by Bethany-Kris
She was strikingly beautiful with her painted red lips, tight dress, and fire-red hair. Calisto suspected that Catrina’s beauty was her greatest weapon. Men probably flocked to her like stupid moths following a pretty flame, and when they touched her …
Poof.
Nothing but ash was left behind.
Beauty was dangerous.
Calisto’s thoughts drifted back to Emma without his permission. It was almost like he couldn’t fucking help it. Emma wasn’t like Catrina, sure, but she was still dangerous to him.
Or so he was learning.
He felt like a moth chasing her flame, but he didn’t know why.
“I’m going to need as much information as you can provide me about the Irish, your uncle, and how this war between your families came about,” Dante said, drawing Calisto from his thoughts.
Calisto swallowed hard, hearing the hard edge in Dante’s tone. “I can try to do that.”
“There’s no trying,” Lucian put in.
Giovanni rested back in his chair, watching Calisto carefully, but being mindful not to step in, it seemed.
“Lucian has a good point,” Dante murmured, nodding in his brother’s direction. “There is no trying today. We’ve been watching for long enough. What started out as a disagreement between two syndicates has now reached a very bloody, violent level on the streets. There is too much attention—too much police attention—on us all. I can’t have that. I won’t.”
“I intend to finish it out,” Calisto said.
Dante tipped his head to the side, gaze narrowing. “That’s all fine and well, but it isn’t what I asked.”
Smart man, Calisto thought with a grin.
Few people knew of Calisto’s amnesia, and those who did outside of their family had only been given the bare minimum of information where it was concerned. People like Dante probably had little to no knowledge of whether or not Calisto had gained any of his memories back.
“I want to know why this all started,” Dante said.
Calisto’s stare never wavered from the Marcello Don when he replied, “I don’t know. I still don’t know. But I intend to finish it out, as I said. This last attack was my final straw. It won’t affect the Marcellos anymore than it already has, that I can promise you.”
Dante’s features was a mask of cool, calm, and collected. He didn’t even blink. “So what they say is true—you remember nothing.”
“No,” Calisto admitted.
“You’re fighting a war with a family and you don’t even know why.”
Calisto’s jaw ached when he clenched his teeth. Still, his confession slipped out, one that had been plaguing him for months. “No, I don’t.”
At her husband’s side, Catrina shook her head and frowned. “Unfortunate.”
“It is,” Dante agreed, passing his wife a silent look before focusing back on Calisto. “Still, I was sure you would know something, or even that someone in your family might have had answers for you where the Irish was concerned, given the fact you had been so involved with the Irish—”
Ray cleared his throat, stepping up beside Calisto and interrupting Dante. Just in the way the Marcello Don’s eyes darkened as he looked at Ray told Calisto that he was not pleased at being interrupted.
“Cal’s involvement with the Irish family had been very little before his accident, and clearly it didn’t end well.”
Dante cocked a single brow, and it came off entirely patronizing when he said, “Am I to assume that all the effort Calisto put into breaching the walls the Irish boss put up between the two families and the meeting he set up was all for nothing? From my understanding, Connor O’Neil had taken issue with Affonso, not the rest of his family or his acting boss.”
“I—”
Dante’s hand flew up, silencing Ray instantly. “And I didn’t call this meeting to discuss those issues with Affonso’s underboss. I called this meeting to talk with the man who had headed the family then, and who is heading it now.”
Calisto froze on the spot, taking in Dante’s words.
He had essentially said Calisto had headed the Donati family months ago, just before his accident. Repeatedly, Calisto asked why he had been the one to set up the meeting with the Irish boss, only to get little to no answers in response. Affonso had been out of state—or country—apparently.
A vacation.
No boss needed a stand-in—or rather, a man to head his family as the boss—for a fucking vacation.
Dante passed Calisto a look, a grin edging at the corner of his mouth. “You look as if you just realized something.”
Calisto glanced to the side, taking in Ray’s clenched fists and scowl.
He had realized something.
It was important.
More lies, he knew.
“I think I may have.” Calisto took a step forward, once again making his rank clear when he held up a hand to keep Ray from moving with him. “Let’s chat some more.”
Dante nodded once. “Let’s do that, Donati.”
“Cal, wait a second!”
Ray’s hand clamped down on Calisto’s shoulder and grabbed tightly. He tried to pull Calisto, as if to spin him around, but it only pissed Calisto off more.
Calisto turned fast on his heel, grabbing Ray’s hand in his own and squeezing the man’s fingers until he heard bones crunch. The shout of shocked-filled pain that Ray let loose did little to bother Calisto as he kept squeezing tighter and forcing Ray’s wrist to bend backward at an awkward angle.
In the middle of the restaurant parking lot, Calisto forced Ray on his knees.
“Don’t put your fucking hands on me,” Calisto snarled. “I’m not some little bitch-boy you’ll push around, Ray. Is that clear?”
Wolf stood a few paces back, watching the scene with an almost disinterested expression. He shoved his hands in his pockets, and glanced over his shoulder, unbothered.
Calisto’s attention went right back to Ray. “A fucking vacation, right?”
Ray cussed under his breath, but didn’t try to fight Calisto’s hold. “W-what?”
“A vacation, asshole.”
“I don’t know what you’re talk—”
“Affonso. His vacation, Ray. That’s what both you and he told me when I came out of that goddamn coma and couldn’t remember anything. He was on vacation. That’s why I was where I was. That’s why the Irish came after me and not him. His vacation. Do you need me to spell it out for you, cafone?”
“That’s what it was,” Ray mumbled, wincing when Calisto squeezed his fingers again and bent his wrist further back.
A little more and it would snap.
It wasn’t all that hard to break a man’s wrist.
“You’re a liar,” Calisto said quietly, his tone darkening with his rage. “And he’s a fucking liar, too. I think the more likely truth is that Affonso ran because he started shit with someone and couldn’t clean up the mess. And where did that leave me? Heading his family and fixing his fucking problems. Whatever problems he had with Connor O’Neil. And that’s why they came after me. It wasn’t a goddamn vacation. He ran like a coward.”
Ray wouldn’t meet Calisto’s gaze.
He didn’t really need him to.
Calisto let Ray go, and with a single shove, knocked the man to the ground. Without a word, Calisto turned on his heel and made a beeline for his SUV parked at the other end of the lot. He didn’t need to look back to know that Ray wasn’t following behind him.
However, when he went to get into his own car, a hand wrapped around his driver’s door and stopped him. Calisto found a silent, curious Wolf waiting.
“What?” Calisto asked the Capo. “Do you have something you want to fucking add to this shitty day?”
Wolf shrugged. “Chill out, huh?”
Easy for him to say.
It wasn’t his life being turned upside down every time he turned around.
Calisto scoffed. “Remove your hand before I do it for you.”
Wolf didn�
��t question the order, simply dropped his hand. He didn’t step away from the SUV, though.
“What now?” Calisto growled, more irritated than ever.
“You’ve got people on your side, boss,” Wolf said. “Just like you did then.”
“Oh, do I? Because apparently then, it did me no good. I still ended up with a car full of bullet holes and a memory with just as much empty space. Maybe I should thank my men for being on my side then.”
Wolf cringed. “The meeting was good, boss. With the Irish boss—Connor—it went good. Nothing should have happened.”
Calisto’s brow furrowed. “You can’t know that. I didn’t take anyone in.”
“Like I said, you’ve got people on your side. Even when you don’t know it. Maybe you should stop focusing on the people who aren’t until you get some other shit figured out.”
“Like what?”
Wolf stepped away from the car, waving his arms wide. “I don’t know. That’s what you need to figure out.”
Calisto cursed.
Emma
Emma picked at the waffle on her plate, knowing she had to eat it whether she was hungry or not. Just because her mind didn’t feel like she needed food, didn’t mean that her body could go without some kind of sustenance. Maybe, if it was just her, she would be able to push the meal away without concern.
But it wasn’t.
She had to eat for her baby.
It didn’t matter that the brightly colored berries on top of the whip cream held very little appeal, and the small dish of maple syrup waiting to be used didn’t strike a chord with her sweet tooth. It wouldn’t make a difference that each bite would only make her jaw ache and her gag reflex act up.
She wasn’t hungry because her stress level was high.
She couldn’t sleep.
She worried, constantly.
But … her baby.
So, when the cook walked past the kitchen table and tapped a single finger beside Emma’s plate, she picked up the fork and cut a small triangle off the side of the waffle. Stuffing the bite in her mouth, Emma wished she could enjoy the sweetness of the blueberry waffles, but instead, she found herself focusing on chewing and swallowing just to get the job of eating done.
Sherry—the Donati family’s cook—offered her a knowing, but sad, smile. “You need to eat, Emma.”
Emma sighed. “I am.”
“More than what you are.”
“It’s been a long week,” Emma said in explanation.
A long, sleepless week filled with anxiety and nightmares.
Sherry nodded. “I know, but it’s almost over. He’ll be home soon, and on the mend before you know it. No worries there. Affonso is nothing, if not capable of bouncing right back to his usual self.”
Emma had to hide her cringe with another bite.
His “usual self” was exactly the problem.
Maybe it made Emma a horrible, disgusting human being, but the very last thing she wanted was her husband to come home. She hadn’t wanted Affonso to survive at all after taking three bullets to the chest, but the man just wouldn’t die, it seemed. When everyone else was praying for Affonso’s health and recovery, Emma was praying for freedom from his manipulation and abuse.
And not just her own freedom.
No, she prayed for her son’s and for Calisto’s, too.
Yet, God didn’t hear.
Or he just didn’t care.
Emma wasn’t sure which one it was, but she had accepted one part of her truth a long time ago. The day she broke her marriage vows and started an affair with her husband’s secret son was the day she had become the bad guy in her own story. It didn’t matter what Affonso did to her, or how he treated her. She would always be the woman who stepped out on her husband. She would always be seen as the woman who became pregnant with her lover’s child; the woman who brought shame down on herself, her husband, and her baby.
Nothing more.
She was scared of others seeing her that way.
So, she did what she had to until she had another option. Until something else—Calisto, she hoped—came along to free her from the cage she was in with her marriage and her husband.
What else could she do?
“There you go again,” Sherry murmured. “Off into another world. Those concerns of yours are going to worry that little baby right out of you, Emma. And we can’t have that. He needs to cook a while longer yet.”
Emma came out of her depressing thoughts with a bang, and somehow, managed a laugh at the cook’s joke. “I know.”
“Don’t worry about Affonso.”
“I’m not,” Emma said.
Well, it wasn’t a total lie.
She wasn’t worrying about Affonso getting better—the bastard was already on the mend. She was worrying about what would happen when he got home. It wasn’t as if she had been doing anything wrong while he was away in the hospital recovering, but sometimes the stupidest things could set Affonso off.
As it was, he was a paranoid prick.
The less control he had, the worse he became.
Especially with Emma.
She didn’t exactly think that Affonso would be made of happiness and sunshine when his doctors gave him the all clear and sent him home to her. He would probably still be in pain, likely bed-ridden to a point, and no doubt, a major fucking hassle on both her physical and mental health.
That terrified her.
She was not in a good position to be fighting back against her husband’s usual attitudes and behavior. Her pregnancy was risky enough without adding the stress of an angry, irritable husband to the list.
Hadn’t she dealt with him enough?
Emma just wanted her baby to have a little more time to prepare for the world. She worried that Affonso coming home in one of his moods and taking his suspicions and anger out on her might do the baby more harm than anything else.
“Good,” Sherry finally replied, giving Emma a conspiratorial grin. “God knows he wouldn’t worry too much over you, hmm?”
Sadly, that was all too true.
Sherry winked and straightened, making a beeline for the island as footsteps began to echo somewhere outside of the kitchen. Emma braced for the onslaught of what was about to come. The girls—Affonso’s daughters, Michelle and Cynthia—hadn’t been home for more than a couple of days, but the added presences in the house didn’t help Emma’s anxiety levels.
She loved Affonso’s daughters, to be sure.
While she hated him, she adored them.
Even Michelle, when the girl was in a mood and acting out. It didn’t matter—Emma saw the behavior for what it was. It wasn’t all too long ago that Emma was in the very same position that Michelle was. A young girl growing up in a materialistic environment that was meant to make up for the lack of love and affection she needed from her father.
And sometimes, acting out was the only way to get that attention.
But right then, the girls were worried for their father. Affonso had asked they not come to the hospital, as he didn’t want them seeing him in that position. He had talked to them once over the phone, but it hadn’t been for long, and it mostly consisted of the girls bickering with one another while Affonso cursed on the other line about the nurses and morphine.
Michelle and Cynthia just wanted their dad.
Emma didn’t want him at all.
It was a strange situation, though the girls couldn’t possibly know how Emma truly felt. She was torn between hating the man and wanting him to stay the hell away, and sympathizing for his daughters, both of whom she cared deeply for.
She didn’t know what was the right thing to do, so she plastered on a fake smile as Michelle and Cynthia strolled into the kitchen sporting bedhead, baggy pajamas, and bleary eyes. Her problems with Affonso, and all of the secrets she was being forced to carry, were not the burdens of these young teenagers.
They shouldn’t have to carry them.
Emma wouldn’t allow them to.
&nbs
p; Not if she had any say.
“Morning, girls,” Emma said, making sure there wasn’t even a hint of worry or sadness to her tone. It was the best she could do for Cynthia and Michelle. She certainly wasn’t doing it for Affonso. “Sherry made your favorite—waffles.”
Michelle barely passed Emma a glance, as she was too busy wiping at her eyes between staring at the phone in her hand. Cynthia, though, pulled out a chair closest to Emma and sat down. The oldest of the two daughters tried to smile, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes.
“Do you think we could go visit Daddy today?” Cynthia asked.
Emma had to force herself not to frown. She despised Affonso more for refusing his daughters, at the very least, the relief of seeing him recovering and getting well. When they had heard the news, it had all ended in a melting pot of crying, sobbing, and demands to come home from boarding school. Without Affonso’s permission, Emma had the girls sent home.
“Probably not,” Emma said. “You know he doesn’t want you to see him like that.”
Michelle scowled as she sat down, and a plate of waffles was shoved in front of her face. “Or he just doesn’t want to see us at all.”
“That’s not it.”
Cynthia glared at her sister. “Don’t act like such a bitch, Michelle. He almost died.”
“You’re a fucking bi—”
“Okay,” Emma said, stopping the girls before they could really get started. “That’s quite enough, you two.”
She held both hands up, hoping it would act as a proverbial wall between the two and keep them from spitting more hurtful words at one another. With those two, it was hard to tell. Some days, they acted as though they loved one another fiercely, and then the next, they were clawing at each other’s throats every chance they could.
Having grown up as an only child, Emma had not been privy to the sort of strange and complex relationship that grew between siblings. Especially siblings that had gone through as much in their short lifetime as Michelle and Cynthia had with losing their mother, and having a mob boss for a father who just couldn’t find it in himself to care about his children.
