End It All (Vitale Brothers #5)

Prologue

The weight of my backpack slammed against my spine as I panted. I vaulted over a gate, fell over it, and nearly rolled my ankle. Hissing, I picked myself up and kept running. My lungs squeezed and I cursed myself for smoking so much weed when I should have been working out these past few years. Sweat dripped from my forehead, my heart pounded in my chest, and I felt a wave of nausea as lightning tore down both legs.

"Fuck, give up already," I growled.

"Los Angeles Police. Stop running or we'll be forced to open fire!"

I skirted a corner and ducked into another alley. Yeah, that was a firm fuck that. If I let myself get caught, I was going to prison. Not jail. Prison. Ripping off a bank wasn’t exactly a misdemeanor. I couldn't stop.

My knees hit concrete as I found the spot I needed, dropped down, and shoved the dumpster away from the apartment building. It was mid December and LA was determined to rain on my parade and freeze me out. Go figure. Chill nipped at my flesh as I shoved the garbage can more until it revealed the hole I was looking for. I dove through it, my pants ripping as I skittered inside and dropped down. Reaching back up, I pulled the dumpster into place just as I heard footsteps on wet cement and yelling.

"Where the hell did he go?" a voice called.

"I don't know! It's like the kid goddamn disappeared!"

Panting, I grinned and pushed off the wall. Discovering that busted window to the basement had been a godsend. After waiting for another minute, I scrambled up the stairs, navigating my way through the dark before I found the door and let myself inside. The hallway was empty, one single flickering bulb welcoming me home. I gently shut the basement door and kept it pushing.

Seven flights of stairs later, and I stood at my apartment door. Number thirteen. Was it kismet that I had an unlucky number on my door? It sure fucking felt like it. Everything that had ever gone right in my life had suddenly gone wrong again. That black cloud hung over my head, dooming me.

Come on, Blake. Stop being such a pussy and go inside.

I unlocked the door with my key and turned to shut it. When I wheeled back around, something hard hit me in the center of my chest. I grunted, and stumbled against the door, my eyes going wide.

"Ma," I stuttered out. "What are you doing up?"

She stood in the middle of the dark living room, one lamp burning away on the nearby table. Her black hair was all over her head, her usual pristine and made-up face was covered in tear-streaked mascara and smeared red lipstick. The tight black dress that hugged her body was hanging off one shoulder, and she only wore one silvery high heel. I could see the bruises on her fair skin, and it made the rage ignite in me all over again.

"What did you do?" she hissed. "You tell me right now, Blake Moreno. Right now!"

I blinked at her. "You been drinking?"

She reached down, snatched off her second shoe and sent it sailing my way. This time, I was prepared. I stepped out of the way, my muscles tense as I tried to determine if I would get anything else hurled at me tonight.

"What did you do!" she demanded.

"The East LA Financial Bank was the site of a robbery tonight. Not only did the thief get away with cash, but I'm also told they hit several safe deposit boxes, robbing the owners of jewelry, diamonds, and priceless heirlooms. As if that wasn't bad enough, a massive fire was left behind to destroy the evidence. Police say they are still in pursuit. We've been given a preliminary sketch at this time. If you see this man, please call the police immediately. He's roughly five-foot-nine with dark hair, blue eyes, and ? —"

Mom muted the television. "Tell me this wasn't you, Blake. Cuz it looks a lot like you."

"What? How the hell would I ever rob a bank?" I asked.

"I don't know, you tell me," she said as she shakily grabbed a pack of cigarettes from the side table and lit one.

Frowning, I took a step toward her. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

I definitely didn't seduce the security guard and sleep with him to get the codes. Didn't time my entrance and exit perfectly to when I knew the power would be off, courtesy of me. And I definitely did NOT steal whatever I could get my hands on before I ran out of there like my heels were on fire. But not before starting that glorious blaze.

My eyes were drawn to the television where I watched my five alarm inferno rage. It was perfect. Fuck that bank. We'd tried so hard to get help and they had turned their noses up at us. As if my being a mechanic and my mother being a seamstress wasn't good enough. Everything we had, everything we owned, was lost when we were kicked out into the cold after my father abandoned us.

She snapped her fingers, dragging my attention back to her. "Blake."

"Ma," I groaned. "Seriously, I didn't do anything!"

She looked me over, the same blue eyes I possessed staring right back at me. No, through my soul. The woman could read me better than anyone else ever could. I watched her calm herself before she offered me the smoke. The muscles in my shoulders unbunched, and I walked over to grab it.

As soon as I was close enough, she ripped my backpack down my arm and tossed it to the floor. I panicked, dove for it, and missed it by an inch. She ripped it off the ground and upended it, dumping the contents all over the cigarette-burned, stain-covered carpet.

Cash popped out, landing on the floor along with several pieces of expensive jewelry. She turned around to look at me, horror written on her face. I tried to tamp down the hurt that emotion caused, but it refused to be swallowed.

"Don't look at me like that," I whispered. "I did this for us."

"For us?" she asked. "Blake, they're going to catch you. You have to know that."

"Not if we don't say anything."

"And what? Sit on this shit for years until the heat is off? Or did you already line up buyers?"

I sealed my lips together. The latter was true, but was that so bad? I'd mapped out the bank perfectly, had been fucked into oblivion by Manual, the guard, so I could get the codes, and I was the one to come out on the other side victorious. I stood up and closed the space between my mother and I. Reaching out, I tucked a black strand of hair behind her ear. She hissed as my fingers trailed over another bruise on her cheek.

"What's so wrong with doing this for us?" I whispered. "You can't keep living like this."

She smacked my hand away from her face. "It is my job to take care of you, Blake, not the other way around!"

"I'm twenty-two years old! At some point, it is my problem."

"No," she growled. "You are supposed to be going to school to make something of yourself. And then, maybe, you can lift both of us from this goddamn shithole!" Her fingers shook as she took another drag. "We need to get you out of here. You can't be in the city," she said as she stared at the ground, a faraway look in her eyes.

"What? Where am I supposed to go?"

Slowly, her gaze met mine. A cold chill traveled down my spine. The wet clothes on my body felt like shards of ice now. I watched as she walked down the hall to her bedroom.

"Pack a bag! Only take your essentials."

"Mom, what are you talking about? Are you losing your goddamn?—"

I stopped as she wheeled on me and glared. That look in her eyes said that she absolutely wasn't playing, like the time I broke the neighbor's window and she made me clean it up and pay for it with my allowance money. Whatever was running through her head, I wasn't going to get out of it.

Swearing under my breath, I slipped into my tiny, dingy room. I yanked a few clothes from the closet, things that were well past their expiration date honestly. A charger, my cigarettes, my father's silver lighter, and a few other odds and ends ended up in my army green duffel. When I emerged from the room, my mom stood in the hall, a slip of paper held out between her long, pristine, red fingernails.

"Go there. Tell them you need help and that your father is the boss of the Vitale family."

I blinked at her. "What?"

She smacked me up against the side of my head. "You don't have time for questions, figlio. Trust me, go. I'm sure you’ll be taken care of."

Yeah, I should have been getting the hell out of dodge, but I couldn't take my eyes off my mom. What the hell was she saying?

"Who are the Vitales?" I asked.

Her bottom lip trembled and my mother wrapped her arms around her body as she looked away from me. "They're your family."

I stared, my heart pounding in my chest. "You're my family. Just you and Dad. And he wasn't no Vitale."

When she met my gaze, a sinking feeling settled in the pit of my stomach.

"What the fuck is going on?" I asked.

"Your father is a Vitale. I never wanted you to know, baby. That's why you have my last name. We never married. I mean, he said we were a family, but we see how that ended."

A foggy memory of my father packing a suitcase and walking out of our home attacked me. I stepped back, grabbed the front of my shirt, and tried to tell myself it wasn't real. The father in my head had loved us. He did love us. That version was one that I had tuned out for years. It was better to believe he gave a damn than to see him leave and never come back.

Or at least that's what I'd told myself back before my mother had to sleep with strangers to keep food in our bellies. Before I'd been teased for being dirt poor. When I was nothing but a terrified seven-year-old boy watching my father, the man I idolized, as he walked out the door, who promised he’d be back. I didn’t know how hard things would get.

"The Vitales, they're hard men," she whispered as she touched my face, grounding me back in reality. "Gangsters," she muttered. "Mobsters."

"What?" I whispered.

"That wasn't a life I ever wanted for you, but he promised that we would be well taken care of. He lied. I'm so sorry, Blake. I-I was stupid. I should have?—"

I dragged her into my arms and buried my nose into her lavender scented hair. The aroma used to lull me to sleep, a comforting hug that never ended. Now, it choked me, strangling me for dear life.

"You have to go," she whispered. "It'll just be a matter of time before they track you back here. They're not stupid."

"They'll come looking for me."

She nodded. "That's why I'm sending you to New York," she whispered. "Here. I bought these as soon as I saw the news earlier. Tickets. Go to the bus station and get the hell out of here. Those men might be monsters, but they're your family. I know what that means to them. They won't turn you away."

I frowned, my chest tightening. "How do you know that?" I asked. "What if they do?"

"They won't," she said as she pressed the tickets against my chest. "Just trust me.” She shook her head. “Get out of here. Go. You really don't have time to waste. I don't want to see you locked up for a quarter of your life because of a stupid mistake. You've already got so many priors..."

It was true. I had never been a "good boy" as she always told me to be. Life on the edge just spoke to a rotten, dirty part of my soul. If they caught me, I was going away for a long damn time.

"What about you?" I asked.

"No time," she muttered as she swiped away tears and grabbed hold of my damp jacket. She dragged me back into the living room. "Get out. Now!"

I moved toward my loot and she stepped in my path. "What are you doing?" I asked.

"You can't take that with you. If they find it, that's just more evidence."

"And if they find it on you, it'll be the same thing," I said pointedly.

My mother held her head up high. "It's my job to protect you. And I'll do that until the end."

Nausea washed over me even as pride bloomed in my chest. I stepped toward her and pulled her into one more tight hug.

"You wonder where I get my craziness from?" I whispered. "Definitely your fault."

She chuckled. "Sure, blame the mother. How cliché."

We stood together for what felt like a lifetime. By the time we separated, my heart was in my throat. I didn't want to leave her. I couldn't stand the thought of it.

"I can't go," I choked out.

She laid her hand on top of mine, the one I cradled her cheek with, desperate not to let go. "You have to. Please, for both our sakes. I'll find a way to contact you soon. Destroy and ditch your phone on the way."

"Yeah," I muttered. "I know." I sucked in a sharp breath. "I love you."

"And I love you more than life itself," she whispered.

She'd been saying those words to me since probably before I could even remember. They stuck in my brain as I left the apartment and made my way to the streets below. I tried to tuck away the emotions that threatened to spike, but I didn't make it out of the building. Turning, I slammed my fist into the wall. Pain vibrated up my fist, shaking my bones. I shook out my hand, tempted to do it once more. Instead, I turned and left behind the only world I'd ever known. I didn't stop moving until I made it to the bus stop.

Leaning against a wall, I stared at the paper in my hands, and frowned. Vitale.

Who the fuck are you?