by Chloe Walsh
"Power is everything," Dad snarled, tone defensive, as he roughly dragged me back to my feet. "I remember the code just fine, Raff."
"Loyalty, family, and then power," Raffaele corrected in an eerily soft tone of voice. "Although, I cannot say that I am surprised to hear you list power. When loyalty was never high on your priorities, was it, comrade?" His smile deepened and it chilled me to the bone. "You betrayed your il capo, your first in command, and you left him for dead." He tutted softly. "And then you took what was not yours to take." With a small shake of his head, Raffaele reached for his cigar and placed it between his lips. "That was most dishonorable."
"We both know why I did what I did," my father replied, tone emotionless. "I stand over my decision."
Raffaele's eyes darkened in challenge. "Is that so?"
"A conscience has no place in our world and yours was blinding you," Dad countered evenly. "Face facts, Raffaele, you got soft and let that pretty, little wife of yours sway your head." He narrowed his eyes. "You let her lead you astray from the family."
"Which is why you took matters into your own hands?" Raffaele offered coolly. "Why you betrayed your capo and sent me to prison? To put right all of my wrongdoings?"
"Everything I did was for the good of the family," Dad countered. "I brought in more money –"
"We do not deal in women!" Raffaele roared, slamming his fist down on the desk. We have never dealt in women. Not in five generations, but what do you do the minute you overthrow me? You piss on our ancestors!" Furious, he grabbed a golden ornament off his desk and threw it against the wall, barely missing my father – who, to his credit, didn’t flinch. "I am not a good man, Calisto. I have never claimed to be. I am a bringer of death, just as every man in this room is. However, I am a fair man. I am a man of the code. But you –" he paused to give my father gun fingers, "you bring shame on all of us. Everything you did was for greed," the Italian continued. "A greed you will soon pay for."
"Raff –"
"Was it painful?" he asked then, leaning back in his seat. "When I returned from prison and took back my power? When men – men who you were so convinced of their loyalty – returned to their rightful capo? Did it hurt just a little, Calisto? To learn that power is nothing without loyalty? I imagine it could not have been easy to sleep at night, knowing that I was out there, rebuilding my army by dismantling yours."
"What is this?" I choked out, horrified. "Are you a part of…the mafia or something?"
"Or something," Raffaele chuckled, eyes lighting up. "I like this one, traditora. I think I will keep her for my own personal entertainment. Her innocence is very endearing, no? And I must say it doesn’t hurt that she takes after her mamma in the looks department."
My father's face turned purple. "Fuck you!"
"No," Raffaele laughed. "Fuck you, Calisto. You are a foolish man," he added, gaze flicking to me. "To bring this beauty to me after all you have done."
Red-faced, my father cleared his throat. "You agreed–"
"I know what I agreed to, traditore," Raffaele interrupted, gaze sweeping over me. "I am, however, surprised to say the least, that you agreed to the trade. This one –" he waved a hand in my direction, "you raised from birth, and yet you give her to your enemy so easily."
"If you think this is easy for me, then you don’t know me like you think," Dad bit out, shaking with temper. "I love my daughter –"
"You love the daughter you strike down?" Raffaele arched a sardonic brow. "You love the daughter whose life you offer in exchange for your own? That is not love, you fool, that is the act of a coward."
"I'm his bargaining chip." The words spilled from my lips as I made a split-second decision to trust the devil I didn’t know. "In a sick game of cat and mouse."
"Indeed you are, Ramona," Raffaele agreed softly. "Except in this instance, your father is not the fat cat." Turning his attention back to my father, he asked, "How is my dear cousin, Christopher? Or should I say your partner in arms?"
"Mr. Capaldi," I spluttered, trying to piece the madness together, "is your cousin?"
"Oh yes, Ramona," the Italian replied. "My beloved and favorite cousin…until he vanished when I needed him most." Balancing a cigar between his lips, he leaned back in his chair and played with a tumbler of amber liquid. "Word on the street is that my dear cousin Christopher shacked up with the man who betrayed me." His eyes darkened. "Word on the street is dear old Christopher became your right-hand man."
"Chris –"
"Ramona!"
"Please," I begged, quivering. "Don’t hurt me. Please. I need to get out of here. He did that to Chris. Catochi. Because of him. And then he shot my boyf –"
"Ramona!" Dad roared, rearing his arm back. "Not another word–"
"For every finger you lay on your daughter, traditora, I will return the favor tenfold on your son," Raffaele warned when my father moved to hit me again. "I have nothing left to lose. You saw to that when you burned my family alive and attempted to take my throne. Therefore, I would strongly suggest you lower you hand."
"Son?" Shaking my head in confusion, I looked between both men. "What son?"
"Your father has kept many secrets, Ramona," Raffaele replied, never once taking his eyes off my father. "He is, what you would call, a dark horse. Am I correct, old friend?"
"Where is he, Raffaele?" my father demanded.
"Have you ever felt like a piece of you was missing, Ramona?" Raffaele spoke directly to me, like my father wasn't even in the room. "Hmm? Like something you couldn't quite put your finger on was absent in your heart? Or perhaps, you felt a void deep inside of your soul?"
Like a fool, I nodded, feeling like this man could somehow see directly into me in this moment.
"I h-have a br-brother?"
"You have more than just a brother," Raffaele said softly. "You have a twin, and unfortunately for you, the man whose loins you were borne from has decided you are of lesser value than him."
Lesser value? "What?" How could this be possible? Trembling, I tore my gaze off Raffaele and gaped at my father. "Is he lying?" I felt like the ground had opened up and I had fallen through to an alternative universe. "Dad, what's he talking about?"
Ignoring me entirely, my father balled his hands into fists at his sides and glared at the Italian. "Enough of the small talk, you son of a bitch. I'm here. I came without my men or protection, as you demanded. I brought you what you wanted. I have done everything you asked of me. Now, I want to see my son!"
"What makes you think that I have any intention of returning your son to you?" Raffaele taunted. "When you so callously took the life of mine?"
"Because I may not be a man of my word, but you are," Dad replied, sounding a little desperate now. "I am not a begging man, Raffaele, but I have been searching for him for fifteen years. Do whatever the hell you want with the whore who took him from me, dammit, but I need to see my son!"
Raffaele tilted his head to one side, considering my father's words. "No," he finally said. "I think not."
"I want my son, you bastard," Dad roared. "He's my heir, dammit!"
"And what about my heir, Calisto?" Raffaele demanded. "Our families were to be joined." He waved a dismissive hand in my direction. "This could've all been theirs, but your thirst for power blinded you." Raffaele continued to muse. "It is ironic, no? That I now intend to do exactly to your heir what you did to mine."
My father reddened. "We had a deal!"
"Did she scream?" Raffaele hissed, rising to his feet. "Did my darling Carmella beg for her life before you took it?" His voice took on a deathly cold tone as he walked around his desk and leaned against it. "Did my boy cry for his papa before you snuffed his life out?"
"Raff–"
"Answer me, you piece of shit!"
"You wanted her," Dad ground out, shoving me forward. "She was the price you set. Here she is. I brought her to you, so just take her. Take the girl and give me back my boy!"
Raffaele shook his head. "Your daughter i
s beautiful, yes, but not nearly enough of a consolation prize or incentive to clear her father's debts."
"She's an innocent!" my father blurted out then, causing my mouth to fall open in sheer, unadulterated horror. "Never been touched. Made damn sure of that."
Raffaele arched a brow. "A virgin?"
"Yes." My father nodded eagerly. "Two years ago, when I learned of your release, I knew you would seek vengeance so I made alternative plans for her. Kept her clean. Had her date a goddamn gay just to keep her out of trouble! What I did to your fam – and when I learned you knew of their whereabouts –" He stopped short and shook his head. "Listen, you can make a new heir with my daughter." His voice took on a pleading tone. "She is of pure Catalinia bloodline. You know this. Ramona is a great, great-granddaughter of one of the original families. You cannot discredit her worth in our world."
"I know all about her bloodline, Calisto," Raffaele drawled in a bored tone. "It is why I agreed to her betrothal to my son eighteen years ago!"
"When I was a baby?" I demanded, tears stinging my eyes. "You gave me away to his son when I was a fucking baby, Dad? What are you guys, some sick sort of perverts?"
"Ah," Raffaele chuckled. "There is fire buried deep inside the ice that surrounds you, Ramona. You are not the delicate flower you appear – more like a hard-boiled egg. That is good to know. It will keep you strong."
"Fuck off," I sobbed. "The both of you can go to hell."
"Are we not already there, sweet girl?"
Yeah, I was beginning to think we might be.
"Please," I begged, heart plummeting. "Don’t do this." Tears blinding me, I swung around to grasp at my father's shirt. "Daddy, don’t give me away –"
My words were cut off when the door swung inwards and a liege of black-suited, armed men marched inside with a young man and an older woman in chains stumbling after them.
"Ah, just in time for the show, gentlemen." With a clap of his hands, he reached for another cigar and sparked up. "Calisto, may I take this opportunity to reacquaint you with your loving wife, Arabella, and, lest we forget, your long-lost son, Seth."
10
Presley
Later that night, I was slumped in the corner of a makeshift bar in a warehouse located inside an abandoned quarry in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, minus Noah, who had to go home for dinner.
Apparently, the big guy was on a curfew, courtesy of his ball-busting wife, which left me alone with the pretty hitman, who seemed more interested in sexting his baby mama than talking through my feelings. Typical.
"Sweet mother of Madonna." Pushing my glasses up my nose, I gazed down at my former lover's neat handwriting and bit back a sob at the horror unfolding on the pages. "It's so much worse than I thought."
"Sure is, cowboy." With his feet resting on the table – highly unhygienic, may I add – Lucky continued to scroll through his cell while nursing a bottle of Budweiser.
"I have never, nor do I ever plan to saddle up a horse and play giddy-up around the pasture," I blurted out, having had quite enough of the aloof sex-god. "So, sir, unless you have nicknamed me cowboy as some sort of hilarious jokey reference to Brokeback Mountain because of my sexuality, which FYI, is totally shitty, not to mention homophobic, I strongly urge you to stop with the dang cowboy comments!"
He stared at me for a long moment before tossing his phone on the table. "When I call you cowboy, I'm referring to your accent," he finally said, giving me his full attention for the first time tonight. "I couldn’t give two shits what team you play for, kid."
"Good. Glad we cleared that up," I huffed, fixing my glasses. "Now, can we please get back to me?" I tapped on the journal before sliding it across the table towards him. "And the fact that I've just read some very traumatic information, not to mention exceedingly intimate confessions, regarding the affairs of the mob!"
It was all there in writing.
Everything my boyfriend had unearthed and was then murdered to keep hidden.
Chris, Romi, and Sketch were all children of criminals. And not just any criminals. Oh no, they were the baby-spawn of mobsters. Their entire lives had been a complete lie
Chris Sr. and Cal Dillon were both members of the Catalinian Mafia – one of the three oldest and most powerful mob families in Italy.
Worse, Sketch and Chris weren't twins.
They weren't even fucking brothers!
Dear Sibyl and Medusa's snake hair!
Sketch's real name was Jacob Toretto and he was the son of some mobster god or other, snatched away during an overthrow of power, and then raised by the Capaldis.
Lucky eyed me curiously. "I'm not sure if you want me to respond to that shit you just spurred or let you throw a fit…"
"Fit." Wailing loudly, I dropped my head in my hands. "Dear god, let me throw a fit."
"Then, by all means." He held up his hands. "Go right ahead."
I sniffled. "Thank you."
"No problem, cowboy."
"They killed him," I mumbled, trying to get my head around what I had learned tonight. "Because he figured it out."
"So much for loyalty," Lucky snorted, taking a drag of his smoke.
"Huh?"
"Loyalty," he explained with a shrug. "Means everything in their world. You ain't got loyalty, you ain't got nothing, cowboy." Taking another drag of his smoke, he butted it out in an ashtray, attention turning to something behind me.
"Bolillo," a man of Mexican descent with a thick accent acknowledged. "It's been awhile."
"G, " Lucky acknowledged, cool as a dang cucumber, completely unaffected by the shiny freaking gun not nearly concealed enough inside the waistband of this guy's jeans. "It sure has."
Pulling out the stool next to mine, the man lowered himself down and holy hell, it took everything in me not to gag from his B.O.
Hello, did these people ever hear of a little twentieth century invention called deodorant?
Chuckling, this G creature set his gun on the table, right freaking in front of me, and grinned, revealing a set of yellow and gold teeth. "Tired of the family life yet? Looking for some adventure to sink your teeth into?" The big man slapped a beefy hand on the table. "Just say the word, comrade, and a cut with your name on it will be ready and waiting –"
"I'm not here for work, G," Lucky interrupted, offering the man a warm smile. "I’m in for intel."
G's bushy black brows shot up. "I see." His attention flicked to me. "Don't tell me he's another damn Carter –"
"This one's a friend of the family," Lucky interjected before I could answer. "Sister's side."
"Hmm." Stroking his grizzly beard, the paunchy giant considered this for a long moment. "What do you need?"
"Everything you have on the Catalinian mob and more," Lucky replied calmly. "I'm talking location, net worth, contacts, men on the ground –" Pausing, he swung his gaze back to me. "What year was your buddy born?"
"Who, Sketch?"
"You got any more friends that were stolen as babies?"
I threw my hands up in a panic. "Well shit, I don’t know, mister. I wasn’t aware I had a single one until less than an hour ago –"
Lucky rolled his eyes. "I want the name of every baby boy born between 1998 and 2003. It's a tight-knit community, so it shouldn’t be too hard. I'm looking for a kid. Jacob Toretto. I need every damn detail you have on this kid –"
"Whoa, whoa, Bolillo, you ask for too much." G shook his head. "I ain't got time for this shit. I have a business to run."
"You know how I roll, G," Lucky shot back, eyes locked on the man. "Do me a solid and I'll owe you one back."
"Hmm." Grizzly Adams was back to pondering. "I will get you what you need, and in return, you will handle three of my contracts."
"Get me what I need by the end of the week, and I'll make it an even dozen."
G grinned. "Oh, Bolillo, how I have missed your crazy ass."
"Meh." Lucky shrugged. "I could use the workout."
"Well then," the other man replied wi
th a chuckle. "Consider us back in business, old friend."
11
Romi
Nothing in Pocketful is as it seems, Chris had said, and after eighteen years of living a life of lies, I knew that he had been putting it mildly.
He hadn't just meant Pocketful.
He meant our entire world.
I had a brother I never knew existed until this very night. I'd watched my father shoot the boy I loved. I witnessed a confession that was mind-blowingly painful. Things I could hardly comprehend were coming to life right in front of my very eyes and I was powerless to stop it all. What was I supposed to do now? How did I get out of this?
You can't, a voice hissed in my mind.
"Wh-what?" I breathed, eyes locked on the male version of, well, me. With his back to the wall, he stood proudly, chin up, blond hair cut short, brown eyes staring right back at me.
An eerie shiver rolled down my spine, and I felt my feet take an unplanned step towards him before being quickly dragged back by my father.
"Dad, what's h-happening here –" My words broke off when I locked eyes on the wafer thin, blonde woman. A wave of familiarity swept through me and I winced, brows furrowed in a mixture of shock and confusion, as a tingling warmth spread over me. "Mom?"
Whoa, why the hell was I calling this stranger Mom?
She didn't even look like my mother. Besides, my mom was dead. She died when I was six. I remembered because I attended the funeral. Sketch held my hand when they lowered the casket into the ground.
Sketch.
The boy behind the door.
Jesus Christ, what was happening to me?
"Ramona," she replied, sobbing quietly, as one of the guards stood her against the wall beside my apparent twin.
"Do not speak to that whore, Romi!" my father commanded, tightening his hold on the back of my neck. "She abandoned you."
"Abandoned me?" Frantic, I looked around, desperate for answers. "I don’t understand what's happening here!" I screamed, taking leave of my senses. "Someone start explaining. Please! Why does he look just like me? Why do I know her –"