15. Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Fifteen
Marco
B ang. Bang. Bang. God, my heart was pounding so loud. Loud enough to startle me awake. The fear was instant, adrenaline already pumping. Nightmares. Fuck, not the nightmares again. I thought I was past them. I thought they were gone, but as the last vestiges of sleep fell away, the hazy recollections of long-buried memories clung. I was fucking done with them. I needed them gone.
I flinched again as the banging started all over. That wasn't my heart—that was someone at my door. Nerves that were already on high-alert ratcheted up even higher as I scrambled out of bed and stumbled, disoriented and dizzy, through my apartment. Fuuuck, my head hurt. Squinting through the peephole offered a small solace. It was my mom. My mom was here? I slowly unlocked the door and pried it open, peering through the narrow gap as I used the barrier to hide the fact that I was wearing only boxer briefs.
“Ma? Hey…”
“So you are alive.” She eyed me and pressed her palm to the surface with a shove. I folded like a house of cards, staggering backward as she forced herself into my home.
“Yeah?” Debatable on some days, but that was neither here nor there. “What’s up?”
“We've been calling. For hours.” She scanned my face with a hardened expression that melted into something softer as she reached out a hand to cradle my cheek. “Get dressed, love. Your father wants to see you.”
My nerves crackled back to life. Ma looked so sad, so tired. I leaned into the touch like a glutton before drawing my walls back up and taking a step backward.
“What's wrong?”
“Just… get dressed.” She sighed and turned, her gaze skittering away.
Reluctant to move and still bone-achingly tired, I headed to my room and mustered up the small amount of energy I had, digging out black jeans and a t-shirt. I couldn't fathom dressing in a suit and tie. The fact that I was even dressing at all was a small miracle given how intense the desire to crawl back into bed was. After taking the longest piss in history, it took forever to find my phone and I swore under my breath when I found it—completely dead—inside my abandoned, vomit-covered clothing from the night I could only remember bits and pieces of.
I glanced at the clock on the wall of my living room as I trudged back to my waiting mother, cringing with the realization that I'd slept through a whole day and night, rising well after I normally would. Fucking depression. It was either soul-crushing insomnia or endless sleep. There was never any in-between. I never felt rested. With a grunt and a nod, I shoved my feet into a pair of sneakers and moved to the door, my mother trailing behind with another beleaguered exhale.
We didn't speak the entire way to their penthouse. The place I used to call home. It hadn't felt like a home for a while. I only went there to discuss business with Pops. I hadn't lived there since I was released from prison, yet another thing outside my control. I'm sure my parents thought they were helping, being nice, but coming home after years of being behind bars would have been a lot easier if I'd had family to surround myself with. Instead, I was handed a set of keys and an apartment number by the goon sent to pick me up, returning to isolation that had only served to set me back further. The silence between my mother and I was a perfect embodiment of the miserable life I led. No matter how much I wanted to reach out, to scream and yell and beg for something, I could only clench my jaw harder and stare vacantly at the wall. It wouldn't matter. Nothing mattered. I didn't matter.
We parted ways in the entryway, my mother disappearing back to the heart of the home. Her kitchen was her domain and I stumbled over my feet with the urge to follow her, to forget all this bullshit and just exist as mother and son for a moment, but duty called. I loved my father, I really did. He loved us, too. He'd always been a good father to us all, but his recent stress and the distance my prison time had brought between us made it hard for me to see us as anything but colleagues sometimes. I honestly couldn't remember the last time we had a conversation that didn't revolve around work or the business—and the worst part was that I didn't know who was to blame for that.
“Ah, Marco.” My father’s eyes flicked up for a mere second as he nodded to one of the chairs in front of his desk. Only once I was seated did he fully turn his attention to me. “Explain to me what happened yesterday?”
Yesterday? My drinking? The hangover? Fucking Henny. Fucking Luca. I was going to wring necks. My jaw ticked.
“I was indisposed. It won't happen again.” Lies. It would most likely happen again. I couldn't help myself when I needed to feel something other than the call of the void.
“Son, I'm asking how and why your brother and the men you were supposed to be leading ended up doing all your work for you, and I would like to know how Brandon and John ended up being arrested. It's not like you to shirk your responsibilities. There was supposed to be oversight, body guards, recon. You know better!” He leaned back with his fingers steepled as the ground fell out from beneath me.
“What? Bran… Luca? Who the fuck is John?” I sprang to my feet as my panic took over. “Where are they?”
“My contacts at the station pulled strings. Gianluca managed to evade arrest, thank God. It's going down as a clerical error for the others. My question remains—why were they out there and you weren't? I know you were displeased with my choice for your team, but this is low. This is not how we operate.”
“I… I was fucking sick. I didn't know—wait, you think I sent them out to get intentionally hit?!”
“Hrm. I don't know what to think, Marco. You say you didn't know, and yet they had successfully managed the entire list of jobs. If that is the case, should I ask Gian and the crew you didn't want if they'd like the position you also seem not to want?” His eyes narrowed, lines forming at the corners and making him look gaunt and older than he was.
“No, fuck you. I didn't send them out. I didn't even fucking know!”
“Yo, quit fucking yelling.” Luca’s voice echoed over mine as he stalked into the office and drew up beside me, his arms folding over his chest.
“Gian, you were told to go home—”
“Fuck that, Pops. You ain't listening. I tried to tell you, but surprise! You fucking hung up. The fuck is happening with you lately?”
“That’s enough,” my father barked, rising to his full height before leaning his palms on the glass top of the desk. “You told me you were out of the business, only for me to find out you're doing his work for him.”
My eyes snapped between them as I tried to piece everything together. My memories, what few I had, were fuzzy at best. None of this made sense. Not a single piece of it.
“What the fuck happened?”
Luca stole a sidelong glance and pushed his hands through his hair. “Henny stole your job list. He was gonna get it handled for you. I invited myself along.”
I gawked at him in disbelief. While I was wasting away in bed, Bran and Luca were covering for me. “And then?”
Luca threw his hands up and swore, pacing around the room in his typically frenetic fashion. “It was fucking awesome till it wasn't. Dirty fucking pigs, is what happened. They took a pay-off and snagged Henny and Jericho.”
Flashbacks and nightmares assaulted my slow-motion brain as his words sank in. Jail. Bran and Jericho were in jail? My anger, rage, and so much pain bubbled up until my vision threatened to go black.
“Whoa, chill. They're out, they’re safe. Marco… Marc!” Luca reached out toward me, but I recoiled.
“Where is he?!” I couldn't stop the shaking in my hands, even as I clenched them into fists. “Where?!”
“Home… or they should be soon. I sent some men to pick them up.” My father eyed me with a keen look. “You did not instruct them to do this work?”
My gaze snapped toward my father's as my pulse quickened and my blood pressure climbed. Fuck him. Fuck him, fuck this bullshit, and fuck the mistrust. I scoffed and turned on my heel. If I didn't leave, I worried I'd start throwing punches.
“Fuck no!” My voice was matched by Luca’s in perfect unison as we both reeled on our father. I paused for a fraction of a second in shock before the panic returned.
“I have—” My words stopped short. I had to do what? See him? I was too late to save him. Why did I even feel this strongly in the first place? What the fuck was happening to me?
“Marco, please calm down.” My father’s voice carried an edge of exasperation.
“No, screw you. You thought… you thought I sent them out? You thought I'd put them and Gianluca in danger?” The torrent of my emotional distress increased as my eyes began to burn as hot as my shame and anger. “Screw you.”
Before I could stop myself, I was moving. Running. Fleeing. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't fucking breathe and it was only getting worse. I nearly knocked my mother over in my haste, but I couldn't stop. I couldn't think. The sound of raised voices followed me in my retreat—my mother, my father, and my brother. The family I needed. The family that I had always needed but couldn't reach. My father's accusation hung heavy on my shoulders as I tried to escape the claustrophobic cloud drawing closer with every step, but it was no use. By the time I made it to the garage, there was only dread and anger and the haunted memories of the horrors I’d tried to bury from my time in prison. The horrors no one knew about. The nightmare I couldn't escape. I shoved the first bodyguard I could find, screaming angry words and rage-filled demands until I had what I wanted—the keys to a car and the promise of escape. Control. I just needed to get a little bit of control back before it was all lost forever. Before I was lost forever.