Some Way

by Tiffany Jade

  Rummaging through some of his drawers I finally find a black sweatshirt. I wiggle out of the skin tight red dress and replace it with the comfort of Gray's clothes. Breathing in deep the scent of him I feel the tears. Everything rushes back as I wrap my arms around myself.

  I thought he was gone. I watched that bullet wrack his body and every ounce of fear I had had for myself was instantly gone as I had rushed for him. The moment flashed over and over again in my head and the tears come, harder and harder.

  Strong, warm arms wrap around me.

  "Shh shh shh, it's okay Queen. It's over now." He whispers in my ear, squeezing my body against his. "Shh shh shh." He turns me in his arms and I wrap myself around him. Soaking in the feel of him, I lay my head on his bare chest, counting as his heart beats. The proof that his blood is pumping, that he is alive.

  "I was so scared," the tears still come but they start to slow.

  "I know baby, I know." His arms tighten around me, "I was too, I should have gotten you over to us sooner, I didn't think she would go for you. I really didn't. I fucked up, I fucked up so bad. It could have been you." Something lands on my cheek, slides down. I back up a bit. Tears slide down his face.

  He lets me go with one arm and wipes them away. But he doesn't turn away, he doesn't hide from me like I expect him to. "I didn't think I got there in time. The last thing I remember was getting the air knocked out of me, but I didn't think it was the shot. But then I heard you yelling at everyone, and I've never been happier to hear someone getting their ass chewed." He smiles down at me, places a kiss on my nose. "Did I mention you're hot, even through blurry, coming out of unconsciousness eyes." I roll my eyes at him but grin.

  "Stop!" I giggle as he places more kisses over my face.

  "Nope," he gives me an extra loud kiss on my forehead. I push him playfully on the shoulder and catch the quick flinch.

  "OH my hell I'm sorry!" I exclaim, looking down at his chest I see the bruise forming. Right over his heart.

  "Fitting right?" he looks down, catching my stare. "Shot through the heart,” he sings as he shakes his hips.

  "Dork," I gently kiss the spot of impact. "Let's lay down, please, I'm so tired." Without another word Gray sweeps me up into his arms. "Put me down! That has to hurt!" He walks me to the bed and with one hand pulls down the comforter and sheets then lays me down.

  "It's nothing, I'm just grateful you are still here for me to carry." He gets back up, grabs a pair of sweats and quickly throws his towel to the hamper in the corner of the room and tugs them on. Winking as I watch. "Change your mind about going to sleep?"

  "No! Now come here and hold me. You need sleep, you're going to be even more sore tomorrow." I hold my arms up to him, and sigh as he snuggles right in. He cuddles for a minute before he reaches over to turn the lamp off and on his way back down his lips find mine. My arms find their way around his neck as I hold him to me, melting into him. I feel his lips curve up into a smile.

  "We did it Queen." He lays down next to me and pulls me into his arms, wrapping his body around me. "We did it." Wrapped up in the protection of his arms, with his heart beating steadily against my back, I doze off into sleep.

  She's in my arms. Thank God. I feel her breathing even out as she falls asleep. My chest burns in pain with her body pressed up against it, but I'm not fucking moving. She's in my arms.

  I have been shot before. Hell, the other times the bullets hadn't been stopped by Kevlar. But none of those compared to the pain when I had thought she was gone. When I thought I had failed her. The fear grips my chest again, I tighten my arms around her—definitely never letting go.

  Chapter 41

  He's snoring. I wake up to his snoring and I smile. I look over at the clock on the bedside table, 10:30, I'm surprised nobody has come to wake us up yet, that was late for this house. I guess near murders and FBI raids were enough of a reason to let people sleep in.

  Knock Knock.

  Spoke too soon.

  "Go away Daxon," Gray grumbles, his morning voice, doing inappropriate things to my body. His arm tightens around me as he pulls me back into him.

  "Bro," Daxon opens the door with two coffee cups in hand. "We let you sleep in."

  "Coffee!" I shake Gray's arm off of me and jump up to grab my cup, Daxon laughs and hands it over.

  "Traitor," Grayson buries his face in the pillow. "I got shot, let me sleep."

  "Don't act like it's the first time just because Liv is here," Daxon sits down at the foot of the bed.

  "Let me get some sympathy from my girl, damn," Grayson flips Dax off with his face still buried, getting a laugh from both of us.

  "You can get your sympathy later, come on, Viktor is getting ready to head out and wants to talk to everyone."

  That gets Grayson's attention, he gets up, slowly, his chest clearly feeling a bit more tender today. Daxon hands him his coffee and he takes a tentative sip. I get up and head to his closet to grab him some clothes.

  "Where is Jenna?" I ask as I rummage through the stacks to find him something.

  "Sleeping still," Daxon shrugs. "She couldn't sleep last night so I filled her in on everything already, figured we would let her nap through this one." I nod my head.

  "I could get used to this." Gray grins as I walk out of the closet holding a pair of jeans and a black tee. "Wanna dress me too?"

  "Oh my God bro, just get dressed so we can go, I'm not leaving the room no matter how weird you two get." I hand Grayson his clothes as Daxon shoots us both a look.

  "I feel like that's a challenge Gray."

  "Oh no, he got to you too," Dax shakes his head at me as Grayson stands up and gets dressed. I look around, wondering what I can wear that isn't my red dress from last night. When Grayson catches on he smiles and heads to one of his dressers, waving me over. He opens the drawers and smiles as he reveals my clothes, folded neatly.

  "Thank you," I kiss him on the cheek and smile happily as I pull out a pair of joggers, deciding to just wear his sweatshirt. I feel like the comfort may be needed with the dump of information I'm about to get. I walk into the bathroom and quickly get dressed, splash some water on my face and Grayson joins me to brush our teeth before heading back to the room.

  Grayson sighs, "Okay, let's get this shit show over with!"

  Laughter floated out of the room as we got closer to the door. The sound soothing my racing heart. How happiness could fill the area after the events of last night, was slightly mind blowing, but I would take it. We entered the room and I was astonished at the amount of people.

  Nate and Luca were seated on a couch located in the back of the room with Mariella and Viktor, Dean seated on the arm of the couch near his father. A bunch of faces I had recognized wandering the halls were seated and standing sporadically around the giant room. A group of four girls who had to be Grayson and Daxon's sisters judging by how similar they all looked, stood in a corner chatting away, Liam standing amongst them.

  "Oh good morning you sleepyheads!" Mariella catches us entering and stands, rushing over to us. She pulls Gray and I into a hug. I'm still confused, but the hug is much needed.

  "Good morning Mama," Gray squeezes us both tight, before taking a sharp breath.

  "I'm fine, totally fine," he waves his hand as I give him a concerned look.

  "Come sit down, Son," Mariella links arms with both of us and leads us to the couch were Luca and Nate stand, moving aside to give us room. Grayson takes a seat next to Viktor.

  "You going to make it Grayson?" Viktor's loud voice booms, humor tinting his words.

  "I think I'll pull through," Gray grins.

  "Bummer," Dean pipes in, getting a laugh from everyone whose attention is now on us.

  "Okay, this is too weird, you guys need to start talking." I can't take not knowing any longer. Everyone acting like one big happy family is making my brain hurt.

  "Where do you want us to start Queen?" Gray asks as he takes my hand in his.

  "Where is SeraPsycho?" th
e nickname coming from me gets another laugh going around the room.

  "I'll take that one!" Dean smiles, "Serafina is currently being held by the feds, awaiting her ride to a high security prison." I can feel my eyes widen. "Attempted murder, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, conspiracy to defraud the United States, oh and a couple of assaulting a police officer charges. Probably won't see her for a good ten to never years."

  "Oh my God."

  "It gets better," Grayson whispers in my ear.

  "Oh yeah, it also turns out that in the twelve hours she has been in police custody, three more families have come forward with claims that her and her father were blackmailing them. The leads on the case are pretty sure we have just scratched the surface to what those two were really up to. Both Lorenzo and her will be lucky to ever see the outside of prison walls again."

  My head finds its way to Grayson's shoulder, she was gone. The feeling of relief of not having to look over my shoulder for her was staggering. Gray presses a gentle kiss to my head.

  "What about Giovanni?" I notice that quite a few eyes around the room darken when I say the name. Mariella looks down.

  "He is currently in the hospital." Viktor takes over. "In the firefight that Serafina started he ended up being shot three times. As of right now our informant has not been able to tell us much, but his condition is—" Grayson's hand tightens on mine, traitor or not, it was still his father. The information had to be hard to swallow. "Unstable at this time." I nod, unsure what to say next.

  "I'm sorry," I whisper the words to Grayson and Daxon who has taken a seat on the coffee table before us. They both give me small nods.

  "If he does survive," Viktor clears his throat, "he will be charged with racketeering, tax conspiracy, criminal solicitation of murder, tax evasion, and a few other petty charges."

  I take a deep breath. Heavy charges. Heavy crimes. From frat parties and college classes to...this?

  "Why are none of you arrested?" The mood lightens in the room as smirks start turning up.

  "You remember Mason and Drew?" Daxon asks, I nod.

  "Our informants," Nate pops in, "who also happen to be FBI. They have been trying to take the family down for years, when things started going south we figured out exactly who they are and made them an offer they couldn't refuse." Nate wiggles his eyebrows at the reference. "No, but seriously, the funny thing about too much power, is it starts to go to your head. Gio messed up, he got sloppy, it was all too easy to make it look like our idea to make money was his. We knew the feds would catch it quick and he didn't care, he wanted to take it all anyway.He handed us Serafina when he decided he couldn't keep it in his pants, forgive me Zia Mariella," he hurriedly apologizes to her for the comment, she just rolls her eyes and waves for him to go on. "She was so power hungry too, she couldn't see the trap we laid. The overseas bank accounts were all in known aliases of one Stefano Giovanni Demonte, well all but one which conveniently was right here in New York under Serafina's name thanks to our resident computer whiz," Luca waves a hand in a smart ass bow.

  "Mason and Drew watched what they thought was our world crumbling, and in their desperation to finally knock down Gio, we became the good guys." Nate shrugs.

  "The good guys?" I look around at all of the very well-armed men in the room, "Mhmmm." They all laugh.

  "Well, comparatively," Gray grins with a wink.

  "So if they found all the bank accounts, does that mean you guys are broke now?" I mean it jokingly, but I wasn't expecting the peals of laughter that surround me. "What??"

  "You've spent all weekend watching Luca's skills and you think that the FBI was able to find all of our accounts?" Grayson tsks his tongue at me. "Baby girl, you've got so much to learn."

  "They found exactly what they needed to, and not a dime more," Luca actually breaks his usual straight face as he nods my way.

  "Well," I lean back, letting all of the information sink in. How these boys managed to plan all of this while I was none the wiser was both very impressive, and definitely kind of scary.

  "Wait, why are you here?!" The realization hits me as a million thoughts run their course. Viktor chuckles as I point at him. "I thought you were the bad guy? You too," I point to Dean, making sure he knows I haven't forgotten nor forgiven his ass.

  "I guess we were at first." Dean admits. "But Dad let me go to school to get away for a while. Imagine my surprise when the Demonte boys show up to fuck up my life." Gray and Daxon chuckle at the dig. "I quickly got dragged back in, and somehow even though I got flopped back and forth a few times, we ended up on the right side of things, huh Dad?" Dean looks to Viktor who smiles at him before looking to Mariella with a gentle gaze.

  "Serafina and Lorenzo were pathetic, I took pity on them." Viktor straightens and turns to look me in the eyes as he speaks. "Which clearly now I know, was all a part of their game. They came to me for help, taking down the Demonte family. I had a reason to want Giovanni out of the way. Ah—" he pauses as he glances back to Mariella, who nods her head for him to go on, "an old, grudge, as you would say." I look between him and Mariella, taking closer note of their body language, the way they are turned into each other even as he faces me. Now Mariella takes a deep breath.

  "I loved Giovanni, truly," she says the words earnestly, meeting the eyes of each of her children, the girls scoot closer as she speaks. I'm sure they have heard what I am about to, but they move together in support of her. "But shortly after the twins were born we had a falling out, we wanted different things out of life. Me, family, him, well money. I found out about his affair with the twenty something down the street that had been happening during my whole pregnancy with the boys, when she showed up on my doorstep with a toddler in her arms. In a heartbroken rage I ran off, jumped on a plane and bumped into this handsome Russian...in Greece of all places. Giovanni begged for me to come back, and I did, but not for him. For my children. He had changed, he wasn't a nice man any longer." Mariella pauses and takes a few deep breathes, I smile at her, letting her know I'm not judging a bit of her story.

  "I quickly realized that I had gotten pregnant, Stefano was livid. But as he also had a child come of his affair," Mariella's eyes bounce to one of the girls in the group who smiles and blows her a kiss, "we accepted and moved on with our lives. Or so I thought. I openly took in his daughter, he sent my son away," Mariella now reaches for Dean's hand, squeezing it as he holds her back.

  "I was not father material," Viktor takes over the conversation now, shaking his head. "Without Mariella I knew I would fail, I found a family to raise Dean as their own. But with old age, comes at least a small bit of wisdom, and I finally reached out so that Dean could know his real father. We built a relationship. He joined the business. We never spoke of his mother. But," Viktor takes another deep breath, and places a gentle kiss to Mariella's temple. "I quickly realized that time does not change the heart. It was relatively easy to find out what kind of man Giovanni was, and Serafina was happy to oblige in helping."

  "She'll do anything for a Klondike bar." Grayson speaks and the muffled chuckles that circle the room include a lot of nods. Viktor's lips turn up into a smirk.

  "Precisely. Once I saw the kind of man he was I needed to know how Mariella was. I reached out and here we are." Viktor sits back, clearly done speaking and letting me know that is the extent of the information I would receive from him today.

  Fine by me, this shit was nuts.

  I sit in silence. The gears in my brain spinning on turbo. Adultery, hidden love children, paid for play women, multi-million dollar mafia men, it was like watching my abuela's novella's, but they were playing out right in front of my eyes. At least the actors were ridiculously good looking.

  "You good Queen?" Gray chuckles as he pulls me close. "You think any harder and you are gonna pull a muscle." I shove his shoulder but he just wiggles his eyebrows at me.

  "Do you have any questions I can answer Livi?" Dean steps closer, worry clear on his face.

  "Yes," I
reply back, coldly, and accompanied by a glare. His eyes widen and I catch Grayson's amused smirk. Dean goes to back up, ready to bail. "Do you realize how many appointments with a massage therapist you owe me for the good guy bad guy whiplash?!" His eyes light back up and he breathes a visible sign of relief.

  "However many you need Livi," he promises leaning down for a hug, which I give back with a hard squeeze, grateful that I wasn't THAT bad of a judge of character.

  "I'll be the only one touching her neck," Grayson growls out as the hug goes on for too long for his liking. His words are met with dramatic eye rolls from the guys and giggles from the girls. Dean lets me go but my hands are quickly grasped by his Mom.

  "I know there is still much to discuss, much to decide—but as for this moment—all is well." Mariella looks around the room, her eyes full of love and appreciation for everyone standing in it. "I thank you all." She says it quietly, but everyone hears, they all bow their heads to her in respect.

  Viktor gently pulls her up from her seat and begins to head for the door to leave, as do many of the others. A few people wander over and shake my hand. Many comment on how great it is to meet someone who can finally tame the wild man, a.k.a. Grayson. He feigns annoyance but squeezes me every time someone calls him mine.

  A ton of names get thrown at me, leaving me with not remembering a single one, but finally the room clears out and we are left with Dax, Dean, Nate, Luca, and Liam sitting around us. The guys joke and carry on, giving Grayson a hard time about his chest, replaying the moment Serafina saw my red dress compared to her pink. I soak in the shit talking, the jokes, and the laughter.

  "How you holding up Liv?" Luca asks, Nate grins as Grayson's eyebrow shoots up. Dax and Dean exchange a look. Talk about taming the wild man, Luca rarely asked or spoke about anything.