by Seth Eden
“Welcome back,” he hummed at me, placing a warm kiss against my neck. My head lulled back against his shoulder, bearing my neck even further. He took a gentle nibble, but both of our bodies had been pushed to their maximums. His ministrations were an extension of earlier passion still bubbling over. “You were with me until I started running the water.”
“Was I?” I asked drowsily. “I don’t even remember getting out of bed.”
Gabriel laughed. “That would probably be why most of your words were not real words.”
I laughed with him. “Probably.”
“I owe you an apology,” I said, and it was unexpected even from myself.
Gabriel gruffed behind me. “No, you don’t. If anything, I owe you one.”
“I consulted Google,” I continued. “I saw that you were telling the truth. The closest you got to any of the crimes your family committed was being present. Even that sounded shaky.”
“I was there for one. Not that I was super useful.” I could hear the regret in his voice.
“You said you would explain,” I reminded him. “If I’m going to do this. I need to know.”
Gabriel shifted enough to look into my eyes. “Are you going to do this?”
“I don’t know yet,” I replied. “I don’t want to think about being apart from you, but you also said you would do anything for your family. Even that stuff.” I supposed I couldn’t blame him. If it came to my parents or Mira, how sharp were the edges of my resolve? “I guess I’m hoping you can give me a reason to think it would be okay to stay.”
Gabriel’s arms wrapped around me and clung me tighter to him as his head fell back out of sight. “I guess you could say I was born into it. The organization has been in my family for generations, but my dad was the one who spearheaded it into what it is today. He was murdered. It feels like yesterday, but it was actually a few years ago. A family we were aligned with found out he was skimming money.” His body tensed up the more he talked about it. “When he was gone, Luca took over, but we each played our part. This past couple of years, my brother Marco and Alessandro both fell in love, had kids, and left.”
“I didn’t think you could leave?” I asked, before realizing I sounded like someone who based their belief off of movie stereotypes. “Or is that just a godfather thing?”
Gabriel chuckled, and I felt a little of his stress ease away. “No. My dad always used to say, once you’re in, you don’t get out. I always thought it was a commitment thing. Like proving you’re part of this family means you stick around regardless, but I realize now that’s not what it is at all. It’s like an invisible rope, and it’s tied in a thousand different knots. The only way out would be to undo all the knots, but every time you untie one, you tangle up three more. This life, it’s a poison, and there’s no antidote.”
Hearing Gabriel describe it that way scared me, but it also made me feel sorry for him. If he knew that it was eating him up and didn’t get away from it, I had to believe it was because he couldn’t, not because he didn’t want to.
“They managed to exploit some loopholes, that’s the best way it can be described, but…” Gabriel hesitated, and I felt his whole body turn to stone around me. “The poison.”
He didn’t need to explain, I understood. They thought they were out but were they really?
“It’s different for them both. For Marco, it’s guilt, like he feels bad that he’s off living a happy life while the rest of us are stuck, and for Sandro…”
Gabriel’s voice trailed off again, and that time he didn’t continue. That was the first time I’d heard his brothers’ names fom him. Luca and Marco left his lips a little easier. I wondered if he was just closest to his older two brothers or if something else was there. I wanted to ask, but I didn’t want to pry.
“You’re closest to Luca and Marco?” Gabriel snickered and then started laughing. I had no idea what to make of the reaction. “What?”
“Sorry,” Gabriel managed through breaths. “I guess that is kind of how it sounds. No. Sandro was the only one who really looked out for me. The other two tortured me.”
“Why?” I asked.
“My brothers and I don’t have the same mom. Not long after Sandro was born, my dad cheated on their mom with mine, and I was born. My dad took me in, told my brothers that Varasso blood was in me the same way it was in them, and they should love me just like they do each other. Luca and Marco resented me, though, even more after their mom died.”
The tension in Gabriel’s body funneled into tremors. His arms shook despite his obviously begging them not to. “Sandro took care of me. I wouldn’t have survived this long if he hadn’t. I didn’t repay him very well.”
I could feel the darkness in Gabriel’s aura at the subject, and knew I couldn’t pry there. That was information that would have to be offered willingly. Gabriel’s head nestled against the side of my face.
“Sorry. I know it’s all a bit dark. Marco and my sister-in-law teamed up to make me come out with you. I wasn’t going to. It’s not fair to subject you to all of this, but I just can’t quit you. I don’t want to.”
I felt the same. This man, living in this evil, blood-thirsty world, was really just a tender spirit. He loved his brothers and wanted what was best for them. I could see him desperately trying to hold the supports up himself, and I wanted to be that person holding him up. The one he could turn to when he felt like it was all backed against him.
I didn’t know if I could handle being involved with someone who was in such a perilous world, but there was no choice for me but to try. Life deals us certain hands, and we can’t exchange the cards. If Gabriel was the reward, I was about willing to take on any risk.
15
Gabriel
Stacy was making her sixth attempt to pull herself away from me in the lobby of the hotel, and we had officially attracted attention. Everything was so much more difficult when it meant leaving Stacy’s side. It had taken three tries and two rounds of sex to get us out of bed, and that was only because we’d worked ourselves famished. Packing our bags was hard because every two minutes, we were lost in some conversation, both loosely holding onto whatever we were trying to fold. Even getting down to the lobby was a struggle with our incessant need to be touching as much as was humanly possible as we moved. We’d even been angrily cussed out by a mom who felt we were too inappropriate in public. We thanked her for her opinion by making out the entire elevator ride down.
“I have to get to the studio,” Stacy whined even though she was hanging on to me as much as I was onto her.
“I know. I have to get home.” I didn’t release her, though, and a second later, her lips were on mine again. We were that gross couple, but I didn’t care.
It took an additional twenty minutes, but we did eventually manage to go our separate ways, only after a promise to see each other as soon as possible. We nearly doubled back when I gave her the orchid I’d bought her and sweetly explained that it was “literally the only fucking flower left,” and she was endeared and considered dragging me back upstairs. We both had business to get to, though, so she left, and I checked out of the hotel, complete with a sizable tip, and headed back to our family estate.
I was surprised to see that I hadn’t gotten a single call from Luca or Molly while I was gone, and I hoped that it didn’t mean that Molly had to throw herself on more than one sword protecting me from Luca’s wrath while I was off enjoying a romantic night with Stacy. I’d have to come up with something really good to give her in thanks, on top of still trying to figure out how to get her family some well-deserved time off.
I pulled into the cul-de-sac parking lot that we used to keep all of our vehicles organized in a way that made the job of taking them out at different times easier, and my heart sank. There was a dark green land rover parked in the middle. It was Alessandro’s best friend and our family attorney’s car. Ricky Morietti. He’d moved to California with Alessandro last year when Alessandro married Ricky’s sister
Willow.
It wasn’t that Ricky was that attached at the hip to Alessandro or Willow, but Ricky may have been the only person besides myself who’d see first-hand the moment Alessandro slipped. He was forced in the middle when he had to pick Willow over Alessandro, and he’d already left to go be at Willow’s side when Alessandro finally lost it in Luca’s office, but he’d seen the change in his best friend when we saved him from the Binachi’s trap in San Francisco. He claimed that he didn’t want to miss an opportunity to get to know his niece when he justified moving with them to Cali, but in truth, he was worried about what was happening to Alessandro and how that might affect his sister.
I walked in, nerves rattling. Ricky being back in Philly wasn’t a good sign. I walked through the heavy wood and metal front doors, and what spanned out before me was worse yet. Ricky was there, standing in the foyer, in suit pants, thin dark blue suspenders, and a pale blue button-up, but next to him, in a full suit and looking like he was ready for a day of work, was Alessandro.
“S-Sandro,” I huffed.
Alessandro turned and flung his arms out on either side of him. It was very artificial, like he was a car salesman, and I was his favorite customer. “Gabe!”
He walked up to me and wrapped his arms around me, and I locked eyes with Ricky, and the expression I got wasn’t good. Ricky looked nervous, and the tips of his brown hair were sweat-matted against his forehead. Alessandro pulled away but kept his hands on my shoulders.
“How’ve you been, man?” He leaned in towards me. “Heard you were out with a girl. Congrats.”
I hated feeling like I needed to protect Stacy from the smarmy version of my brother in front of me. “Thanks.” I didn’t share any details, and I was hopeful that Marco hadn’t either. “What are you doing here?”
“Are you dumb?” Alessandro hissed, and where it might have been a joke a year or two ago, it sounded serious and mean. “I heard about the way you fucked up with Anthony Carducci, so I came here to clean up your mess.”
“Sandro,” Ricky growled in warning. Lately, it felt like I needed saving from Alessandro more than he was doing the saving, and I didn’t like it.
Alessandro waved a hand, not even sparing a glance at his brother-in-law. “Relax, Gabe knows I’m kidding. Just wanted to pretend I was the boss for a second.”
The shrill of foreboding that rocketed down my spine and back up again wasn’t a feeling I reveled in. It threatened to buckle my knees. He smiled at me, but it was empty and malevolent, and meant, in no uncertain terms, that Alessandro’s words were anything but a joke. All my life, I loved my dad, but now I was seeing what my older brothers felt so much disdain over. The blatant lack of care for others, the cruel howl of frightening sentiments through the barrel of a humored musing. I wished there was a shower that could wash it off of Alessandro and leave him his old, fresh self again, but I feared no such remedy existed.
I decided no additional interaction with Alessandro was probably best. I was still riding a high from my night with Stacy, and I didn’t want to waste it on whatever alien had replaced my formerly loving brother. I tossed Alessandro a weak smile and then walked around him and up the foyer stairs, headed for the hallway where all of the brothers’ bedrooms had been located when we were growing up.
My room was the only one left in this area. Luca and Molly had taken up the wing my father and his wife used to inhabit, and both Alessandro and Marco had moved out. Oddly enough, almost as if they all knew, none of them had formally cleaned out and evacuated their rooms; for all intents and purposes, they just stopped sleeping in them. As if they all knew that, one day, they’d be in their rooms again.
I walked into my room and jumped at the sound of my door closing behind me. I turned around, and Ricky was standing there, leaning against it.
“Fuck,” I barked. “Why don’t you make any noise when you move?”
“When you’re the Varasso’s family lawyer, you master the art of stealth,” Ricky replied simply. “We gotta talk.”
It didn’t make me feel any more comfortable than the conversation I’d just had with Alessandro had. Ricky and I were acquaintances, at best. The last couple of years before Alessandro had moved out, he started dragging me along with him more when Alessandro, Marco, and Ricky hung out, but even then, I was so dwarfed by their presences that I usually kept quiet.
My brothers were men who lived with me all my life, but Ricky was a different enigma altogether. He’d grown up with the Varassos, and both he and Willow’s dad had given up their freedom to protect my dad. The Varassos continued to look out for Willow, Ricky, and their mom as repentance for what their father did, but Willow stayed away from our family when it didn’t directly involve her relationship with Alessandro, and Ricky was just this kid who was sort of always there. He knew so much about my family and played this huge role in our lives, but I barely knew him. That was enough to freak me out.
I sat down in one of the small, gray armchairs that were against one side of my bedroom wall, and Ricky walked over and glided down into the other. He crossed one leg over the other and clocked me in silence for a moment. I couldn’t quite tell what he was up to, so I just sat with my mouth closed until he’d gauged whatever he needed to.
“It’s bad,” he started suddenly. “Sandro.”
The muted deference in his voice was alarming. He wasn’t trying to speak ill of his friend but knew the situation warranted discussion.
“I knew that something cracked when Willow left him before, but I thought it went away when they were back together. I think he’s just been hiding it, and now he can’t contain it enough, and it’s seeping out.” He sighed. “He got arrested a couple weeks back. I didn’t tell Luca or Marco because he asked me not to. He didn’t mention you, maybe because he trusts you more, or maybe because he didn’t think I’d consider you. I guess you’re my loophole.”
I didn’t know if that made me feel great or horrible. “What happened?”
“A bar fight, actually his third bar fight in a couple of months. At first, he was just hanging around at home, you know? Alexis was still brand new, and he was so happy to be with Willow. That was enough for him, but I think the complacency got to be a bit too much. We all thought Luca was the most like your dad, but it’s Sandro with a bullet.”
That meant me, Marco, and Ricky had all seen how much Alessandro was turning into my dad. “How did Willow react?”
“She doesn’t know,” Ricky replied. “When he got carried off, I called her and said that I’d let him get a little too drunk and didn’t want to bring him home like that. I worked nonstop in California’s fucked up court system to get him out. I owe a few people some favors, but at least I was able to wheel him back through his front door before Willow got suspicious. Or more suspicious, anyway.”
“She knows him better than any of us. If we can see it, she can see it.” I massaged my temples as my head started to pound. “What do we do?”
“I don’t know. I’ve tried managing it on my own, but there’s only so much I can do, you know? He’s been itching to come home for a couple months now, so when we heard about Carducci and I realized he was gonna come home regardless, I was at least able to convince him to take me with him. I probably need to talk to Luca about it, too, but I don’t know. I guess you’ve always been the great defender of your family, so I figured I’d start with you.”
“The great defender? Me?” I laughed, but it was only in place of a more appropriate reaction. I touched my face. “Did I forget to take my Marco mask off?”
Ricky laughed, too. “Marco’s the big bad wolf, I’ll give him that, but you’re this really strange bonding agent around here. I mean, sure Luca and Marco hated you coming up, but that resentment for you and your dad helped knock some of his edge off of them. You kept Sandro sane. You actually loved your dad. Even now, Marco said Luca would be falling apart if you weren’t trying to keep shit together.” Ricky shook his head. “What’s more defensive than that?”
If I had a response, I couldn’t call it forth. I sat staring at Ricky in stunned silence. I’d never thought of myself as anything more than a reminder of my dad’s misgivings. Alessandro found a way to love me like a brother, but I was always something for Angelo and his wife to argue about. Always something to bring the worst out of Luca and Marco. That someone thought of me as a defender of my family stirred up emotions in me that I didn’t know how to handle. I thought of Stacy and her question for me. Would I do anything for them? The answer was an easy yes.
Ricky tilted his head. “Who is she?”
“What?” I questioned.
“One minute, you were sitting there looking like the grim reaper was standing behind me, then all of a sudden, your eyes got all, you know, sparkly.” Ricky shook his head. “Women make things more complicated, Gabe. Let me tell you.”
“Yeah. Don’t tell Sandro, but her name is Stacy.” I looked over at Ricky, not realizing I’d mostly been avoiding his gaze. His eyes had a resigned shine behind them, as well. “What about you?”
A giant grin grew on Ricky’s face. “Sasha Love.”
My jaw dropped. “Bullshit.”
Ricky quickly flicked a hand into his pocket and brandished his phone. He pressed the home button, and a picture of Ricky with a bombshell blonde on his lap, arms wrapped around his neck with a blinding smile on her face, appeared. Sasha Love was one of the country’s most famous up-and-comers. She’d recently played a superhero in a film laced with A-list actors.
“How in god’s name did you pull that shit off?” I asked.
Ricky pulled the phone back but stopped for a minute to admire the picture, and I could see he wasn’t into her for fame or looks. He was head over heels.
“She’s Willow’s best friend. Willow does a lot of buying for her. They met in college.”
