I ate the granola bar and choked down the coffee, then limped towards the back door.
“Going somewhere?” Sergio asked, peeking out from behind the newspaper.
“Hell.” I smiled sweetly. “Care to join me?”
His gaze unwavering he simply answered. “Too late.”
I shrugged and shouldered open the door limping across the back yard. The tree, just like everything else, looked harmless.
I’d spent years climbing that tree.
I imagined I was a princess in a tower, just waiting for my prince to come rescue me. It didn’t help that Nixon always told me stories about princesses in towers convincing me that I was like the girls in the story—it’s kind of how the whole Mafia princess thing came into play. Tex thought it was hilarious and teased me about it relentlessly when we were little.
Yeah, I’d kill to have him tease me right now.
What had I been thinking?
One hour? Was I insane? Delusional?
And, further to the point, was that one hour enough to bond him to me forever? It had to be, because I wasn’t so sure he would give me another chance with him. He wore his anger like a shield. Even when we slept, I could feel it coming off of him in waves.
With a sigh I placed my hands on the tree and lifted myself into the air, my bum leg swinging against the bark. At least it only ached a bit today.
My legs dangled nearly touching the ground.
How pathetic, I couldn’t get any higher.
But at least I was alone.
With my thoughts.
I wondered if I would do things differently, if I could go back in time, would I have chosen not to protect Tex? Or would I have gone to Nixon first, asked for his help rather than make a deal with a ghost?
My text alert went off.
G: You tried Mo, and that’s all we could ask. In the end… hopefully it will be enough to keep them from killing him. Nobody wants the head to come down on the tail.
Me: We’ll have to just keep trying.
G: Yes. We will.
I thought back to that night… closing my eyes as the memories wrapped themselves around me like a choking sensation.
“Mo?” Sergio caught me as I stumbled against him. “Are you alright?”
“Stupid Tex.” I grumbled, my words felt heavy in my throat. “I hate him, make me forget him, please, it’s only ever been him! I need it to be someone else!” It was after Mil and Chase’s wedding and I’d drunk way too much wine, thinking I could drown my sorrows in the glass apparently.
Sergio sighed and pulled me into his arms. “You think I want what isn’t mine to take?”
“I know you do!” I pulled back, more like stumbled back and poked him in the chest. “You’ve always liked me! Admit it!”
Sergio chuckled and held his hands up in the air. “Guilty, but you’ll hate yourself and in the end, I’m positive you’ll hate me.”
“Let me hate you too, then… let me hate you as much as I hate him, as much as I hate me.”
“Oh Mo.” Sergio pulled me back into his arms and kissed my forehead. “Fill the world with hate, and all you get is hate. Fill your soul with more hate and it breeds hate. Hate this world needs less of. Love, however, I could do that.”
“Don’t love me,” I spat. “The last person that loved me didn’t mean it.”
“He did,” Sergio whispered. “And you know that.”
“Please!” I begged, my voice hoarse. “Please just make love to me.”
“What lengths would you go to… to save him?”
“Save him?”
Sergio gently placed me in the chair next to his bed and ran his fingers through his long thick hair. “Tex. What would you do to save him?”
“Anything,” I choked. “I would do anything, but why does he need saving?”
“Everyone,” came a familiar voice behind me, “should be given a second chance, Monroe. Don’t you think?”
I turned and with a gasp promptly passed out.
I jolted awake. Crap, Mafia rule number one, don’t fall asleep in a tree unarmed. I stretched my arms above my head.
“What are you doing?” Tex yelled running towards me, fury etched in every plane of his face. Oh yay, another lecture. Like I hadn’t been getting that enough, what with Sergio, Nixon, and Tex it was like living under constant parental guidance.
“What’s it look like I’m doing?” I closed my eyes again and leaned back.
“Funny you should ask.” Tex’s voice was closer now; I could almost feel the heat of his body. “Because it looks like you’re climbing a tree but we both know you wouldn’t be stupid enough to do that, right?”
I blinked my eyes open. “What?”
“One of us is pregnant. News flash, it isn’t the one with a penis!”
“So I can’t climb trees now? The injustice of it all!” I challenged, hating how much I loved his stormy blue eyes, and how fiercely protective they looked in that moment.
“Sure you can.” He gripped the branch above my head and lifted himself effortlessly next to me. “But for future reference I’d just appreciate it if you’d at least put a net underneath the tree and strap tiny parachutes to your ankles, you know just to be safe.”
I opened my mouth to speak but he interrupted me.
“Oh, and when I say tree I mean that one.” He pointed to a tiny little tree that was planted next to the house and probably couldn’t even support the weight of a bird.
“Are you saying you want me to sit on that tree when I have an itch to climb?”
Tex grinned, his smile reaching the corners of his eyes as he winked and looked back at the tiny tree. “Sure? Why not?”
“And I’m not strapping parachutes to my ankles, weirdo.”
“Hmm?” Tex tiled his head and flicked my shoe. “At least they’re swollen enough that they may break your fall. So you’ve got that in your favor.”
“My ankles are not swollen, you ass!” It was an impossibility not that he needed to know that.
“Mo, if I was in a shipwreck and holding onto your ankles was my only hope for survival—I’d live.”
I cracked a smile then pushed against his muscled chest. “Why are you picking on me? Don’t you have spiders to kill and ants to examine with a magnifying glass?”
“Aw, low blow.” Tex chuckled. “You had to bring up my childhood torture methods.”
“I saved those ants.” I sniffed. “No thanks to you.”
“Want to know a secret?” Tex asked, looking back at the house and then leaning in until our lips were an inch away.
“Yeah,” I whispered. “Tell me.”
“I wanted you to save the ants.”
“Oh, really?” My eyebrows arched in surprise. “So you tortured things in order for me to… what?”
“Well, that’s easy.” Tex shrugged. “You had a weakness for the innocent, if I wanted you to come running, all I needed to do was harm the weak…”
“Evil.”
“Necessary,” he said with a firm nod. “Especially necessary given I wanted the great princess’s attention.” He cleared his throat. “So we’re in the tree, why?”
“Because I—not we—
I
was thinking.”
“Awesome, well can we think somewhere on the ground where I’m not an easy target for would be assassins? I mean it’s been twelve hours since I’ve been shot at. I really don’t want to push my luck.”
“Aw, where’s the bravery? Let’s put a target on your back and paint your face red, think that will work?” I laughed.
“Aw, baby, if you want to see me blush all you have to do is ask.” Tex said in a gravelly voice, all notes of humor drained from his tone as his eyes drank me in.
I shivered.
“Are you cold?” His eyebrows knit together. “Let’s get you inside and I’ll find a blanket.”
I nodded, hating myself even more. He was treating me like a princess and I wasn’t even pregnant—that I knew.
Wow, I never thought I’d be one of those girls, the ones who actually plotted how to get the Mafia boss to slip up and impregnate me so the lie could be true.
Tex jumped out of the tree and turned, holding his hands up to me. I smiled and fell against his chest.
Just as a figure in black stepped out on the back deck, and shot Tex in the leg.
I screamed.
But my scream was silenced by a blunt object hitting my temple. And everything went completely black.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Blood always tastes metallic but before the metal even enters your consciousness, it tastes forbidding, like you know something’s wrong but you’re powerless to stop it.
Sergio
S
HIT, THAT HURT
. I rubbed my head, my temples were pounding. Was I hungover? Wait, it was morning and—
I jolted to my feet and grabbed my gun.
The house was silent.
Quietly, I stepped around the corner into the kitchen, two men were laying on the ground. Blood pooled at their backs. Mother of God, what had happened?
I walked out into the front of the house where a few of our men were normally stationed and cursed.
Dead.
Five of them.
All dead.
Shot in the head. I leaned down to feel each pulse. Nothing. A piece of white paper fluttered on the last man’s chest.
Are you listening now?
said the note.
“Shit!” I kicked the ground and pulled out my cell. Nixon answered on the first ring.
“What?”
“It’s the men—”
“My men?”
“I was knocked out, we’ve got seven dead.”
“Where’s Mo?”
His question swamped my body with a chill. I dropped my phone and raced full blast to the back yard, almost tripping on my own feet as I made it to the place where I’d last seen her.
Only to find one of her flip flops on the ground.
And blood right next to it.
I fell to my knees.
They had no idea what they’d just done.
I knew though—I knew who did it, just like Nixon knew, and I knew, in the end the war they’d just started wouldn’t just go down in history.
It would freaking define it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Doing anything to save someone isn’t really a sacrifice, not if you truly love them.
Tex
“
W
AKEY, WAKEY.”
Something slapped me on the face. With a grunt, I tried to open my eyes but the pain was exploding down my leg. Shit, had I been shot? Again?
“I said…” Another kick to my good leg that was, soon to be bad if the bastard kept kicking. “Get the hell up!”
“And?” I blinked my eyes adjusting to the dark room. “Do a little circus dance? I mean—” Another kick this time to my shin. I wheezed. “Damn at least stop tickling me, if you want me to dance just ask, I don’t care that—” Three more kicks, well I was going to be lame the rest of my life nothing more to say about that. I’d been tortured many times, always came out with scars but I hated, despised, freaking despised getting kicked, it was… degrading. “Fine, fine.”
I tried to rise to my feet, but my left leg was still bleeding, I could feel the warmth seeping through my jeans and my right leg was bruised from my ankle to my hip.
“Tex!” Mo screamed.
What? Why was Mo with me?
The events of the afternoon came crashing down around me like a blanket of rage. With a shout I ran in the direction of her voice but was stopped by another kick to the back of my knees.
“Shit.” I fell to the ground. “Stop kicking me!”
“I’ll stop kicking you,” the heavily accented voice teased, “when you stop irritating me with every breath you take.”
“So first—” I moved to my knees and faced the stranger “—you want me to get up and dance? And now you want me to stop breathing? Anyone ever tell you that you have ridiculously high demands?”
“You’re mouthy.”
“Aw, you staring at my mouth?” I joked, backing away, more like sliding away towards Mo on my legs.
“You will not reach her,” the voice mocked. “She’s tied up, but never fear she can see you. She will watch everything we do to you.”
“At least give her popcorn,” I muttered.
“I’ll do better.” The man’s footsteps echoed as he walked towards me, then suddenly the lights flickered on. We were in a basement, no windows, no doors that I could see, and really poor lighting. Mo was to my right chained to a freaking chair, and the man walking towards me was none other than my uncle.
I smiled when he stopped in front of me.
“You think this is funny?” he spat, his eyes damn near popping out of their sockets.
“It’s so damn hilarious I’m having hard time not having a case of the giggles.” I narrowed in on his gaze, his mouth was tightened in a firm line, his eyes clear but dilated, he was either high or really pissed off. Faint bruising darkened the skin beneath his eyes; he hadn’t been sleeping, and by the smell of him he’d possibly been on the run.
“Tell me.” I smirked. “You get your invitation to The Commission?”
His nostrils flared.
“Oh wait, did they send it to my house by accident? My bad, I’m sure they’re just confused as to who owns the power to the Campisi clan. If you want I can give them a change of address form or something.”
Snarling he backhanded me across the left cheekbone almost ripping apart skin with his giant ass ring.
“You step up, you die.” He wiped his hands on a silk cloth he’d pulled from his pocket and snapped his fingers.
The two giant dudes came rushing towards me and lifted me into the air then sat my ass onto the coldest metal chair ever created.
“So.” I nodded, allowing them to tie me up. “What is this? You kill me, deliver my head Goliath style, and then what?”
“This?” My uncle smiled. “My son, this is me welcoming you to the family.”
“Awesome.” I nodded. “So it’s like a hazing ceremony. You gonna put some body paint on me? Because I have to say Mo would totally dig that.” I winked in her direction. She gave me a watery smile but said nothing. Had to stay strong for her. Had to be steel. Had to live. Had to survive.
“I’m going to cut out your tongue.” My Uncle grinned as if amused at the thought. “And then I’m going to send it to your adopted family with a note—along with your girlfriend’s fingers.”