Coke."

  "I can get that for you," she said. "The soda, that is."

  Gabriella retreated, leaving them alone again, as Gavin shifted in his chair, stretching his legs out.

  "She means well," Dante said.

  "I know she does," Gavin said. "I don't need you to tell me that."

  "Yeah, well, what do you need me to tell you? That you look like shit? That you need to eat something?"

  "I need you to tell me what the fuck happened."

  Gabriella returned, carrying two bottles of Coke, handing one to Gavin before holding the other out to him. Dante took it, catching her wrist when she went to walk away, tugging her closer. "Have I ever told you how gorgeous you look in scrubs? What do they call it on that show you like? McSexy?"

  She blushed as she tugged her wrist away. "You're a friggin idiot. Gray area, remember?"

  He smirked, watching as she ran off. The moment she left, his expression fell, his amusement gone.

  "Fools." Gavin shook his head. "Just as lovesick as Matty and Genna."

  Those words were like a kick to the fucking face.

  Dante set his soda aside. "Look, I wish I could tell you what you want, but I don't know what happened. All I have is speculation. Theories. Feelings."

  "Then tell me how you're feeling."

  Dante laughed dryly. "My feeling, Gavin, is that some men just want to watch the world burn."

  Gavin hunched over, propping his elbows on his thighs, cradling his head in his hands as he closed his eyes. Burn. Dante instantly regretted using that word.

  "I just meant—"

  "I know what you meant," Gavin muttered. "Don't walk on eggshells around me. Don't treat me like I'm some…"

  "Sentimental bitch?" Dante guessed.

  Gavin didn't deny it, sitting in silence, rocking in his seat. Eventually, he sat up straight, pulling himself together. "They have him sedated. He's in bad shape, but it could be worse. Could be a lot worse. They say he's got a good chance of pulling through this, that he got lucky, you know, because somebody got to him in time. Because you got to him. Any longer and we'd be planning his funeral."

  "I'm glad he's alive."

  "Me, too, but I've gotta tell you, if the roles were reversed, if it had been your father, I don't know if I would've done it. I don't know if I would've risked my life for him."

  The elevators dinged on the floor, a group of people stepping off. The first face Dante saw belonged to Victor Brazzi, flanked by two men dressed in black—his bodyguards. Gabriella's parents were with him, along with a few others, Dante's eyes drifting to the woman in the center.

  Lena Amaro.

  Johnny's wife. Gavin's mother.

  "Yeah, well, if it was my father, I wouldn't save him, either." Dante stood as they approached, reaching over to squeeze Gavin's shoulder. "I'll leave you to your family, G."

  Dante tried to walk away, not wanting to impose, but Lena stepped into his path, stalling in front of him. Her voice trembled as she growled his name. "Galante."

  Dante's eyes connected with hers. Rage. Devastation. Fear. Hatred. A flurry of emotion lit her face, her cheek twitching and bottom lip quivering, as tears coated those expressive, bloodshot eyes. He tensed as she flexed her hand at her side. She wanted to hit him. Shit. She was going to.

  Lena came at him and he braced himself, standing completely still as she swung, her open palm slapping his face so hard his head jolted to the side. A sharp sting tore through his cheek, and he winced but said nothing, taking the blow in silence. Mere seconds passed, tears spilling down her cheeks, before she came at him again, this time flinging her arms around him.

  "Thank you," she whispered.

  The hug didn't last long, barely a few seconds, before she pulled away and went for her son instead. Loud sobs echoed through the room, spilling out of her, and Dante used the distraction as a chance to slip away. He stalked right for the elevator, grateful when it opened.

  Stepping inside, he pressed the button for the lobby, the doors almost closing before a hand shot between them, forcing them back open. Alfie stepped inside, pressing the 'door close' button. Dante leaned against the back wall of the elevator, rubbing his cheek.

  When they reached the lobby, Dante made his way to the exit while Alfie veered into the waiting room. Four in the morning, almost twenty-four hours passing since the café fire, and the city was quiet. Eerily quiet. Dante headed for the hospital's parking garage around the corner, going for his car on the second tier. Pulling his key out, he approached it, his footsteps faltering when it came into view.

  Someone was sitting on the hood.

  They wore all back, oversized hoodie. Umberto.

  Carefully, Dante scanned the garage, looking for others, but black sedans packed the place and he couldn't differentiate between them.

  His steps were measured as he approached the McLaren.

  "Nice car." Umberto glided a gloved hand along the glossy blue paint. "Not really you, though."

  "You don't even know me."

  "I do. Or I did. Dante I knew was smarter than this."

  "Smarter than what?"

  "Smarter than driving a car that stands out so much."

  "What are you going to do? Blow it up?"

  Umberto slid off the hood to take a few steps his direction. "Do you really think I'd do that to you?"

  "Yes."

  His answer was instant.

  Umberto would do anything that Primo ordered.

  A car pulled into the garage, speeding around the corner, coming their direction. Dante's heart raced at the flash of headlights. The car skidded to a stop behind him, blocking him in.

  "Your father wants another word with you," Umberto said. "Shouldn't take long."

  "Just long enough to shoot me, huh?"

  "Don't be stupid." Umberto opened the back door. "Get in."

  "Can't do that."

  "Why not?"

  "Because I don't want to."

  "Figured you would've learned by now that these things aren't negotiable."

  "I'm not looking to negotiate," Dante said. "I'm just flat out fucking denying."

  "It's an order."

  "I don't give a shit."

  Umberto reached beneath his hoodie for a pistol. He aimed it, hand steady, not wavering. "Don't make me do this, Dante."

  "That's the thing," Dante said, glaring at him. "I'm not making you do this. This? It's not me. So shoot me if you want, Bert, but you'll have to shoot me in the back, like a coward."

  Dante turned, taking a single step before the gun cocked.

  "Last chance," Umberto said. "Get in the car."

  Dante closed his eyes, swaying, as grabbed the door handle of his car, preparing to get in. Seconds passed. He
waited for the gunshot. He waited, expecting it, until another voice cut through the garage. "I believe he was quite clear when he said he wasn't going anywhere with you."

  Alfie stood nearby, flanked by a few others, guns drawn and aimed at the sedan with the back door standing wide open.

  "This has nothing to do with you," Umberto said. "Mind your own business."

  "You're wrong," Alfie said. "I've made it my business."

  Umberto's expression hardened. "His father wants a word."

  Alfie turned to Dante. "You got anything to say to your father?"

  "Nothing."

  "Then I guess his father is just shit out of luck," Alfie said. "So why don't you run along and go pass that on to your boss? Tell him his son has nothing left to say to him. If he has a problem with that, he can take it up with the Brazzi family."

  Umberto hesitated before lowering his gun, his eyes on Dante. "You're making a mistake."

  Dante didn't respond, watching as Umberto slipped into the back of the car. It sped from the garage, leaving Dante intact. He glanced at Alfie as the others disappeared into the darkness. "You just saved my ass."

  "You dying would hurt my Gabby, which means we have to try to keep you breathing… you know, just until my little girl gets sick of your existence."

  Chapter Twenty

  "Where the ever-loving fuck could it be?" Genna muttered, looking through a dresser drawer in the master bedroom. She shifted things around, yanking out old clothes and tossing them behind her, onto the destroyed bed. Despite going through the rest of the place and fixing things up, making it more of a home, they never bothered with this room.

  Admittedly, it freaked her out. She still wasn't sure what kind of people had lived there, but she'd never forgotten Chris's words from the garage, about the creepy reclusive lady living out there. Many days since then, while Matty worked and Genna stayed home, she imagined what that would be like—living there for decades, isolated, becoming an urban legend more than a genuine person.

  The thought terrified her.

  Once that drawer had been rifled through, Genna shut it, moving on to the next one to do the same thing. She raided the entire dresser before moving on to the bedside stands, giving up eventually and turning to the closet. Besides the clothes hanging up and the pile of shoes strewn beneath, a few small boxes were stacked together on a shelf, the last of the untouched leftover belongings.

  Genna scowled at them.

  Fuck it.

  She stood on her tiptoes to pull the first two down, finding nothing of importance. She reached for the third box, yanking on it, her grip slipping as the cardboard tore.

  "Shit!" she yelped, jumping back as the box came crashing down, everything spilling out. A loud clatter, followed by the sound of something rolling, like marbles scattering along the wood. Glancing down, Genna's heart nearly stopped, her jaw going slack.

  A few inches from her bare foot lay a silver gun, the metal dull. Genna had no idea what kind it was. Despite growing up in the family she had, she knew little about guns. In a pinch she could pick one up and squeeze the trigger, maybe even hit something if she got lucky, but she wouldn't bet her life on it.

  She didn't much like guns.

  Genna stared at it for a minute, her eyes glossing around the rest of the box's contents, surveying the stray bullets that had scattered when it fell. Not finding what she wanted, she backed out of the bedroom and left the mess.

  Not even going there.

  She scanned the other bedrooms, knowing she'd find nothing. She'd already been through all of it, cleaning and organizing—nesting, as Matty called it. If she had come across it, she would've remembered.

  She headed downstairs next.

  No luck in the living room.

  No luck in the dining room.

  No luck in the kitchen.

  What the fuck?

  Sighing, Genna paused in the foyer, frustrated and out of places to search. She spotted the small stand near the door that held the telephone, eyeing the small drawer on it. Huh.

  "Please, please, please," she whispered, tugging the drawer open, a frustrated groan escaping her. Empty. "Oh, fuck you!"

  Slamming the drawer shut, she stomped through the house, giving up as she headed for the back door to storm out. It was around sixty degrees outside. Cool for the desert, maybe, but being as it was the middle of winter, snow likely covering every inch of her former home, it still felt almost like summertime to her. It was hard to gauge the passing of time when the weather seemed to only have two settings: hot and hotter.

  The hard ground scraped against her filthy bare soles as she approached the Lincoln. For months, she'd slaved over the thing, rebuilding carburetors and rewiring systems and replacing parts and then redoing most of it when she fucked things up the first go around, pouring sweat and dousing herself in SPF as bugs ate her up under the scorching desert sun, throwing money into it that she was sure they couldn't afford as she followed directions in books and looked at diagrams and taught herself the in's and out's of renovating cars. She'd smashed fingers and dropped things on her toes, sliced her hands open and bruised already sunburned skin, carrying battle wounds from crawling under the damn thing, replacing everything that needed replaced to make it realistically work. Cosmetically, however, the car was still a wreck, parts of the frame rusted out, but Genna still found it beautiful.

  Would be even more beautiful if I had the key to the damn thing.

  Genna glowered as she stood there, resting her hands on her stomach. In all the time she'd been working on it, in all the time she'd spent thinking about it, she never considered the fact that she hadn't encountered the key anywhere. Chris had warned her not to start it without first fixing certain things, so she decided to kind of just… fix it all before trying. And there she was, the car as good as she'd get it, and no key anywhere.

  Sighing, Genna snatched up a screwdriver from her pile of tools and opened the creaky driver's side door to climb in behind the wheel. Prying open the dash to reach the steering column, she fiddled with the wires, not needing a diagram for this part.

  She'd hotwired her first car at fourteen after watching Gone in 60 Seconds and knew the older the car, the easier the stealing.

  Piece of chocolate cake.

  She stripped and twisted wires together, the dashboard coming to life. Grabbing the starter wire, she closed her eyes, whispering a prayer to the car gods, before sparking it against the others. The car hesitated before starting, and Genna pressed the gas, squealing with excitement as the engine revved.

  The rumbling sound surrounded her, rough and gritty, the entire car trembling, but son of a bitch, it started. She sat there in awe, making sure it wasn't going to stall, before she climbed out and walked around to the front, popping the hood.

  "Oh yeah, I'm the fucking man," she sang, dancing around, twirling as she grasped onto her stomach, damn near falling thanks to a screwy equilibrium.

  She left the car running as she ran back inside, going for her phone in the foyer.

  She needed to call someone. She needed to tell someone. So she dialed Matty's number, despite the fact that he was working.

  "Genna?" He answered right away. "What's wrong, baby?"

  "Nothing's wrong," she said. "I got the car started!"

  He hesitated. "The car?"

  "Yeah, the Lincoln! I got it started. Like, it actually started! I mean, I kind of had to hotwire it because I couldn't find a key, but it's running!"

  Noise surrounded Matty from the diner, so loud she wasn't sure he could even hear her, but he repeated some of her words back. "You hotwired the Lincoln."

  "Yep." She walked into the kitchen to grab a bottle of water. "I know I'm only supposed to call when it's an emergency, but I just really wanted to tell someone."

  "It's okay," he said. "We're kind of busy right now, though, so we'll talk about it when I get home. I'm getting off early. Gavin's in town."

  Genna made a face as she took a sip of her wate
r, glancing out the window, catching sight of a black car out on the highway, pulling onto the property. Speak of the devil. "Ugh, okay, he's already here. I'll see you in a bit. Love you."

  "Wait, what? He's—"

  Genna flipped the phone closed and deposited it in the foyer on her way back outside. The car was still running, and she squatted down, trying to peek under it to make sure fluids weren't leaking, but her stomach got in the way.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of a pair of slick black dress shoes approaching, the steps measured. Gavin. "Look, I got the car running!"

  "Should you be doing that?"

  The voice was deep, kind of monotone, very matter-of-fact, not at all the smug lightness she expected. Not Gavin.

  Genna hauled herself back to her feet, on edge. In front of her stood an unfamiliar man, six-foot-something and sturdy, wearing a well-fitted black suit. He was older, maybe forties, with dark hair that kind of curled. Italian, without a doubt, and Genna might even have called him handsome if it weren't for the fact that his expression was crazy intimidating. He carried himself with the same kind of swagger Genna used to see in her father, that untouchable 'I do what I want, just try to stop me' attitude. With just a look she pegged him as part of the mob. The question was which part... what family did he come from?

  Not that one was better than another. The fact that any of them might've found them wasn't good at all.

  "Why?" she asked defensively, taking a step away, creating some distance between them as she regarded the man. "Because I'm a woman? Because I'm pregnant?"

  "Because it's not yours," he answered, approaching the car and peering inside of it.

  "How do you know it's not mine?"

  "For one, you hotwired it," he said, surveying the interior. "It would've been easier to just shove something in the ignition."

  "I didn't want to damage anything." Was he seriously giving her grand theft auto pointers? "Figured I'd stumble upon the key eventually."

  The man didn't respond to that, circling the car. Genna's eyes darted around, her gaze flickering back into the house, planning an escape route.