by Bethany-Kris
It was a thin, but sharp, letter opener.
Calisto just barely saw the flash of silver as Affonso raised it. He dodged it, but it still landed on his shoulder with enough force to puncture and hurt like a bitch.
It was a bitch move, after all.
Hissing through his teeth, Calisto’s fist came up, gun still firmly tucked in his grasp, and smashed Affonso in the side of the head and face. The crack of the gun hitting against Affonso’s skull reverberated through the room. Calisto didn’t give his uncle a chance to fight back before he was grabbing a fistful of Affonso’s hair and smashing his face down into the desk.
Blood, cartilage and saliva spilled in a mess of red liquid under Affonso’s face onto the desk. Affonso shouted, although it was muffled by his broken nose and bloodied mouth. He gagged when Calisto pulled his head up again, and brought him right back down into the desk with more force than before.
Affonso tried to fight back, but he was weak.
And drunk.
Calisto let those years of anger, frustration, and hatred build with every lift and shove of his uncle. He let the bones break, because it helped his heart to settle. He couldn’t make Affonso bleed enough, couldn’t hear the man begging loud enough, but it still felt fucking damn good.
“Where’s my son?” Calisto growled.
Affonso cursed at him, garbled and mumbled. “Go to hell.”
That just pissed Calisto off more.
“Where is my boy?”
“Dead,” Affonso spat out. “Like I should have done to you.”
For a breath’s time, Calisto hesitated. His heart ached, but he didn’t believe Affonso.
He couldn’t.
Cross would have been Affonso’s last hope. He wouldn’t hurt that boy.
“He’s somewhere in this fucking place, isn’t he?” Calisto asked as he brought Affonso’s battered face down into the wood again. “Tell me where he is, or I’ll—”
“Fuck you, Calisto.”
Not caring that his time was running out—he’d still been counting down—Calisto forced Affonso to his back, and brought the barrel of his gun right in between the man’s eyes. “I will watch your brain paint this fucking desk, Affonso, so help me God.”
“You would kill your father?”
“I had no father—you are no one. You never were.”
The briefest flicker of pain and resignation flashed in Affonso’s eyes. “I have loved you all your life, Calisto.”
“You loved what you made, not me. It isn’t the same thing.”
Calisto knew that, now.
And it made all the difference.
He was done wasting time with Affonso, because in the background of the screaming fire alarm, he could hear another kind of wailing. Faint as it was, it was there.
A baby’s cry.
Pulling the manila envelope from his pocket, Calisto yanked the papers out and flipped to the final page, slamming it down over the side of the desk where Affonso’s blood hadn’t managed to stain.
“Sign it,” Calisto demanded.
Affonso’s gaze cut to the side, glancing at the paperwork and then back to Calisto. “I’ll sign nothing.”
Frustrated, but unwilling to show it, Calisto snatched a pen, forced it into Affonso’s shaking hand, turned the man over, and grabbed his fist in his own. He forced Affonso’s signature, as messy as it was and with a little stain of blood at the end, across the dotted line. Then, he slammed the folder closed.
“She’ll file these in a month, when you don’t come back home, and they magically appear on the doorstep one day,” Calisto murmured in Affonso’s ear. “Divorce papers, you know. After all you’ve done to her, she deserves this.”
Grabbing for his gun again, Calisto rolled Affonso back over again, aimed, and cocked back the hammer.
Affonso didn’t look away.
Neither did Calisto.
He wanted to see his eyes.
Emma deserved one thing.
Calisto deserved another.
He pulled that trigger—blood and brain matter sprayed across the front of the desk and against the opened door and wall—and it was the easiest fucking thing he had ever done.
Calisto dropped Affonso’s limp body without another thought—he barely even looked at the man as he snatched up the signed divorce papers that essentially freed Emma and gave her any and all access to Affonso’s trusts, accounts, and assets.
He’d thank the lawyer again for that one when he could.
Following the sound of the faint cry of an infant, Calisto moved out of the office and all the way down the hallway to the only door that had been opened. The bedroom.
He found little Cross—swaddled but angry—in a pile of blankets in a closed closet.
With trembling hands, Calisto scooped his son up, and held him tight. He cradled Cross’s tiny head in his much larger palm, kissed the baby’s soft, sweet smelling skin, and told him how much he loved him and that he was sorry.
“Daddy’s here, little man,” Calisto whispered.
Cross stopped crying, but his sniffling continued. He rooted against his father’s cheek, looking for something to suck on, Calisto believed. He couldn’t get out of the penthouse fast enough, and he didn’t spare a glance at the bloody, dead woman on the way out, either.
The moment Calisto stepped out of the penthouse and closed the door, he knew something was wrong.
He could smell it.
Fire.
“Jesus, Gio,” Calisto grumbled.
The elevator wouldn’t work when he tried it. Cross fussed in his father’s arms as Calisto jogged to the exit where the stairs were. He took them three at a time, practically flying down level after level. At the middle, firefighters were coming up.
“Hurry, hurry,” one barked at him.
Calisto nodded, and kept going.
“Too much,” another one said. “Floors are looking empty from the eighth down. We gotta go back.”
One man offered to take the baby from Calisto’s arms, but he refused. With an entourage of escorts, he was taken down the rest of the way until he was shoved out into the cold, dark night air.
Someone shouted out a head count.
Another responded positively.
The firefighters’ coms went off, confirming they were out, too.
Looking up, Calisto found the building bright and burning right in the middle and just above. The flames kept going higher, licking at windows and promising to hide what he’d done.
Just across the street, he found his old friend waiting.
Giovanni waved two fingers.
Calisto nodded back.
He couldn’t do much else.
He had a baby to bring home to his mother.
Calisto
Calisto had only stepped out of the SUV when the front door of the large Donati home was thrown wide open. He circled the front of the vehicle, his son in his arms. It wasn’t safe to drive while carrying an infant, to be sure, but he hadn’t exactly had a choice.
Snuggled against his father’s chest, seemingly unbothered by the cool wind whipping through the air thanks to his thick blanket, Cross slept. A tiny, pink thumb was stuck firmly in his mouth, while his other fisted his blue blanket and kept it close to his face.
The softest cry—aching and relieved at the same time—carried over the large front lawn as Calisto came up to the walkway. He glanced up, finding Emma waiting in the entryway of the home. Wolf stood beside her, a hand on her shoulder as if to keep her in place.
Calisto didn’t want to make a scene—he was sure there were people watching from their homes, given the time, and the fact that his SUV was anything but quiet. Also, he was a Donati, and everybody knew who lived in the Donati home. It wasn’t like they were afforded a great deal of privacy.
Even still, he sped up his walk, knowing how worried Emma must have been as she waited for days to have her son back—his son.
Calisto held the baby boy a little tighter, brought him hi
gher where he could smell the familiar scent of his child, and ran his palm over Cross’s tiny head. He didn’t even stir.
Emma’s arms were already reaching for the baby boy the moment Calisto’s foot hit the bottom step. “Can I—oh, let me have him, please?”
He didn’t really want to let Cross go, but he’d been holding him for a while. So without argument, he let Emma take their son into her embrace. He shielded her from the view of whoever might be watching as she lifted her son high enough to snuggle him, kiss him, and breathe his little life in. Tears streaked down her cheeks, and she couldn’t seem to catch a breath.
Calisto knew that feeling all too well.
“He’s all right,” Calisto found himself saying.
He wasn’t sure why.
Emma met his gaze, her tears still falling. “You’re sure?”
“He didn’t even have a dirty diaper, Emmy.”
She nodded, but still held Cross closer to her chest like someone might reach out and snatch him from her again. The bluish, black bruise beginning to form under her right eye, and the one coloring up her left cheek, reminded him of exactly why that was.
The girl was willing to take a beating to try and protect her child.
Calisto loved her even more for it. But he would make damn sure that she didn’t ever have to experience that again. Certainly not by his hands, or anyone else’s, if he could help it.
“We should go inside,” Calisto suggested, “and get him out of this cold air.”
Emma agreed, but surprised him when she reached out a hand, waiting for him to take it. Calisto hesitated, but only because he was scared. All of his feelings for Emma, the things they had done, and the strange relationship they’d shared, would never be acceptable to people in their lifestyle. He was terrified that their actions would lead them down a path neither of them wanted to go.
Still, he took her hand.
He would figure something out.
For right then, at that moment, she just wanted to hold him.
So he gave that to her.
Once they were inside the house, and the door was closed, Calisto went about removing his suit jacket and kicking off his shoes. All the while, he felt Emma’s eyes on him as she murmured sweetly to the sleeping baby in her arms.
“I’ll go make some coffee,” Wolf said.
Calisto nodded at the Capo, grateful. “That sounds … like it’s exactly what I need.”
“I bet, boss.”
Boss.
There wasn’t even a question there.
Wolf didn’t even bother to ask about Affonso, it was like he just knew.
“Why don’t you get the little one settled in?” Wolf asked. “I’ll be ready to chat business when you are.”
Calisto understood Wolf’s thinly-veiled words. Affonso was gone, and it would be best to make sure it was known to the rest of the men in their family as soon as possible. Even if the story Calisto planned on telling was nothing more than a bunch of lies.
He still had to protect himself, his son, and Emma. It was selfish, in a way, but Calisto figured after everything, they deserved to be happy.
The second Wolf had disappeared down the hallway, Emma turned on Calisto.
“Does he …?” she trailed off, questioning.
“He knows enough,” Calisto said. “I trust him.”
She hugged Cross’s swaddled form closer. “Thank you.”
Unable to stop himself any longer, Calisto crossed the small space between them. His fingers found the spot under her chin, and he tipped her head up so that he could claim her mouth. The kiss started out slow and soft, gentle swipes of their lips moving soundlessly together. And then he felt more tears slide down her cheeks, he wiped them away as fast as he could, and kissed her a little harder until she was gasping for a breath.
“Do not ever thank me for protecting what I love,” he murmured.
Emma blinked, wetness coating her lashes. She let out a shaky sigh, her hand coming up to stroke his jaw. “I love you, Cal.”
That was the one and only thing that was important to Calisto.
Anything else was small.
Emma and their son were everything.
Everything that mattered.
Calisto leaned in the doorway of the nursery, watching as Emma leaned over the crib, and trailed her fingers through the dark tufts of Cross’s hair. The baby had woken up shortly after they arrived, demanding to be fed and changed.
God, Calisto swore his son smiled when he saw his mother.
Like he’d been waiting for her.
Nothing felt better than that.
Now, however, Cross was tucked into his crib, safe and sound. He was fed, changed, and Emma even gave the baby a bath. There was nothing more that needed done for him, as he was content to sleep at least until he woke up hungry again, but Emma couldn’t seem to leave his side.
“Emmy?” Calisto asked.
Emma didn’t turn around. “Yeah?”
“He’s fine, amore.”
“I know.”
“Let him sleep.”
Emma cupped the baby’s chubby cheek and swept her thumb across his skin. “He is sleeping.”
“Emma, the baby cameras are on him, the house is locked up tight, and I have people outside the door.”
She let out a heavy breath, never once turning away from the baby.
“He’s safe,” Calisto promised.
He suspected that was the majority of her issue. She was probably terrified that if she turned around, someone was going to come and take her son away from her again.
“No one is coming for him, Emmy,” Calisto said softly.
Her shoulders dropped. “I tried so hard to keep him safe from Affonso, you know? And then he just … ripped him away from me like it all meant nothing. I felt so useless—useless for Cross.”
“You are far from useless. You did what you could, sweetheart. And I am more thankful than you know for what you’ve done this last year.”
Emma nodded once, but he could tell by the expression of her profile that she wasn’t entirely convinced.
“You saved him and me, Emmy,” Calisto added after a moment. “You do realize that, don’t you? By doing what you had to do, no matter the cost, you saved us.”
“I only loved you both,” she replied quietly, and wiped a stray tear from her cheek. “That was all, Calisto. Even when it killed me inside, I loved you both.”
“I’m sorry it was so difficult, but it won’t be like that now.”
Emma didn’t respond, but he knew she heard him just by the way her gaze softened as she stroked Cross’s cheek again. The sleeping baby boy seemed fully content where he was, and so did his mother. Calisto didn’t want to pull Emma away from his son if that’s where she really wanted to be right then. Deep in his heart, he could feel a tugging sensation that demanded he be closer to Cross, too, but for the moment, he simply wanted to clear his head for the days to come.
He would have a lifetime with his son.
Emma had felt like hers had been prematurely ripped away before he stopped it.
“Emmy?”
“Yeah, Cal?”
“When you’re feeling ready to leave him be, Wolf will stand outside his door until he wakes up. I’ve already asked him to stay a while. He agreed.”
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“He’s safe, I promise.”
“Right now he is.”
“Forever, Emmy.”
God, Calisto hoped Emma believed it.
The water wasn’t hot enough for Calisto’s needs. He turned the cold water knob down a little more, feeling that fresh sting of scalding water hit his back and shoulders. It made him hiss at first, but it felt damn good, too. He wanted to wash away the day—the shit he had done. He didn’t regret it, and he never would, but he still felt as if he were in the mindset of then and not the now.
That was a problem.
So he turned the water hotter, and washed the blood from his hands.
He prayed under the spray, his lips moving silently, and his hands pressed against the shower tiles.
There was one second—one weak, passing thought—when he almost wished that things could have been different. That maybe his life could have been different, and his paths could have been easier ones to travel. He only thought of that for the simple reason that he hated to see someone he loved suffer.
Someone like Emma.
Someone like his mother.
Someone like Father Day.
Or even his son.
Those were burdens he wore like a noose tightening around his throat. In one way or another, Calisto always ended up causing someone he loved to suffer in some way. Each time his mother looked at him, she had to have seen Affonso staring back, her attacker reflected in her own son’s eyes. And then with Emma, he had been too stupid, too weak, and too selfish to let her go when he knew he should.
Somewhere inside, he was scared that he might end up doing the same thing to his son someday. He’d never given much thought to children, but he hadn’t not thought about them, either. Now he had a child of his own, one that needed him to love him, keep him safe, and give him all the things he needed to be a good human being.
That was something Calisto could thank his mother for doing where he was concerned. Had she left his raising mostly up to Affonso, there was no telling how he would have turned out.
Terribly, likely.
Worse than he was. And as it was, Calisto already felt like a monster.
Did love justify suffering?
Would it ever justify pain?
Calisto wasn’t sure that fixing mistakes and giving futures that would have been otherwise lonely and obsolete was enough to make up for the suffering.
But he had chosen this path—it was the right one for him. Emma, his son, and his famiglia … how could it be wrong?
As someone had once told him, he would find his way back to the right path eventually, but it would be a journey to get there.
Calisto sincerely hoped the worst of it was over.
