20. Max
MAX
I hadn’t cried since my mother died.
When Uncle told me that my father was dead, I thought I might cry again, but I just felt cold. Empty.
Leona kept looking at me throughout his funeral, expecting me to cry. Her fingers had curled around mine as she stood next to me. She was warm. At least I still had her. Together, we had watched Papa’s casket lower into the ground.
Around us, wet and sticky snow fell. The trees were already bare. This winter was supposed to be especially cold. Fitting.
After it was over, we piled back into the funeral caravan to head back to the house.
Uncle was throwing a huge reception so the Family could pay their respects.
Cas slipped into the black SUV on Leona’s other side.
He’d watched the funeral from his place beside Alessio, but Uncle hadn’t allowed him to stand by us.
“Max,” she whispered, grabbing my hand again. “It’s going to be okay.”
It wasn’t, but I couldn’t tell her that. Only she knew what this pain felt like. Only she knew that, truthfully, it never went away.
I wrapped my arm around her and squeezed. She laid her head on my shoulder. On her other side, Cas reached his hand to me across her lap.
“We’re here for you,” he added. “Both of us.”
I nodded before turning my head to the window to watch the bare trees whizz past the window.
Uncle’s house was bustling. I barely said anything as man after man gave me their condolences and swore their loyalty to the Family on my behalf. I only took a few bites of food before giving up. It didn’t taste like anything.
All I wanted to do was escape back to our house. After a few hours of pretending to be comforted, I told Uncle I was going home. He’d looked at me in surprise, telling me I would move in with him and Leona. His house was supposed to be my home now.
I shook my head, thanking him for the offer. I couldn’t give up what used to be our home. When we were together and happy. I slipped out of the house without even saying good night to Leona, but she’d understand.
“Hey,” Cas said from behind me while I walked. We didn’t live very far, but I wanted the time to clear my head. Plan. Think about how I was going to avenge my father.
“You can stay, Cas,” I said, glancing over my shoulder. “I’m just going home.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“You should stay with Leona.”
The illuminated mansion loomed behind us, like even it was resentful that I left. “She’ll be okay. Don Vero is here. The whole Family is here. I think you need me more.”
I shoved my hands into my pockets. Truthfully, the idea of being alone sounded horrible, but I also couldn’t stand any more meaningless condolences and best wishes for the future.
I had no desire to talk about it. Papa had taught me to be strong.
But the silence was grating. It was a reminder that I was alone.
Uncle refused to talk to me about any plans to avenge Papa until after the funeral. He’d said we’d needed to focus on the Family first, and vengeance would come later. I got the impression he didn’t want to think about it, but it was the only thing I could think about.
Maybe Cas could plan something with me. Papa had taught me to think with my head. If no one else would, then I would.
“Fine. You’re driving.”
A lopsided grin plastered itself on his face as he lifted his hand. Keys hung from his pointer finger. “Alessio said I could borrow his car.”
“Don’t wreck it.”
“Don’t tempt me.”
The ride back to my house was quiet, and we arrived quickly despite the snow blanketing the roads. Every thought, every plan I tried to make, was like sand slipping through my fingers. I couldn’t catch any of it, and Cas seemed to recognize I didn’t need conversation to fill the void in my chest.
It helped to have him there. The house was so cold. Empty.
But the idea of leaving? Moving in with Uncle and Leona?
No. I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t leave Mamma and Papa’s memories behind. We’d been happy here. Mamma used to bake pastries in the kitchen. Papa used to chase me around the living room.
I couldn’t abandon them the same way they’d abandoned me.
That wasn’t fair.
They’d been taken from me. Both of them.
We got vengeance for my mother, and it had helped. And now Uncle, Cas, and I needed to get vengeance for Papa.
This was our life. This was what it meant to be part of the mafia. Papa had tried to warn me that this life required careful thought and planning to survive. But look how that had turned out for him?
I didn’t want this life for Leona. She deserved better .
Cas grabbed a bottle of liquor from Papa’s stash in the wet bar. He lifted it up. “You want a drink?”
With a heavy sigh, I slumped onto the couch in the family room. “We’re fifteen.”
He rolled his eyes. “We’ve had plenty of drinks with your dad and the Don. We’re the men of the Family now. We might as well.” He grabbed two glasses and uncapped the bottle. “Plus, I know you’re not sleeping. You look like shit, and this might help you pass out.”
I took the outstretched glass. “I’m trying not to be offended.”
“You look like shit,” he repeated. “Drink.”
I flipped him off. And drank. Both of us covered up coughs, because as much as we’d undergone in the last few years of training under Uncle and my father, as much as we’d done and seen, we were still fifteen.
Two drinks and an hour later, Cas passed out in my bedroom while I was still wired. I spun in my chair at the antique desk Mamma gave me for my tenth birthday. She’s said I’d grow into a man with this desk. She was right, but neither of us knew she’d never see it.
I couldn’t fall asleep. I stood, carrying my glass along with the bottle down the hallway and to Papa’s office. As soon as the door opened, his scent smacked me in the face, and I physically recoiled, almost dropping the bottle.
My fingers tightened.
“Get your shit together, Max,” I hissed through gritted teeth. My eyes stung with unshed tears, but still they refused to drip down my cheeks. I refused to let them.
My feet carried me forward, around my father’s desk. I collapsed into his chair, downing the rest of my glass. I poured myself another few fingers, but I made a mess and spilled on his desk.
“Shit,” I whispered, glancing around for something to clean up the spill with. I couldn’t ruin his desk. Not where he sat and took phone calls and bounced me on his knee as he tried to teach me what it took to run a business, a Family, like ours.
I rifled through the desk drawers—my fingers fumbling through their contents. What was I looking for?
Oh, yeah. Something to clean a spill.
I pulled open the bottom drawer on the right. A leather-bound notebook sat inside. My father’s name, Massimo Volpe, was emblazoned in gold in the bottom right corner. A journal?
My hands shook and my vision spun as I pulled out the notebook. Its pages were filled and filled with my father’s thoughts and plans dating back ten years.
I blinked, trying to get my vision to stop spinning. The last entry was dated just a few days before his death.
My throat closed up, and I slammed the journal shut. I laid my head on the desk, the spill forgotten, as a tremor rolled through my body. The alcohol churned in my stomach.
I groaned. Why had I let Cas talk me into drinking?
“Get it together and read it, you fucker,” I berated myself. I was strong . My father had taught me to be strong.
Cas’s snore echoed down the hallway, and I sat up, glaring at the leather. I didn’t have to read it. I could save it for later. When I felt more settled. When I wasn’t drunk.
But those pages called to me.
I slapped my cheeks hard , trying to get my head back on straight.
Carefully, I flipped to the last entry and started reading.
Max, if you’re reading this, I must be dead.
My eyes went wide, and my vision swam. “What?” I whispered to the empty air. I reread the line over and over.
I’ve been writing this journal for you for over ten years, hoping that one day—in the event of my likely death—you’d find comfort in its pages.
But as I write this last entry, even I am devastated by the knowledge that I’ll soon leave you.
I’m so sorry, son. I wish our lives could be different.
I wish we could be free. But we’re the kings of our world, and that requires sacrifice.
Whatever story you heard about my death is probably not true. If you heard it was an accident, if you heard I was killed on an assignment, or assassinated, or died in my sleep, don’t believe it. I was murdered, and I know who did it.
My hands shook and my lungs seized.
I uncovered the truth.
The truth about everything.
I don’t have the time to explain, but the answers lie in the pages of this journal and the others I’ve hidden for you to find. For the last ten years, I’ve felt something was wrong. I thought your Uncle was lying to me.
Now I know.
He has ruined us. Ruined everything. If I’m dead, that means I couldn’t stop him.
And that means the task falls to you. You have to save our Family before it’s too late. For your mother. For Leona.
For me.
All you have to do is look for the answers, and you’ll find them. Then, you’ll know what to do .
Remember what I taught you, son. Remember that I love you.
I dropped the journal onto the desk, where it splattered in the spilled alcohol. I snatched it up and wiped it with the sleeve of my shirt.
Was Papa really saying that Uncle killed him?
That our whole lives have been a lie?
That the answers to where everything went wrong were inside these pages?
I flipped through the journal, but my eyes blurred and my hands fisted. Rage rolled through me. My blood burned inside my veins.
I yanked open the first drawer of my father’s desk, where his pistol lay on top of a pile of papers. My hand closed around the grip as I pushed to my feet.
I had to kill Uncle.
I had to.
He’d ruined everything. He’d killed Papa. He didn’t deserve to live. I wanted to take my father’s gun back to Luciano’s house and shoot him in his bed while he slept. It would be easy. No one would suspect. No one would stop me.
Remember what I taught you, son .
I dropped the gun back in the desk drawer and pressed the heels of my palms to my eyes. A sob choked my chest.
Papa taught me what to do. He’d been training me for years.
Act from strength. Act with logic. Think .
If I killed Luciano now…then what? What would happen to me? To Leona? To Cas?
There would be chaos. The other four Dons would leap on our Family and tear it to shreds at any sign of weakness. We’d be carrion to the buzzards.
Papa wouldn’t want that. I was smarter than that .
With shaking hands, I pushed myself to my feet, swiped the journal off the desk, and tucked it under my arm. I made my way to the kitchen, where I poured a giant glass of water and downed it. Then another.
Papa said the answers were in the journal, and in the others he hid. I could find them. I could figure out what to do. I could build my own allies, turn the Family against Luciano with the proof within these pages, get vengeance for Papa.
I could take the Family for myself.
I just had to be strong. I had to think .
Cas . I had to show him. My feet took one step toward my bedroom before I paused. Leona, too. What about Leona?
Could I kill her father? Take from her what Uncle took from me?
My hand clasped the water glass so hard I thought it might shatter. I leaned over the kitchen sink, convinced I was about to throw up, as I tried to slow my breathing.
I had to control myself. Choose carefully.
Cas was blindly loyal to Luciano. Even if he believed my father’s journals, he’d never turn on the man who saved his life.
Leona would never believe the truth. She looked at her father and saw a saint. She’d argue there had to be a misunderstanding.
Both of them were too good . They weren’t made for the sacrifices this life required.
Cas was training to be an amazing enforcer, but he wasn’t bred for this life like I was.
He didn’t know or care what it took to run a Family, and neither did Leona.
They weren’t made for revenge. They’d balk at what I had to do.
Even if they believed this journal, I couldn’t trust that Luciano wouldn’t turn on them next. He killed his sworn brother. What was Cas to him? A boy he’d picked up off the street. And Leona? It would break her heart.
The two of them weren’t strong like I was. I could handle this alone .
If I did, maybe I could set them both free, so they’d never have to deal with this pain. They could live outside of the Family, away from this nightmare.
Calm settled through my rioting body. Yes. That was fine. I could pretend for now. Bide my time. I could pretend to be the boy they thought I was, even though I’d never be the same.
Feelings cannot dictate action, so I buried them. A tear finally rolled down my cheek. I wiped it away with a solemn promise.
No more tears.
Plans, instead.
Revenge.
Just like Papa taught me.