Chapter 12 Massimo
Massimo
I stand in the doorway for far too long, watching my kitten sleep, her hair splayed over the arm of her sister while they both rest, safe and out of harm’s way. The way it should have been all along for the Cassone sisters.
My mind keeps going back to what Sophia said to me after we rescued her from the warehouse.
I didn’t know if you would find me. I knew you would try, and I hoped that you would.
But there was a moment when that warehouse door closed that I thought I was on my own.
I was prepared to fight, but I also knew that I may not come out on top.
All I could think about was not seeing you again, not touching you, not feeling you.
This thing we have, it’s good if only for a short while.
It’s like in that very minute she had decided that this was her life.
As much as she had fought being part of the family, wanting to go to school, and to get away from the life, because of me, she had switched gears, and was accepting her fate.
But that’s not going to fucking be Sophia’s fate. Not as long as I have air in my lungs and the will in my heart to keep my kitten safe, alive and far, far away from this underground world that would surely steal her light.
Far too many minutes are spent in an internal debate as I watch my kitten lying protectively by her sister, but there’s no fucking way I could live with myself if something like what happened to my mom or her sister ever happened to Sophia.
Even in the darkness and without opening her eyes at all, she shines light on the world and those around her.
Her essence seeps into my very soul, giving me the strength to do what I know must be done.
The guard on duty has been with the family for twenty years.
I’ll thank Leandro for pulling him from one of his trusted positions out on the street running our crews and putting him in charge of watching Sophia and Anna as soon as I see him again.
Right now, Leandro needs time and space, as all of the Roselli boys do.
Time to grieve what happened to our mother, to be thankful she’s still alive and will one day soon recover enough to tell us the things we need to know, and to prepare for the most brutal fucking war the city of Jersey has ever seen.
I send Jimmy a message to get an update on Georgeo, the fucking rat bastard who’s probably been feeding every move we make back to Gallini, and to have him meet me around front.
When he arrives, he’ll fill me in on whether he and the others have been able to round that fucking rat up or get any additional information about the Gallinis from the men who were working for my father and are now sitting on ice in the warehouse where no one in their right mind wants to be if they’re an enemy of a Roselli.
When I get downstairs my father is in the great room pouring a glass of my Delmar, not his drink of choice, but after a night like this I suppose any alcohol to numb the pain will do.
A conversation with him is not something I want to get involved in tonight, but one look at his face, and I change my mind.
We may not always agree, but at the end of the day, he does have our backs and his love for my mother is unwavering, steadfast and true.
I walk to the crystal decanter on the bar and pour myself a glass and join him by the floor-to- ceiling window looking out over the front lawn. His dark eyes meet mine. “Nothing can ever prepare you for the ravages of war, especially when they use the love of your life against you.”
He’s not fucking wrong but it’s not going to happen to me and Sophia.
I pat his back. I don’t fucking know what to say because my mind is swirling in a million different directions right now, but what I do know is that she will be avenged, whether he sees it that way or not.
There will be no holding me and my brothers back from what we intend to do.
The Rosellis will burn this fucking city down and rebuild it if that’s what it takes to put those fuckers in the ground.
Dad slams my sipping whiskey back in a long shot.
“This is my fault, Massimo. I didn’t stay ahead of the curve, didn’t see the bastards closing in on our territory, and even worse, I didn’t trust the one man who saw it with the clarity of a born fucking leader.
Effective immediately, I want you at the reins.
You’ll have my support in everything you do Massimo, as long as you make me one promise. ”
My jaw tightens as I swallow through the emotion, wishing that it had been anything but this that brought it to a head. “What’s that, Dad?”
“I want Barcelo Gallini and whoever was or is working for him to pay. I want him to suffer the way your mother suffered under his blade. Capisce?”
Finally, we fucking see eye to eye. “It will be done.”
My father looks into my eyes and nods. “I’m proud of you son.
I always have been, I was just too scared of what I was seeing in the mirror, that age was creeping up on me taking my strength.
I was fighting it when I should have been giving the last of it to you.
I’ll call the elders tomorrow. Tonight, I’m going to go sit by your mother’s side and thank every fucking star in the sky that she’s able to breathe another day.
I don’t tell my father where I’m going. There will be time for more baring of our souls, but I don’t have the emotional energy tonight.
Right now, I need to get as far away from Sophia as I possibly can and strategize the end of our enemies and beginning of a new Roselli reign in Jersey City before I fucking change my mind.