Thin Lives (Donati Bloodlines #3)

by Bethany-Kris

  Calisto wasn’t sure how Affonso knew if he hadn’t been at the hospital, but he guessed his uncle had men posted, waiting for any news. He’d congratulated his uncle, and asked when he wanted Calisto to come to the hospital to see the baby.

  Affonso had hummed and hawed, not giving a real answer.

  Deep in the pit of his stomach, something heavy weighed Calisto down with every word he spoke. Sure, he gave his congrats, his platitudes, and pleasantries on the birth of his uncle’s son, but each word felt falser than the last. Like he didn’t really mean them at all.

  And maybe he didn’t.

  At the same time, he considered Emma, too.

  Who had been with her when she birthed her child?

  Who had helped her, encouraged her, and supported her through that hell?

  No one, it seemed.

  That made Calisto feel the very worst of all.

  “I’m happy for you, zio,” Calisto had said one last time to Affonso.

  His uncle’s response surprised him, but at the same time, it didn’t. “Are you really, Cal?”

  No, he really wasn’t.

  Calisto lied, instead.

  “Of course, you finally have your boy.”

  Calisto headed down the bright white, sterile-smelling corridor, hearing the muted sounds of murmurs and soft cries of babies coming from within the rooms of the maternity ward. He hadn’t known before arriving, but after a woman was done laboring and delivering her child, she was moved to the maternity ward where she would spend the rest of her stay.

  With a room number in mind, Calisto eyed the plaques on the doors he passed until he found the one he was searching for. Since the door was slightly open a couple of inches, and his uncle had invited him to come down and say hello to the newest family member—three days after the baby was actually born—Calisto didn’t think to knock and wait. He simply rapped his knuckles gently against the door and then pushed it open.

  The hospital room wasn’t empty, but it wasn’t filled with the people he expected, either.

  Soft, pastel blue walls with white trim and accents stared back at him. The hospital bed, which looked much more comfortable than the ones he had spent time in over the years, was propped up into a sitting position. The curtains had been drawn, and the lights were dimmed.

  Emma sat on the middle of the bed, cross-legged. On the bed with her was a tiny, blue bundle swaddled tightly but for one arm that had escaped. All Calisto could see was rounded, pink cheeks, dark tufts of hair, and a thumb firmly stuck between the baby’s lips.

  “My dark-eyed boy,” Emma cooed to the baby, running the tip of her finger down his nose. “You look just like your father, Cross.”

  Calisto cleared his throat, not wanting to feel like he was spying on Emma and her baby.

  Emma’s head snapped up, her gaze finding his instantly. A softness resonated in her features as she stared at him, seemingly unsure of what to say. “Calisto. I didn’t know you were coming.”

  “I didn’t mean to inter—”

  “No, no,” she interjected quickly, waving a hand to ask him closer. “Come here, you didn’t. It’s just …”

  Calisto strolled forward, but slowly. “Just what?”

  “Affonso hasn’t really allowed anyone to come, that’s all.”

  “He said he would meet me at the nursery,” Calisto said, shrugging.

  Emma’s eyes widened a second before she laughed under her breath. “Well, that’s on the other side of the maternity ward, Cal. It’s where they allow the families to spend time with the babies while giving us new mothers time to rest and also privacy.”

  Calisto cringed. “Sorry.”

  “It’s fine.” She scooped the sleeping baby into her arms, and his attention was drawn to the boy’s sleeping features. Instantly, he could see the resemblances he shared with the newborn. Brown-black eyes, dark hair, the shape of his nose and lips. “Cross Nazio Donati is what I named him.”

  Calisto was still staring at the baby, that sensation poking at his brain again, like there was something he was supposed to know, but couldn’t remember. “He certainly looks like a Donati.”

  The baby watched him with dark eyes.

  Donati eyes.

  It unsettled him, because the child felt so familiar to him, yet, he hadn’t even touched him.

  “He’s awfully expressive for a baby,” Calisto said more to himself than to Emma.

  Emma smiled a genuine sight. “I think he gets that from his father.”

  There was a lilt to her tone, as if there was more to her words. He still couldn’t stop staring at the baby, his mind running a million miles a minute. He was going straight back to that place where he knew he shouldn’t be. A place where he considered things like Emma, and his strange attraction for her—his desire to want to be closer to her. Just looking at the child that resembled him because they were family and nothing more was enough to twist his gut with something hot and heavy.

  The baby looked like it could be his, for Christ’s sake.

  And he liked that.

  “Would you like to hold him?” Emma asked.

  Her innocent question brought Calisto out of his crazy head with a bang. He knew he was going crazy—he had to be fucking insane. That was the only explanation to why he would even think about Emma in the way he was, never mind the things he knew he had once done with her.

  That’s what it is, he told himself. You’re confusing something that happened with everything you don’t know. You want to keep what you do know, so you’re forcing something that isn’t there. Stop being stupid!

  Calisto took a step back, and then another, even when Emma’s smile fell, and sadness colored her features.

  “Ah, no,” he started to say.

  “Just wait a minute, Cal.”

  Calisto shook his head. “I should go.”

  “Stay.”

  Her one word stopped his walk. He had turned, but glanced over his shoulder. “Didn’t you say that you asked me that once, and I didn’t listen?”

  She frowned. “Something terrible happened.”

  “I should go,” he repeated.

  But he really wanted to stay there with her and that baby that made his heart clench just by looking at him.

  “Cal,” Emma whispered.

  His head snapped up from the baby to her face again. “Yes?”

  “You keep looking at him like—”

  “It’s nothing, Emmy.”

  “Is it?”

  “Congratulations again, but I need to find Affonso.”

  Calisto strolled forward again, needing space and time to think.

  Behind him, he heard Emma call out, “Maybe you can’t remember because you don’t want to know what you’ve done. Is that it, Calisto?”

  He didn’t answer, but he was terrified that she was right.

  Calisto had every intention of just leaving the hospital—he did. As he came to the exit doors of the wing, the one that would lead him back the way he came, the elevators opened down the opposite hallway, and out came several people he recognized.

  Affonso, Ray, and another family Capo that his uncle was particularly fond of.

  Calisto’s hand was on the door, ready to push it open, when his uncle called out. He tried not to show how warred he felt inside as he turned to his uncle with a fake smile firmly in place.

  “Zio,” he greeted, meeting the men in the middle of the hall. “I couldn’t find you.”

  Affonso waved a hand, dismissing his words. “No worries, Cal. They took my boy to his mother, and I went up to the roof for a smoke break.”

  “It’s a time to be celebrated,” Ray agreed.

  The Capo nodded as well.

  Calisto paid them no mind. He was more focused on the way Affonso was looking at him, as if he was searching for something.

  “Did you see the baby?” Affonso asked.

  Calisto forced back the truth. “No, and they didn’t give me a room number when I asked.”

&nbs
p; All lies.

  “Oh?”

  “No, I thought maybe I had the wrong hospital.”

  Affonso laughed. “Only you, Calisto. Come, we’ll see him now.”

  Calisto was going to refuse, but Affonso was already turning on his heel and heading down another hallway in the wing, far away from Emma’s room. He knew the baby boy—Cross, she had named him—was with his mother, but he didn’t say a thing as they came up to a row of glass windows showcasing plastic bassinets and rocking chairs behind the walls.

  Affonso sighed heavily. “He’s not back yet.”

  “It’s fine,” Calisto said, wanting to get the hell out of there as fast as possible. “I can see him on another day, uncle. I’m sure you’ll have a dinner or something.”

  Glancing over his shoulder, Affonso passed Calisto another one of his cool looks that screamed his displeasure. “You can wait a while. What is wrong with you? You look like something is on your mind. Have I missed something?”

  Calisto knew, just by the way Affonso was focusing in on him, that if he didn’t give his uncle something to consider, he would continue bothering Calisto until he had what he wanted. “I didn’t understand why you waited so long to call me to the hospital. That was all. I figured you wouldn’t mind if I didn’t see the baby for another few days.”

  Affonso raised a single brow high. “I’m being cautious.”

  “Oh?”

  “The Irish,” Affonso said simply. “And isn’t that enough? My son has been born, they’re in a rage, and I barely survived their first attack. I didn’t want all of us in one place at the same time. It would be like waving a giant red flag and practically asking them to come at me once more.”

  The moment Affonso started talking, Calisto knew his uncle was lying.

  Why?

  Because at that very moment, the most important people in the Donati Cosa Nostra were all in the same spot, the very same place, and they were together.

  Affonso, the boss. His wife, and newborn son. Ray, the family underboss. And Calisto, Affonso’s right-hand man as his consigliere.

  Yes, he was lying through his teeth.

  That only made Calisto even more distrustful of his uncle than he already was. He still thoroughly believed Affonso had something to do with the priest’s death, and from that moment on, he had walked on egg shells around his uncle, torn between a loyalty he had always felt, and the distrust that now colored his view.

  Calisto didn’t want to feel this way.

  Affonso was the one who didn’t give him a choice.

  “There he is,” Affonso said, bringing Calisto from his thoughts.

  Sure enough, a nurse walked in behind the windows, holding baby Cross in her arms. All over again, Calisto’s heart ached and his soul hurt in a way he couldn’t explain when he looked at the child.

  “Handsome, isn’t he?” Affonso asked.

  Calisto forced himself to speak. “He is. You should be proud, uncle.”

  Affonso smiled, and for once, it didn’t come off as cold. “Well, I suppose I have Emma to thank for that, hmm? She managed to do something right, for once.”

  Ouch.

  “She birthed you a healthy child,” Calisto said quietly. “I would think that in itself should be—”

  “She did something all women do, Cal. Do not mistake my gratitude for admiration.” Affonso stared at the baby as he was placed in a plastic bassinet. “And he isn’t entirely healthy—he’s got a touch of jaundice, and his oxygen fluctuates a bit too much.”

  “You said he was early by a few weeks.”

  “Almost two months,” Affonso replied, still focused in on the baby and not Calisto. “He had a little while longer to stay inside his mother, but what can you do when you have a defective woman?”

  But Calisto was listening—he heard the vileness coming from Affonso, but he heard something else, too.

  Almost two months early …

  Calisto counted back the months in his head, only now realizing something frightening but important. Maybe he had overlooked it because it was only recently Calisto learned about the period of a couple of months’ time when he had stepped in for Affonso because the man up and left his famiglia and his wife behind, only coming back after Calisto’s accident. It was just another lie Affonso had told.

  Those lies were adding up. They were making mountains Calisto couldn’t ignore.

  He did the math again.

  Once more.

  And again.

  Calisto swallowed hard, staring at the sleeping, dark-haired, olive-skinned, black-eyed baby just beyond the glass.

  Was it possible?

  Was this another thing he was missing?

  Was there a reason Emma wouldn’t have told him—a reason like her husband, and Calisto’s lost memories?

  Was that baby—

  “Now, about the Irish,” Affonso said, turning away from the window to face Calisto.

  He schooled his features, hoping his emotional upheaval was well hidden. “I will handle them.”

  “Will you?”

  “I’ve had several talks with the Marcellos. It’ll end, uncle.”

  Affonso looked pleased to hear it. “Wonderful.”

  “But they did want to know something,” Calisto said.

  “Which was what?”

  “The same thing I would like to know—why you’re in any sort of feud with the Irish family at all.”

  Affonso’s cold mask was firmly back in place in a blink. “What you need to concern yourself with—and nothing else—is the fact they nearly killed me, and you, at one point. That is enough for you. Do you understand?”

  Calisto stared into Affonso’s eyes—the same soul-black gaze he had.

  Except his was never cold.

  Calisto’s eyes never lied.

  “Yeah, zio, I got it.”

  “Good. I will give you a call about the meet-and-greet dinner Emma wants to have for the baby. Oh, and I hope you don’t mind, but I asked Ray to be the godfather.”

  Calisto found he did mind, as he was sure a couple of months ago, Affonso had asked him to be the godfather. He glanced to the side, finding Ray watching him silently.

  Just the way Ray’s head was turned in his direction, his arm outstretched toward the Capo to take the card he was handing over, made Calisto pause.

  He blinked.

  Familiar.

  Calisto could feel the steering wheel under his hands again, the dark highway ahead of his vision.

  It was that night—the one he kept dreaming about. The dream that ended in a nightmarish way with his car on its top, and then … blackness, nothing.

  But this time, when he turned to see who was speeding up beside his vehicle, their window rolling down, and the flash of metal that peeked out … Calisto found a familiar face.

  Ray.

  Calisto had never felt more insane—more crazed, caged—than he did pacing the length of his club’s large office. He’d only come here to the club because he knew it would be mostly empty given it was in the middle of the day and a weekday, no less. Only a few employees were downstairs, and they hadn’t even noticed him when he came in and went straight to the elevator that led to his office.

  Between his bouts of confusion and panic, the rage festered.

  Thickening his blood.

  Making his fists clench and his jaw tighten.

  He wasn’t even sure who he was angrier at—himself, or the people who had lied to him; people he thought he could trust were the ones who had taken two and half years of his life from him.

  A life he still didn’t have back completely.

  Then his confusion would hit all over again, making that crazy feeling build back up in an instant. For months he’d had that same dream, and saw that unknown shadow of a face staring back at him from the other vehicle before they began pulling the trigger and ran him off the road.

  He’d been near Ray time and time again since the accident.

  He’d seen the man over and ove
r.

  His brain had more than enough moments to remember it had been Ray who had done that, so why now?

  Was it even real, or was it just a by-product of Calisto’s paranoia making him see something that didn’t exist?

  Worse was the fact that Calisto didn’t understand why Ray would come after him at all. Unless there had been some issue that he couldn’t remember, but it seemed unlikely. It felt wrong.

  His gut hadn’t led him astray yet.

  So why?

  He despised the fact that he was still asking questions, that he had no answers.

  Was it Ray making a move on Calisto’s position?

  Or … had Affonso ordered the hit from wherever he had gone?

  More frustrated than ever, Calisto strolled over to the wall-to-wall windows, and stared out at the empty club floor.

  He didn’t know who to go to.

  He didn’t know who to trust.

  Blowing out a heavy breath, a calm swept Calisto’s senses. He pushed away from the windows, knowing what he had to do next. Protect himself—figure out why he had been lied to over and over again.

  Get rid of the problems.

  Whatever they were.

  It took him no time at all to take the elevator down to the main floor, and cross the club to the back entrance where he had left his vehicle parked in the back alleyway. Yet again, the few employees didn’t even notice him, as they were too busy with bringing in the liquor order, and readying the club for the weekend rush that was just days away.

  Calisto had just closed the driver’s side door of his SUV, turned the key in the ignition, and put it in drive when a dark form caught his eye in the rear-view mirror. A spike of dread drove straight into his spine, though he didn’t have much reason to feel that way.

  It could be just a worker.

  Or garbage pickup.

  A homeless person.

  But his gut never steered him wrong.

  Calisto reached for the gun holstered at his back as he glanced into the rear-view mirror again.

  Ray?

  The Irish?

  He couldn’t see a face, he was too focused on the hand holding the gun that was pointed straight at him through the back windows.