Chapter 24 Jonathan
JONATHAN
I should’ve gone straight to the hospital the second the jet touched down on the tarmac.
That was what everyone expected of me—the dutiful eldest son, the heir, the one who’d been groomed for this life since the moment I was old enough to understand why there were always so many men with guns in our house.
But instead, I sat in my father’s home office at the Butera mansion, my childhood home, surrounded by the heavy scent of leather and cigars, the quiet hum of the past pressing in on me. Suffocating me.
The room hadn’t changed since I was a kid. The same mahogany desk, the same crystal decanter half-filled with some expensive whiskey my father only drank when he wanted to “teach me something.” The same thick curtains that blocked out the sun, the rest of the world.
His papers were spread in front of me now—ledgers, contacts, notes written in his harsh, angular handwriting. I’d always thought of them as “his.” But someday soon, they’d be mine.
The idea made my stomach twist.
I sifted through the documents, pretending I was looking for something specific, but really I was avoiding the moment when I’d have to see him hooked up to machines, unmoving.
The thought of Anthony Butera—my father, the immovable object, the man whose shadow was bigger than most people’s entire lives—lying helpless in a hospital bed made my hands shake.
He’d never been gentle. Hell, he’d never even been warm. But he’d been there. Solid. Present. A force of nature I thought would go on forever.
I found an old photo as I flipped through a stack of files—me, maybe ten years old, sitting stiffly beside him at his desk as he taught me how to read coded messages. My sisters were outside in the yard that day. I remembered watching them from the window, wishing I could be out there too.
Wishing for freedom I’d never have.
As if summoned by the memory, I heard the door creak open behind me.
“Jonny?”
My youngest sister, Ava, poked her head inside.
She was twenty now, but she still had the wide dark eyes that made men underestimate her.
Behind her, Elena and Lucia followed, the middle and eldest sisters—but still younger than me.
All of them tall, beautiful, and carrying a kind of effortless brightness that had never come naturally to me.
“What are you doing in here?” Elena asked softly, stepping inside. “Shouldn’t you be with Daddy?”
I swallowed. “I will be. I just…needed a minute.”
Lucia folded her arms, reading me too well. “You’re scared.”
I didn’t deny it.
The three of them moved into the room, surrounding me the way only siblings could. They took their places around me without fanfare, without pity. Just presence.
“Everything is going to change,” I murmured, staring down at my father’s handwriting. “If he doesn’t wake up…everything becomes my responsibility. All of it.”
“You always made it sound like you didn’t want it.” Ava sat on the edge of the desk. “The…you know.”
I huffed a humorless laugh. “The family business.”
“The fucking mafia,” Ava said, surprising me.
They all went still. Stunned, I looked to each of my sisters, begging for them to be joking. For them not to know what I thought they knew.
Then Lucia, the wisest of us, lifted a brow. “You know we’re not stupid, Jonathan. We don’t know everything, but…we know enough.”
That hit me harder than I expected.
“You could run it differently,” Ava continued quietly. “If you wanted to.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Maybe it is,” Elena said with a shrug.
I didn’t know what to say to that.
For a moment, none of us spoke. Then Ava’s face brightened with a sudden shift in topic—my sisters’ favorite method of comforting me.
“So,” she said slowly, voice lilting with mischief, “are you going to tell us about the girl now?”
My head snapped up. “What?”
Elena laughed. “Oh, come on. We saw you texting her nonstop when you got back. And Devin basically admitted she’s staying with you all.”
“And Alex looked like someone would die if we asked him about her,” Ava added.
I groaned. “You three are a nightmare.”
They staged a collective sigh, the kind that meant they weren’t relenting.
So I gave in. A little.
“Her name’s Frankie,” I said, trying not to sound too affected. “She’s…sweet. And sharp. And brave in ways she doesn’t realize yet.”
All three of them leaned in like cats hearing a can open.
“She’s been through a lot,” I added softly. “And she still looks out for everyone else first.”
Lucia’s expression warmed. “She sounds lovely.”
“She is,” I said before I could stop myself.
The room went quiet again, but this time gently. My sisters exchanged that subtle, intuitive look they’d always shared.
“You know,” Elena murmured, “it’d be nice having another woman around the house. Someone who can handle you.”
A smile tugged at my mouth. “She could. Handle me, I mean.”
Ava grinned. “Would she like us?”
“Yeah,” I said without hesitation. “She would.”
I could picture it—Frankie in this room, sitting with my sisters, laughing at some ridiculous story from our childhood. I could picture her here in the house. In my life.
Beside me.
The idea didn’t scare me as much as it probably should’ve.
Maybe that meant something.
Maybe it meant everything.
But I didn’t have time to unravel it. Not today. Not when the hospital was waiting. Not when my father’s life was hanging by a thread.
I rose from the chair, smoothing my hands over my shirt. The weight in my chest hadn’t gone away, but something else had settled over me—a steadiness born from sibling love and the echo of Frankie’s voice in my head.
“I need to go see him,” I said quietly.
My sisters nodded, each giving me a quick kiss on the cheek before slipping out of the office.
Leaving me alone with the photo, the papers…and the decision already made.
It was time to face my father.