Once Burned (Morelli Family, #3)

by Sam Mariano

  “It’s okay, I want to go to bed. Thank you for making me coffee.”

  “You’re welcome,” she says, replacing the cup and coming over to me, frowning. “You’re really drunk, aren’t you?”

  “Yep,” I verify, handing her the plastic bag. “These are yours. I’m going to give you assignments.”

  “Assignments?” she asks, her eyes wide with interest.

  I nod again. “One of the journals is for you, one is for me. You can write whatever you want in yours, but in mine I’m going to give you tasks, things to write for me every day.”

  “Homework,” she says, brightly, smiling.

  She’s so weird. And so pretty. I want to kiss her.

  Nope, no drunk kissing.

  I turn to head for the bedroom, where I can sleep and ignore all the shit I need to be figuring out right now.

  “Should I…?” Elise trails off when she sees I’ve vanished.

  I’m already in the bedroom, tugging my shirt off and dropping into the bed, yanking the blanket up around me and closing my eyes.

  She quickly turns out the lights in the living room, then she comes into the bedroom and climbs in beside me.

  “Do you feel okay?” she whispers.

  Her concern makes me smile. “Mmhmm.”

  “What’s my first assignment?”

  Eyes closed, I murmur, “Ask me when I’m sober.”

  She laughs lightly. “Okay.”

  Opening my eyes, I indicate the powder blue satin thing she’s still scantily clad in. “I like this.”

  “Yeah?” she asks, with interest.

  “Mmhmm,” I verify, closing them again.

  “You should drink more often,” she informs me.

  I snort, then I really push my luck, draping my arm across her waist. I open my eyes to watch first, and while she does appear startled, she doesn’t seem displeased.

  After a moment, she looks up at me and smiles. “I had a crush on you, you know.”

  I did not know, and that almost sobers me. “What? When?”

  She blushes adorably, averting her gaze. “When you used to tutor me. I think the authority figure thing…” She doesn’t finish, but she bites her lip, all but explaining the rest.

  Elise is attracted to authority.

  Go figure.

  I ripped her away from Mateo, literally Mister Authority, and I gave her absolutely none, because I didn’t want her to feel oppressed. Because I wanted to be the opposite of him, the opposite of what she’s drawn to, and I wanted her to like it anyway.

  “I did everything wrong this week, didn’t I?” I ask.

  “Of course not,” she says, and it even sounds like she means it. “We’re just adjusting to each other, that’s all. It’s a learning process.” She smiles softly. “That’s kind of our thing, though, isn’t it?”

  Trying something new, likely because of the alcohol, I tug her across the bed until she’s snug against me.

  She gasps at first, taken off-guard, but then she settles into the embrace and snuggles up against me.

  Heaven. I’ve found heaven. It’s real and it exists, in my bed, with Elise in my arms.

  Snuggling me.

  I can’t help but grin. I tuck her head under my chin so she can’t see it, and she experimentally drapes an arm around my torso, like she’s waiting to see if I’ll allow it.

  In the moment, I can’t imagine for the life of me why I wouldn’t.

  Chapter Five

  Reality greets me with a vengeance the following morning.

  My head is pounding. My mouth is dry. Elise remains snuggled up against me, her body warm, her face peaceful. Her soft skin is pressed against the ruined, puckered skin on my side.

  “Fuck,” I mutter to myself, carefully lifting her arm and climbing out of her embrace.

  As soon as I’m standing, I regret leaving her, but I’ve got shit to do.

  Of course I didn’t bother charging my phone last night, so I fish it out of my pocket and grimace at the low battery. I plug it in to charge up a bit while I shower.

  Once I’m out, even though I don’t have to anymore, I put on a damn suit. Now that I know Elise likes it, it’s an easy enough concession to make.

  I dump out the pot of coffee she made me last night, rinsing it out, but I leave it for her to clean.

  Then I take her journals out of the bag, looking between them. Ideally I would’ve liked for her to pick which one was hers and which one was mine, but she’s asleep and something tells me she won’t object to me making the decision for her.

  Drawing out the first one I picked out, I grab a pen and jot down today’s assignment at the top of the first page.

  “While I’m out today, write about something you want to do someday. Something you want to experience, whether you want to do it with someone or alone, and why.”

  I don’t fucking know. I’ll throw shit at the wall and see what sticks.

  That task complete, I take my phone off charge, sparing Elise a passing glance before heading back to the living room and calling Alec Morelli. He doesn’t answer, so I call Joey.

  He picks up. Sounds surprised to hear from me, but I don’t know why. Of course I’m going to call and check in when something like this happens.

  “What the hell happened?” I ask him.

  “I don’t know, man. Castellanos made a move.”

  I don’t understand how any of it happened though—when I left the mansion, Meg was locked in Mateo’s basement and he was locked away in his surveillance room, searching for evidence of her sins. Now they’re going out on the town and he’s proposing?

  Joey spends the next few minutes catching me up, explaining how Meg wasn’t guilty and Francesca’s disappeared. I have questions about this, since I had verifiable evidence of Meg’s link to Castellanos, but there’s too much to absorb right now to bother arguing.

  “Well, is he home? I wanna stop by and say hi.”

  “No, he’s staying at the hospital with her.”

  That surprises me. “The hospital?”

  We never go to the hospital. Too complicated, leaves you too vulnerable, open to investigation. I’m shocked Mateo, of all people, would go to the hospital.

  “I guess she was bleeding pretty bad,” Joey explains. “The bullet didn’t come out, so they had to go in and get it. I guess… I guess she’s pregnant.”

  My stomach turns over at that piece of news, especially in light of him just telling me she was shot in the stomach. “Still?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t got an update yet today. Vince and Mia are heading up there to check in, so I’ll hear more then.”

  I get the information from him, and even though the thought of going makes me feel like a lost, vulnerable eight-year-old again, I grab my keys and head for the hospital.

  ---

  I’m glad I wore the suit today.

  I didn’t expect to offer to come back when I walked into the hospital, but seeing him there, looking so lost as he waited by Meg’s bedside, I knew I had to.

  This all happened on my watch, after all. Maybe it came to a head when I left, but it was all building under my fucking nose when I was preparing to leave.

  I pay the cop a visit first, since that’s the more immediate danger.

  Then I stop by the bakery to grab security tapes.

  Finally, I head to Mateo’s house.

  Maria comes to the door, but she doesn’t even look surprised to see me. She glances past me to see if I’m alone, then she lets me in and closes the door, walking away without so much as a throwaway greeting.

  I wonder if she’s happy here, like Elise was. I didn’t think about it too much when I lived here, I just assumed none of them wanted to be here, but now that Elise has yelled at me for rescuing her when apparently she wasn’t in distress, I wonder.

  Maria’s pretty brusque, though, so I don’t follow her to ask.

  I also have a lot of shit to do, and I need to get started.

  Once I’m
in Mateo’s security room, the first thing I do is text Colin McGregor.

  “Don’t go to Boston yet. I might have something for you.”

  He doesn’t respond right away, so I pop in the tapes from the bakery and start looking into what Francesca’s been up to. Going over security footage is one the most boring, tedious jobs in the world, but if you know what you’re looking for, it can be useful. I’m not sure exactly what I’m looking for. If Francesca really was the leak, there’s no way after growing up with Mateo she would allow anyone connected to Castellanos to walk into his family’s bakery. I need to check her phone records. She was probably too smart to use her regular phone, but it’s worth a quick perusal.

  Time slips away from me and before I know it, Elise is texting me, asking if she should make dinner. Colin responded, too, asking “what kind of something?” so I answer him first, telling him to meet me where we met last night around 9pm.

  Exiting the surveillance room, I stop at Mateo’s desk. I know he keeps some petty cash here, and I blew most of mine at the bar last night. Peeling off $100, I shove it in my pocket and text Elise to tell her to go ahead and make dinner.

  To be honest, I’d rather just grab something to take home, but I assume she wants to cook.

  I stop to buy her a dress on the way home. I don’t know exactly what she likes, but I grab one that’s navy blue with lace and sequins—looks like something Mia would wear to dinner. Everything in me revolts as I take it to the register, in my damn suit, prepared to do what I can to emulate the one man I don’t want to be anything like. I can’t even recreate a shadow of Morelli family dinners, because we don’t have a table. We usually just eat on the couch, but I’m gonna have to get one. There’s a little space between the kitchen and the door for one, I just didn’t have the extra money and it didn’t seem essential.

  I’ll have to get her one, though. Maybe some decorative shit to put on it—a tablecloth, some kind of centerpiece.

  Now that I’m actually working for Mateo for a little while, I’ll have more money to work with. His lucrative offer to come work for him comes to mind, but I shove it away.

  No. I’m not getting sucked back into Mateo’s bullshit. I’ll never get out again if I do. This is just temporary, I’m just going to help him get shit settled with Castellanos and make sure he’s reasonably safe, then I’ll find a normal job, like I intended.

  Elise is in the kitchen when I get back home, but when she turns to greet me, a series of progressively happier expressions play out across her face as she notices first, I’m wearing a suit, and second, I brought her something pretty.

  I’m not sure how to tell her I’m working for Mateo again. I don’t know if she’ll be pleased or disappointed, and I’m not even sure which I prefer.

  “What’s this?” she asks, smiling at me before her gaze moves to the white plastic covering the hanger dangling from my hand.

  I hand it to her, and she wastes no time peeling it off. I’m rewarded with a little gasp of pleasure when she sees it, and I’m relieved she seems to like it.

  “It’s beautiful, Adrian; thank you,” she says, surprising me by moving in to hug me.

  I wrap my arms around her, hugging her back, but it only makes me think about last night. I’m tempted to apologize, but I stop myself. I probably shouldn’t have had so much to drink, or pulled her against me in bed like that, and I definitely shouldn’t have done it without a shirt on. But I did, and it’s done, and she’s in better spirits today, so I’ll ignore my own reservations.

  Pulling back, she tells me, “I did my assignment.”

  I’d honestly forgotten about it. Nodding as if I didn’t, I say, “Good. I’ll read it after dinner.”

  “I wrote a little in mine, too,” she tells me, finally releasing me and taking a step back. “It’s very pretty, thank you for thinking of it.”

  “I’m glad you like it.”

  I already feel tired, and I’m not looking forward to meeting up with Colin later. Actually, he hasn’t even verified he’ll show up, and he better, because if I haul my ass to the bar and sit there by myself, I’m gonna be pissed.

  “I gotta go out later,” I tell her.

  “Oh, okay. Do you want me to go?” she asks as she heads for the bedroom to change.

  “Nah, it’s a… work thing.” I grimace, scratching the back of my neck, figuring there’s not going to be a better opening. “I have to help Mateo out for a little bit longer.”

  There’s silence, and then her head pops out into the hall, the dress clutched to her chest. “What?”

  “There was an assassination attempt. Another one. A more… effective one.”

  Her entire face goes white, and my stomach drops. “Is he…?”

  “No,” I say quickly, shaking my head. “They hit Meg instead.”

  Her jaw drops and she moves into the hallway, slowly releasing a breath.

  “She’s okay,” I add, still watching her more closely than I should. I already know she has a fascination with Mateo; I shouldn’t make it worse for myself by trying to find evidence of it.

  Elise nods, but I’m relieved to see she looks pleased to hear that. “People really need to stop trying to kill him,” she states.

  “Maybe if he’d stop giving them reasons,” I say, rolling my eyes.

  A little smile tugs at her lips and she pops back into the bedroom to change.

  Actually the funny thing is, as many people as there are with actual motives to kill Mateo, I don’t know why Antonio Castellanos has such a hard-on for him. He’s always been cold, since there aren’t a lot of kind-hearted mobsters heading families, but it seems to me he’s getting old and starting to lose his foothold within his own crew. There have been rumblings for a few months now that his family has started eyeing up his eldest son as a replacement—ruthless but charismatic, like Mateo, and more importantly, an ally to Mateo. Content to split territories like we’ve been doing with Castellanos for years, until he started getting increasingly greedy.

  Of course, Salvatore Castellanos, heir apparent to the Castellanos family, isn’t exactly on Mateo’s good side these days. As of right now, we’re not even sure where he is. The old man and the son have both been lying low since the attack on Mateo, in the event there’s retribution.

  Which of course there will be.

  My phone buzzes and I look down to see a text from Colin. “See you then.”

  I drop the phone in my pocket, wandering in the kitchen to see what Elise is cooking.

  I don’t know if this is a good idea, either. Colin tends to be a bit of a charmer where ladies are concerned, so he’ll probably get on Mateo’s nerves being around Meg all the time. At the end of the day, McGregor’s a professional though, so I think it’ll be okay. I can’t really spare anyone in our family until I make sure they can all be trusted.

  It’s a sad day when you have to bring in a freelancer because you don’t trust your own people.

  Mateo needs to get his shit together. Or, I guess I need to get his shit together, since I went and offered to come back until I get things resolved.

  Right now my priority is wrapping things up as quickly as possible.

  Elise emerges from the bedroom with a smile on her face, doing a little spin to show me her new dress. “Like it?”

  “I do,” I say. “Do you?”

  “It’s beautiful,” she says, and I hate that even with something this simple, I can’t be sure she’s being genuine. Would she tell me if she hated it? I doubt she does, but I hate not knowing.

  As she heads into the bathroom, I ask, “What were dinners like for you growing up?”

  The question seems to take her by surprise. She grabs a loaf of freshly baked bread and starts slicing it, eyes on her task as she talks. “They were nothing special. We had fast food a lot of the time, or frozen food that someone threw in the oven. We only really ate at the table on holidays. When I first went to Mateo’s,” she says, glancing at me cautiously, but continuing, “I thought
it was really nice the way they always ate dinner together. They dressed nice and sat at the table and were actually present with one another.” She shrugs one shoulder. “It’s nice. Growing up we usually just watched TV while we ate. There were a lot of times I sort of craved that togetherness like Mateo creates, and it just… I just never had that.”

  “You were an only child, right?”

  She nods, arranging the bread slices on a plate. Too many slices for just the two of us, but I don’t remark upon it. “My dad didn’t want more kids. I think my mom might’ve, but I’m not really sure.”

  “What was their relationship like? Was it a good one?”

  “I guess. I mean, they were still together. They had their issues like most couples, but it wasn’t bad.” Glancing up at me, she asks, “What about you? What was it like for you growing up? You never told me anything about your family.”

  I shrug, leaning against the counter and watching her work. “I don’t really like to talk about them.”

  “How come?”

  I shrug one shoulder, fighting the urge to retreat into myself. “Doesn’t do me any good to think about it, I guess. To dwell on memories of things I can’t change, can’t get back.”

  “Is it painful?” she asks softly.

  “Used to be. I don’t feel it anymore.”

  Turning to face me, she says, “It’s my turn to ask you a question. A homework question.”

  The corner of my mouth tugs up slightly, but I nod, giving her permission to ask.

  “Who do you miss? You’ve obviously lost people over the years… who does still make you feel, even now, when you consider having lost them?”

  I stare at her for a moment, unsure how to answer that. I’m not exaggerating when I tell her I don’t feel the losses anymore—I’ve numbed myself to them over the years. I can lie awake in bed and vividly recall Matt’s wrath upon my family, the screams, the pain, the fire. It replays in my memory like I’m there, but I can’t feel anything.

  It’s not that I don’t have attachments to anyone anymore. I’d like to think that sometimes, but obviously I haven’t turned off completely, or I wouldn’t be here with her, I wouldn’t have gone back to Mateo when he needed me.