Thin Lives (Donati Bloodlines #3)

by Bethany-Kris

  Little things, Calisto thought again.

  Things he had overlooked, but were far bigger in the grand scheme of things when he put them all together.

  And here his uncle was, doing it again.

  Keeping him away.

  Why?

  “Didn’t you have some money to collect tonight?” Affonso asked, forcing Calisto out of his thoughts.

  He did.

  “That and a Capo to see about a shipment coming in next week,” Calisto replied, keeping his tone easy and unconcerned.

  Something was wrong.

  Nothing felt right.

  What was he missing?

  “I suppose you should get on that, then,” Affonso said. “I swear, all you do is work, Cal.”

  Calisto forced a chuckle. “Isn’t that what a good consigliere does for his boss? Works?”

  “Sure, but you’re a man, too, my boy. Make some time for that. Find a pretty girl, why don’t you? Amuse yourself. You’re closing in on twenty-nine. Time to start refocusing on … different things.”

  Like what?

  Marriage?

  Calisto’s stomach churned, and he didn’t even know why. He owned several clubs, and spent the majority of his evening time there on the weekends. Beautiful women went in and out all of the time. He had plenty of chances and offers, as far as that went.

  But they didn’t interest him.

  He turned them all down.

  “Are you even listening to me?” Affonso asked.

  Calisto just wanted out of the house all of a sudden. “Yeah, I’m listening, zio. But business right now, huh? It’s more important than a woman to keep me occupied.”

  Affonso laughed, his hand coming up to clasp Calisto’s shoulder.

  The weight of it felt off.

  Too heavy, maybe.

  “Business,” Affonso echoed, “is always more important than women.”

  The one thing Calisto hated more than anything was Manhattan traffic in the middle of the week on a Tuesday morning. It was damn near impossible for someone to get from point A to point B in any reasonable amount of time. There was always some sort of construction happening, an accident clogging up the lanes, or a road closed for some type of event.

  For a state like New York, he figured they should have had this congested traffic bullshit corrected by now. It was ridiculous.

  Drumming his fingers on the backseat of his new Escalade, Calisto glared at the cars ahead of him and silently willed traffic to move.

  “Chill out back there,” his driver said from the front. “We’re not late.”

  Calisto sighed. “Yet, Tiny. We’re not late yet.”

  “I will get you to tribute before the boss, trust me.”

  Deciding that arguing with his enforcer would get him nowhere, Calisto settled on glowering at the vehicles in the lane beside theirs that was going slightly faster.

  “Tribute should have been held elsewhere with the traffic being like this today,” Calisto said.

  “Boss likes upper Manhattan.”

  “I’m aware. The Irish stay away from there.”

  Because that nonsense was getting out of hand. Or rather, it already was, but the issues had started to escalate in just a couple of days. A shootout had occurred the night before at a business one of the Donati Capos owned—a restaurant. The Capo took a bullet, and four patrons of the restaurant were killed, along with a waitress the Capo apparently had a thing going on with.

  The Irish took responsibility for the attack almost immediately.

  Now, there was police attention. More so than before.

  Affonso was doing his best to keep his men happy and calm, but that was fucking impossible when a person didn’t feel safe doing regular business. There was a sit-down coming up between the Three Families in New York, and Calisto hoped that whatever the other two families could offer up would help to end the feud.

  Frankly, Calisto had no interest in seeking out the Irish. They had spilled more than enough blood to make it clear they were not interested in talking. They wanted territory, at least that’s what it seemed like, and Affonso refused to hand it over.

  Besides, Calisto’s accident—caused by the Irish—was enough trouble for him. He didn’t give a good goddamn how Affonso made the Irish go away as long as they went and stayed that way.

  “You know, I could have taken the Subway and gotten there faster,” Calisto noted.

  Tiny laughed. “I could see you riding the Subway now in that four-thousand-dollar suit.”

  Calisto brushed off the enforcer’s joke, as his phone buzzed in his pocket, taking his attention away for the moment. Pulling it out, Calisto swiped his thumb across the screen and typed in the four-digit passcode to unlock the phone. His old phone had been practically ruined in the accident, and wasn’t even capable of being turned on. Still, he kept it at his place on his desk, in case he ever wanted to take it in and have whatever was on it put onto a thumb drive.

  Pictures, contacts, videos and that sort of thing.

  He just hadn’t found the time. He had kept the same number for his new phone.

  A message from an unknown number filled the screen. It looked like a notification of some sort.

  Nick’s Ink. One year notification for touch-ups. Respond with yes or no by text message for an appointment.

  Calisto read over the message five times before it began to sink in what he was seeing. The rosary tattoo down his arm that led to the intricate cross inside his palm was in a particularly sensitive area. He’d looked up some information on tattoos on hands, and found that he would need to have his touched up on a six month to one year basis, but again … he hadn’t found time to do so.

  Briefly, he wondered if the tattoo artist might have some kind of information on Calisto’s tattoo beyond just the date he had gotten it.

  Like maybe why he had it done in the first place.

  “Tiny, do you know a place called Nick’s Ink?” Calisto asked.

  The enforcer passed him a glance in the rear view mirror. “Sure. Just a couple of blocks away.”

  “What street?”

  Tiny rattled off the address. “It’s a good shop. That’s where I told you to have that rosary done, but you probably don’t remember.”

  “No, I don’t,” Calisto said heavily. “Sorry, man.”

  “It’ll come back.”

  Maybe …

  Calisto glanced down at the message again, and had an idea. He wanted to know more about his tattoo, and the artist might be able to provide him with the information he needed.

  “Tiny?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Not late yet, right?” Calisto asked.

  “Nope.”

  “I could run a couple of blocks and meet you up there when traffic finally makes it down, yeah?”

  Tiny shrugged. “Probably.”

  Calisto opened the back passenger door, unclipping his seatbelt at the same time. A car honked a horn as it moved past their SUV at a slightly faster speed. He ignored it.

  “What in the hell are you doing?” Tiny asked from the front.

  “Nick’s,” Calisto said. “I’ll see you when you make it there.”

  “Why?”

  Answers, he thought.

  He needed answers.

  A bell jingled as Calisto pushed open the door to the tattoo shop. He wasn't entirely sure what he expected to find inside, but the clean atmosphere, leather seating and walls decorated with art was a good start. He didn’t exactly think a tattoo shop in mid-Manhattan would be filthy, but it was hard to say sometimes.

  This place was clean and inviting.

  A young couple sat on a leather loveseat, flipping through a book and chatting quietly to one another. Calisto passed them by to speak to the black-haired woman at the counter, her arms covered in sleeves of intricate and beautifully done tattoos.

  “Hey, Calisto, right?” she asked when he approached.

  How many times had he been here?

  “Yeah,”
Calisto said. “That’s me.”

  “You here to see Nick? He just left for lunch.”

  Shit.

  “Nick was the guy who did this?” Calisto asked, lifting his arm up.

  The girl’s brow furrowed. “I mean, yeah. He designed it. You came in for like two meetings beforehand to check out his sketches and approve them, and it took two sittings to finish it up. Your hand was the worst, so you came back for a second sitting.” She stared at him for a while longer and then asked, “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

  Calisto swallowed back the lump in his throat. “Because I don’t.”

  He quickly explained his accident, leaving out how he had been run off the road and shot at. At the word “amnesia”, the woman finally seemed to understand.

  “That’s rough,” she said, softer than he expected. “So you must not remember anything about the tattoo, huh?”

  “No,” he admitted. “But I want to know about it. I’m not a …”

  “Tattoo kind of person,” she filled in, grinning. “You said that a couple of times when you first came in. That’s why Nick was so insistent you make sure you loved what he was going to put on you. He didn’t want you to regret it in a few years.”

  Calisto glanced down at his arm, a sense of comfort passing through him as he looked over the rosary beads and the cross tattooed on his skin. “I don’t even remember it.”

  “Yeah, I got that.”

  “But I don’t regret it, either. So that says something.”

  She nodded like she understood. “You were pretty stoked about it, from what I remember. But hey, if you’ve got some time, Nick will be back in like an hour or so. He’s got to do the newlyweds’ matching rings.”

  Calisto checked his watch. “I don’t have that kind of time, actually. My … boss is waiting on me.”

  “We can set up an appointment for your touch-ups on the cross,” she suggested.

  “Let’s do that.”

  Calisto could wait a little while longer to maybe get some answers.

  After the girl had his appointment made, he turned to leave, but she called out to stop him.

  “Wait a second … I think Nick kept his originals for you, in case you wanted to have them or something,” she said. “Do you want them?”

  Calisto hesitated.

  What would original sketches do for the questions he had?

  But what would it hurt?

  “Sure,” he said.

  She quickly disappeared into the back of the shop, only to return a few minutes later with a handful of sketchpad papers. Calisto took them with a “thanks” and left the shop, finding Tiny waiting on the side of the busy street, leaning against the SUV.

  “Find what you were looking for?” the enforcer asked.

  Calisto shrugged, glancing down at the papers in his hand. The sketched rosary and cross was the exact same as the one on his arm, except …

  He looked a little closer.

  He brought the paper higher.

  Quickly, he shuffled through a couple of the sketches, finding the exact same thing on each one on three of the black-gray rosary beads side by side. Tugging his suit jacket off, and knowing damn well he probably looked crazy, Calisto pulled up the sleeve of his dress shirt.

  He counted down the beads.

  Thirteen, fourteen … fifteen.

  “What in the hell are you doing?” Tiny asked.

  Calisto ignored him, and his gaze traveled between the tattoo on his arm, and the sketch on the paper. It was there on his arm—they were there.

  Faint, but there.

  Five dates. They’d been hidden in the swirls of the rosary just so, he realized. A passing glance wouldn’t be enough to see them without someone pointing them out. On the paper sketches, it looked like Nick had purposely darkened the dates just to show how they would be incorporated and hidden.

  Calisto took the dates in again.

  Some he recognized.

  His mother’s death. His father’s death, and his grandfather’s passing date.

  The two others were unknown. One of the two was just a month and the year. The February of the previous year. He thought about what he knew had happened around that time because of what people had told him. Affonso and Emma had been married in early February, and the month before, Calisto had spent time in Vegas. The third date had the day tacked on as well, and it was for late September of the previous year as well.

  What were they for?

  He understood the importance of his mother’s death, and why he would want to memorialize something like that, but the other two were unknown.

  “Tiny?” Calisto asked.

  “Yeah?”

  “Does February of last year or September Nineteenth of the same year mean anything to you?”

  Tiny thought about it for a moment. “Not to me, I guess.”

  “Would they mean something to me?”

  “I don’t know, boss.”

  Jesus.

  That was becoming the story of Calisto’s life.

  Literally.

  Emma

  “All done here,” the doctor said, tapping Emma’s knees gently.

  It was her sign that Emma could finally get up off her back, make her lower half decent again, and take a breath.

  Having her cervix checked hurt and was uncomfortable enough. But having it regularly checked for even the slightest of changes was much worse.

  “You’re not opening,” the doctor explained, pulling off the gloves and tossing them in a waste basket.

  Emma’s relief was palpable. “Not even a little bit?”

  “No, but you are thinning.”

  Shit.

  A woman’s cervix needed to do two things to properly aide in delivering a baby. One was to dilate—to open. The other was to thin out, and that was usually helped along by the pressure of the baby’s head pushing down on the cervix.

  Emma couldn’t afford for either of those things to happen. Not yet.

  It was too early.

  At thirty weeks, Calisto’s son had a much better chance of surviving outside of Emma’s womb as a preemie. But she still had weeks to go at just twenty-five weeks. But the facts still remained the same, and those were scary. It was still possible for the baby to suffer from other consequences because of an early birth. Health issues or learning delays.

  She wanted to keep this baby in for as long as possible.

  “Can we put the stitch in?” Emma asked.

  The doctor spun her stool around so she could face Emma. Quickly, Emma readjusted the sheet on the bed to better cover her lower half and bare legs.

  “It’s a dangerous procedure as it is, Emma,” the woman explained. “And doing it too early could cause several other complications, including forcing you into active labor, which we can’t turn back, or even sepsis from infection. That is not a risk I want to take with you and this baby.”

  Emma wrung her hands together. “What should I do?”

  “What you have been. And you’re doing great. Rest. Get lots of food in you for energy. You’ll need it during the birth. Fluids, fluids, and more fluids. Keep track of the movements of the baby in case you notice any changes. More importantly, keep track of any changes in your body. Pain or otherwise. If I can help it, you will carry this child to term, or as close as I can get you. Do not push yourself beyond what you can handle. Okay?”

  It helped to have her doctor be so upbeat and encouraging.

  Most times, it felt like Emma was going to drown in her own anxiety where the baby and pregnancy was concerned. Her doctor was always optimistic.

  “Okay,” Emma said. “I got it.”

  “And try not to get stressed out while you’re at it.”

  Emma laughed, and her doctor just smiled. She really hadn’t meant the laugh as a joke, but apparently the woman took it as one. Unfortunately, stress was inevitable.

 
; How could it be any different?

  Emma was Affonso Donati’s wife, after all.

  “Boss, we’ve got a problem.”

  Ray slid in between Affonso and Emma, forcing her to take a couple of steps away from her husband. It wasn’t that she minded being further away from Affonso’s side, but it did irk her how Ray took every chance he could to dismiss Emma’s presence.

  She wasn’t sure why he did it, but it started when Affonso had returned home after Calisto’s accident all those months ago. It was possible Affonso had explained to his underboss about the affair that had gone on between Calisto and Emma, but she didn’t think that was likely.

  Affonso was all about image. Admitting his wife had slept around with his illegitimate son wouldn’t help how his people looked at him.

  Affonso sighed, and scrubbed a hand down his face. His gaze cut to Emma, and she just as quickly looked away. He’d taken to drinking heavily during the evenings again, and the subtle signs were starting to show. While her husband was still dressed impeccably, and his demeanor was as cold as ever, it was the smaller things she took note of that showed his stress and how he tried to manage it.

  He’d opted for sunglasses that morning, something he rarely did. He had a few days’ worth of stubble dotting his jaw and cheeks. He’d even topped off his breakfast with a glass of brandy.

  Yeah, Affonso’s threads were showing, and they were thin as hell.

  Emma couldn’t help but wonder why, or rather, what was happening that caused Affonso’s stress. He wouldn’t tell her if it was about Cosa Nostra business, and since he didn’t talk to her at all unless it was to criticize her, she chose not to ask in the first place.

  It was easier this way.

  “Today is not a good day for this,” Affonso said to Ray.

  “I’m aware. But we had some sights on a few cars. It could be an issue.”

  Emma’s brow furrowed, as she had no idea what they were talking about.

  “This is a day to celebrate the life of a holy man before he’s put to rest,” Affonso said. “No one would desecrate that, surely.”

  Ray clapped Affonso on the shoulder. “You give them too much faith.”