by Ali Parker
The place was fairly busy. The bar was surrounded with well-dressed women who cast curious glances my way when I walked in.
I was too distracted with thoughts of my own destruction to pay them any mind.
If D wasn’t dead, I was going to have a whole lot of pain coming for me. I’d never seen the guy so fucking angry. If Izzy hadn’t been there tonight to defend me, I knew I would be lying in a puddle of my own blood. D probably wouldn’t have even shot to kill.
Knowing him, he would have blown out my kneecaps to keep me from running. Then he would have used his fists to beat me into oblivion and then, eventually, to death.
I shuddered at the thought. “Please let him be dead.” Even after saying it, my heart ached still. He was like a brother to us, to me. But shit had to be done. Everything was in shambles, all the deceit and unrest, but my whole goddamn family walked around not talking about the elephant in the room. Well, shit. They didn’t want to talk about it? Then I would just remove it, and no matter what the hell happened next, I’d done my job.
Izzy had saved my neck, and it had probably cost her the life of the man she loved.
“Fucking idiot,” I muttered at myself as I ran my hand down my face.
Now was not the time to dwell on such things. I couldn’t change them now. I had to keep going forward. There were still things that needed to be done; sacrifices that needed to be made. And the Coopers were my first stop.
I looked around the bar and spotted the man I was there to meet.
Adam Cooper was sitting at a table in the middle of the bar when I arrived. I took note of the other tables occupied around him as I made my way to the bar first. He was surrounded by men in black suits who casually sat at different tables around him. Their eyes followed me as I ordered two whiskeys and brought them to Adam, who had his arm draped over the back of his chair. One foot rested across his knee, and he was dressed casually in dark jeans and a white button-up. His pale green eyes remained fixed on me as I lowered myself into the seat across from him and pushed one of the glasses of whiskeys toward him.
“Thanks for meeting with me on such late notice,” I said before lifting my glass to my lips and taking a sip. I restrained myself from throwing the whole drink back. The alcohol would take the edge off my nerves, but I didn’t want to show my cards to Cooper, who was watching me with analytic intensity.
“I must say, I didn’t expect to get a text from a Castaletta this evening. My curiosity was too much to overlook. I had to see for myself what compelled you to reach out to me.” As he spoke, Adam swirled his whiskey around his glass and watched me over the rim. He was a smart bastard. I was playing a dangerous game attempting to ally myself with him. But it was the only move I had left.
“I didn’t expect to text you, either.”
Adam arched an eyebrow, and the corner of his mouth twitched in what could almost have been a smile. I noticed a couple women in the room shooting glances in our direction. Adam Cooper stuck out like a sore thumb. He was tanned from life in California and looked like he belonged in a Playgirl spread.
Adam took his first sip of his drink and let me sit in tense silence for a minute before speaking. “Does Joe know you’re here?”
“No.”
Adam chuckled. “Not surprising. Especially what with everything going on between your family and the Kallups.”
He was baiting me.
“The Kallups are merely middlemen between you and my father,” I stated, resisting the urge to take another drink. “We all know you were the one who employed them.” I had to be cautious of every word I said. Adam didn’t know that I had put the Kallups up to the madness they caused. To everyone around me, the Kallups were just a puppet belonging to Adam, but I’d been tugging on their strings a lot harder than pretty boy in front of me ever planned to.
“I hired them, yes, but they were never supposed to fuck with your family. I hired them on recommendation from some of my gun runners. Needless to say, those boys no longer work for me.”
I finally took a sip of my drink and relished the warmth it brought as it trickled down my throat and pooled in my stomach. I hadn’t eaten in awhile. “They took advantage of the situation, then?”
Adam shrugged. “Or someone else was paying a bigger tab for them.” He polished off the last three mouthfuls of his drink and put the glass down hard on the table. A big man at the table next to us scooped it up immediately and went to the bar to get his boss another drink.
“Perhaps.”
The big man who had gone to the bar returned with two more whiskeys. I took the opportunity to finish the rest of mine, and it sat heavy in my empty stomach. I willed it to work its magic on me and calm some of my nerves. I just wanted something to build a wall between me and the agonizing guilt that had made a home in my chest.
I took a sip from the second drink as the big man settled back down in his seat. His eyes roamed over me slowly before he shifted to face the entrance once more.
Adam shifted around in his seat. “Where is your sister? Is she still planning on meeting me in the morning?”
“No. She won’t be meeting with you.”
Adam lifted an eyebrow but didn’t say anything. His question did not need to be spoken aloud.
“She’ll be out for blood.”
“Blood?”
“A manhunt,” I said.
Adam uncrossed his legs and leaned forward. “Whose head is on the chopping block?”
I finished my drink, not caring anymore about how it might be perceived. “Mine.”
4
Drake
Fucking Joe Castaletta was standing in the doorway to Izzy’s bedroom. His attention was on me, naturally, and his expression was not nearly as severe as I had been expecting. Maybe the loss of his wife and his youngest son over the last couple weeks had been enough to strip him of all that menace and cruelty.
He already knew I was alive. He wasn’t the Don of the longest-running syndicate in the United States by chance. I had to wonder why the hell he would leave me to my life. Maybe some sick fatherly instinct inside of him?
I stood from where I sat on the edge of the bed and stepped around D, who was still cradling an inconsolable Izzy in his arms.
“I’ll fill you in,” I said. The word “Dad” almost left my mouth, but I held on to it.
Joe turned and stepped back out into the hallway. I joined him and closed the bedroom door behind me, muffling the sound of Izzy’s sobs.
My father stared at me with expressionless eyes, though something flickered in the endless black of his pupils.
I had no clue where to fucking start. He turned and started walking down the hall. I followed after him, taking a few hurried steps to catch up with him.
“I’m sorry,” I started, even though I wasn’t really. “I had to get out. I couldn’t keep doing this shit over and over. And I know what it means. I know the penalty for abandoning—”
“Now is not the time to discuss killing another one of my children,” Joe said calmly. He slipped his hands into the pockets of his slacks and shot me a look out of the corner of his eyes. “It’s good to see you alive and well. A surprise, but good.”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t know.” I pursed my lips and tried not to get sentimental. My father had always put the syndicate first, but he was still a good dad. Memory after memory washed over me, beckoning me to soften toward him.
“Of course I knew. You’re welcome.” He lifted an eyebrow. We kept walking down the corridor, and Izzy’s crying faded out of earshot. “D and Izzy hid you away from me? Pretty ballsy of those two to go against me.”
I nodded. Fuck yes, it was.
Joe sighed. “I’m impressed. I believed the lie that you were dead for quite a long time, kiddo. They hid it well.” Joe looked over at me as we continued walking toward the top of the grand staircase. He reached out and gripped the back of my neck like he’d done when I was a boy from time to time. “You’ve built your own life, I assume?”<
br />
I nodded again as we started descending the stairs to the main level. I didn’t want to tell him about my wife Sicily or the life we had built together. He didn’t need to know that she owned a bakery and I owned a gym. Information in this life could be used against a man if he wasn’t careful. And I was going to be fucking careful. I wanted to keep all that I had worked for over these years tucked safely away from him for as long as I possibly could—or forever, if possible.
Joe stopped walking when we were only a few steps from the ground level. He turned to me, his shoulders squared, and looked me in the eye. “You should have just fucking told me you wanted out, Drake.”
“Would it have mattered? What I wanted was irrelevant when I was with you.”
“You’re my fucking son. I would have helped you. I would have—” he broke off, shaking his head. “I failed you as a father.”
I didn’t deny it. It was true. All those years growing up with him pretending to be my “father’s” best friend. Thinking I was a DeMarco. Being raised by my mother and Big Papa DeMarco. The truth coming out in my teens almost crippled me. Thank God for Demetri. I wouldn’t have survived otherwise.
“It’s not important—” I started, but he cut me off.
“And I’m going to fail you again, Drake, and ask you to stay.” Joe clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Izzy is going to need you. So will Demetri. And so will Marco. Someone is fucking with our family, and I can’t see my way to the surface anymore.”
“About that,” I said slowly. “We need to talk about Marco.”
Joe’s stare hardened. “Come on. We’ll talk in my office.”
As I followed him down the hall to his office, I was hit with the thought that there was a very real possibility that he might kill me once the door was closed and we were alone. If that was the case, there wasn’t much I could do to stop him.
Joe paused by his office door and lifted a hand to the drywall. There was a bullet hole in it. He looked over his shoulder at me and arched an eyebrow.
“Izzy shot at Demetri. She missed on purpose.” Poor thing.
“How do you know it was intentional?”
“Have you ever known your daughter to miss her mark?”
Joe smirked. “Never. Although if there was anything I would bet money on her missing, it would be Demetri’s head.”
When we slipped inside the office, he closed the door and went to his desk. I paused, paralyzed by the thought of him pulling a gun out of his drawer and blowing my brains all over the wall. I wouldn’t put it past the bastard.
But he didn’t grab a gun. Instead, he poured us each a drink of some dark liquor before sinking down into his chair. He gestured at the one across from his desk, and I sat down.
“I understand why you left, Drake. I think if I ever had the chance when I was young, I would have done the same thing.” Joe smiled into his drink as he took a sip. “But I was not so lucky. I only got into this because of my father. Your grandfather. I don’t know if you know this, but he was the mastermind behind our syndicate. He made leaps within our business that put us on top. There was no escaping my father.”
I didn’t say anything. I just sat and listened.
“I made a lot of mistakes in my early days, son,” Joe continued. “I have done a lot of things that I’m not proud of. Making you believe that you couldn’t leave was one of them. I have a lot of regrets. A lot of bloody memories that still keep me up at night. I guess what I’m trying to say is, I’m sorry, Drake.”
I blinked at him. “It’s all right.”
“Is it?”
“We’re still family, right?”
Joe nodded. “Right.” He drained the remnants of his glass and put it down. “Now tell me what the fuck is going on. Why is my daughter falling apart up there?”
I swallowed. I did not want to be the one to tell my father that Marco was the one behind all this betrayal and death. But I didn’t want it to have to be Izzy or D, either. The two of them had been through enough already this night. D was going to owe me for this shit.
“We got our hands on the tapes,” I started. “D and I watched them earlier this evening.”
Joe rested his elbows on the tables and clasped his hands together. He rested his chin across his knuckles and watched me darkly. “Don’t play coy. Just spill.”
“It was all Marco.”
Joe fell back in his chair like I had just struck him across the face. A rush of breath left him as he pressed his hand to his forehead. In all my years of knowing my old man, never had I seen him lose his color. “You’re sure? There’s no chance it was just misconstrued somehow?”
“It was him. Without a doubt. It’s all on the tapes. Vivian, Freddy… I’m sorry.” I broke eye contact and looked at my hands in my lap. “He threatened to do the same to Izzy what was done to Vivian if Freddy didn’t do what he was told.”
Joe let out a vicious snarl. “He wouldn’t dare.”
“But he did. We have it all on tape. You can see them for yourself if you want. He’s changed. He’s not who you guys thought he was.”
There was a soft knock on the office door. I waited a second for Joe to respond, but when he didn’t, I called for whoever was at the door to come in.
Seconds later, it opened a crack, and I looked over my shoulder to see Demetri stick his head in. “Can we come in?”
I nodded.
D came in first, with Izzy behind him. She still looked like a wreck. Her eyes were red and swollen, and her nose was pink from all the crying. If she were alone, she would break down again, but she was playing tough in front of us. I felt a sense of misplaced pride swell in my stomach.
Her gaze lifted to Joe as the old man spoke. “No way that boy did this to us. Not after everything I’ve done for him.”
Izzy dropped to a crouch beside her father’s chair and rested her hands on his forearm. “What did you do, Daddy? Raise him? Love him?” Her voice was hoarse from the crying and the screaming. She didn’t sound like herself at all. So sweet and innocent. D stood beside her, looking like a tiger ready to pounce.
Joe’s eyes narrowed. “I took him into my fucking house. I gave him our fucking name. I made him into who he is.” Joe tightened his fist, and the glass shattered in his grip. Shards embedded themselves in his palm, and blood leaked between his fingers and down his wrist.
“Daddy,” Izzy breathed as she reached for his injured hand.
“I honored your mother’s infidelities,” Joe continued. “And I treated him as my oldest son.”
What? Sickness filled the space between my chest and my stomach. Marco wasn’t Joe’s kid? No fucking way this was about to get more complicated. No fucking way.
He slammed his hand flat on his desk, and I was sure that the glass buried itself deeper in his flesh. His grimace was not one of pain, though, but sheer fury. “After all this fucking time, he has the nerve to stab me in the fucking back. The ungrateful little fucking rat.”
“Joe.” Demetri moved in closer and pressed his hands to the desk. “What the fuck are you talking about right now? What infidelities? Freddy?”
Joe reached for the bottle of whiskey on his desk, unscrewed the cap, and drank straight from the bottle. When he was done, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and turned to look down at his daughter, addressing her instead of D.
“Your mother had two affairs, Izzy.”
Izzy move back from her father’s side, her voice growing colder. “Explain.”
Joe sighed and took another swig out of the bottle. “Marco isn’t my son, and neither is Freddy.” Joe blinked. “Neither was Freddy. Fuck.”
I shared a look with my brother. This was one of the many reasons I had left this goddamn family. I was tired of the lies and the constant bending and manipulation of the truth. It was impossible to know who was being honest and who was only saying what they needed to in order to get what they wanted.
Marco was the perfect example of that.
I never would h
ave expected him to be the one behind his mother’s brutal murder. Or Freddy’s.
Poor Freddy.
I took a deep breath and ran my hands down my thighs. “This is all a fucking mess,” I said.
“Which is exactly why I want you to stay,” Joe said, looking up from the blood pooling beneath his hand to meet my eye. “The three of you are the only ones I can trust. We’ll have to watch each other’s backs until we can put an end to this bullshit. Are we all on the same page?”
“Yes,” Izzy whispered. I saw her fingers tighten on his forearm.
“Yes, Don Castaletta.” Demetri nodded.
Joe looked at me. “Son?”
“Until we can put an end to this mess,” I said. I wasn’t committing to more than that. My girl deserved more than me slipping back into this life.
She deserved a hell of a lot more.
5
Edward
I was awake for a solid three minutes before I was able to open my left eye. It was swollen shut and aching furiously from D’s angry fist. I lifted a hand to gingerly touch my skin. The lightest touch sent hot pain across my cheek and into my eye socket.
“Son of a bitch,” I mumbled as I sat up. I peered around the room with my one good eye. It was later than I had thought. Probably close to nine or ten in the morning. The glare of the sun was blinding as I fumbled out of the bed and made my way to my bathroom, where I splashed cold water on my face. The relief was incredible.
I glanced up at my reflection and grimaced at the damage D had done to my face. The skin around my eye was dark purple, and my eyelid was swollen to double its normal size.
“How the fuck did you get home?” I asked my own reflection.
I took a piss while still trying to sort through the black fog of memories from the night before. Flashes of D manhandling Izzy while practically foaming at the mouth made my stomach roll with anxiety. I had to find out what happened after he knocked me out. I went back into the bedroom to search for my phone and found it on the floor beside the bed. I opened it to see a text message from Timothy.