Chapter 6
LOUIS
From such crooked wood as man is made, nothing perfectly straight can be built. — Immanuel Kant
Lake Michigan at midnight, not exactly my favorite place to be and not my first choice by a long shot.
Memories flicker like the small waves that mimic the sea as the tide hits the side of the beach.
Most people, unless they’re local, don’t realize just how large the Great Lakes are, or that if you’re big enough for even the sky to take notice, you too have to follow its rules.
The rules of the night.
Of the moon.
Gravity itself.
Just because you’re large doesn’t mean you’re in charge, it’s a lesson I had to learn at an early age—everything is a smokescreen, it’s about concentrating hard enough to look past what’s right in front of you to what’s toying with you behind the scenes.
He didn’t ask me to meet him here because it’s a full moon.
He asked me to meet him here because it’s a powerful play, a friendly little reminder of all our times spent at this lake and what we both know is buried beneath its dark, unforgiving surface.
Clever.
On point for a man like him.
I can only imagine that what he wants now has everything to do with the woman I just married and the secrets he wants the answers to. He could always send his men in, or women for that matter, but it’s easy to see that play a fucking mile away in this business. But sending in someone with power?
Sending someone in big?
Now that’s a calculated move, because the minute you send someone in whom you can’t control is the minute you’ve admitted to everyone around you that you don’t exactly have it and what a fucking thrilling thing to witness when all you want is power and you see someone with a potential injury—you jump at the chance so fast you nearly injure yourself in the process.
I never wanted to be born into this life, and I hate that I’m as good at it as I am, almost like anything else would have either bored me to tears or made me feel too frayed at the edges, constantly scratching, touching, looking—rather than staring at a burial ground that I, along with countless other families, helped build.
The city lights danced across the water like ghosts trying to forget they ever existed.
The wind came in off the lake, sharp and slicing, the kind of cold that got in your bones and stayed there.
I kept walking until I made it to our spot.
It was a nice bench that almost always had a homeless person occupying it or some elderly man with a cane staring out at the water—I sometimes wondered if he had the same regrets until one day he stopped showing up.
“Ah, dickhead,” Cassian said without turning. “It’s been a while since you crawled out of that gutter in New York.”
He was standing in front of the bench where the man used to sit.
When I asked him about it one day he merely shrugged and said we all had our time and that the man was intelligent enough to know he’d already out lived his and mentioned he didn’t know how to swim.
That was the end of the conversation. I didn’t need to read into any specific details to know what happened next only to rest assured it was fast, Cassian despised prolonged suffering—one of his finer traits.
I stepped up beside him, hands shoved in the pockets of my black coat. “Nice to see you too, sunshine.”
Cassian smirked, lips twisted in that casual menace he wore like cologne. “What’d you major in again? History?”
I chuckled under my breath. Hilarious. “Guess I always liked knowing where people buried the bodies. I don’t like surprises.”
Cassian nodded, slow and deliberate. “Heard you lost the girl you loved to her bodyguard.” There it was.
“And your evil villainous brother got himself killed.” Good riddance.
He glanced sideways. “Your bullets, though—nice. Well done. He was an asshole anyway. But hey… congrats on the nephew that could’ve easily been your son. ”
Low blow.
My jaw twitched, while I fought to keep my hands at my sides. He was never careful with words. Then again, I was never careful with my punches—kind of how we met originally. He wouldn’t shut up, and I wouldn’t stop hitting “You always did know how to keep it classy.”
We stared out over the lake. It roared quietly beneath the wind, the same way grief did when you stopped pretending to ignore it.
After a moment, I finally broke the silence, muttering, “Has it always been this cold?”
Cassian’s reply was quiet. Honest. “Yeah. But never this lonely.”
For the first time in years, I honestly felt something close to guilt, like somehow this was all my fault and no amount of repentance was going to fix it.
“Any news, then? Any leads at all?” What I was really asking was, was there any way out of this except the path I was taking, one where I kept everyone in the dark by playing along.
Was there another way to find out other than gaining people’s trust and gaining access, playing their game while they unknowingly stepped right onto my board.
Cassian shook his head. “No. But I know someone who might be the key to all of it, Tempest Alfero, Mafia Boss Dante Alfero’s daughter.
You know, the one you didn’t fall in love with.
” He leaned forward, elbows resting on the rusted railing.
“And she just so happens to be single and looking to marry a pawn.”
I snorted out a laugh. Leave it to him to think about sex right now. “Should you marry her then? Sleep with her, make her fall in love with you and confess all her sins?”
Cassian grinned, all teeth. “Nah. I’m not the marrying type.
” He glanced sideways again, this time with purpose.
“I like her, though. She’s different.” He shrugged.
“You, on the other hand… you’ve always had something to prove in this great search, whether it’s to yourself or to others, who knows at this point. Maybe she could help both of us?”
My expression dropped along with my stomach.
I left women alone. Completely alone. Besides, being involved in any of his psychological mind games always meant you ended up dead or wishing you were.
I used to think it was his only source of entertainment and was sickened to find out it was both that and his only way of gaining intel without getting killed. “Don’t.”
“Come on,” Cassian said in a soft voice I’m sure he reserved for people it actually worked on. “I know how tempting our little games used to be for you.”
I turned away, stomach churning with all the images of what could possibly go wrong and all the ways it fucking did. “That was a long time ago.”
“A long time ago,” Cassian echoed, his voice darker now. “When we used to make fight clubs resulting in broken ribs and dislocated shoulders. So it didn’t hurt as much when our families did it.”
I didn’t answer. I had no words. I knew anything I said would be war torn with too much pain that I’d end up saying things I shouldn’t and whispering secrets that should stay buried. Sometimes, silence says enough.
We weren’t just survivors that crawled rock by rock out of the gutter.
We were survivors who’d never been helped, never been saved, never even been looked at.
Everything we had, we had because we fought for it, stole for it, bled for it.
We earned every scar and promised to return them tenfold.
Our damage bonded us in a way that blood never could.
Cassian continued, more thoughtful than I’d seen him in years. “I don’t even know who my parents were. All I know is I’ve been fighting to earn the Vescovi name since I was eight—since the day I met you and said we should be friends.” He chuckled. “Then you punched me in the face.”
I cracked a half-smile and flexed my fist. “Best day of my life punching you in the jaw.”
Cassian ignored me and took a step away from me. “I’m after knowledge,” Cassian said, tone suddenly sharp. “Enough to burn down what matters to them and nearly destroyed us. That’s all I want.”
“And me?” I finally asked, voice heavy with anger I couldn’t hide anymore. “I want revenge.”
Cassian turned toward me and nodded his head. “Then we’re on the same page.”
I narrowed my eyes. “And Tempest? What does she have to do with all of this?” And how much did Cassian really know? How deep did this go and how involved was he, really?
Cassian didn’t answer right away. He just stared out at the black water, then finally said, “She wants to be seen. Needed. And so much more than we can both comprehend. I’m giving her a small, tiny little purpose for me and giving her a toy to play with—you, you’re the toy in this scenario. Try to look cute, bitch.”
I almost laughed; instead, I turned. “I don’t like being played with.”
“You’ll like her games.” Cassian grinned.
“They’re just like mine, plus it’s the perfect cover.
You did say you wanted revenge. You don’t need to love and die for her.
Use her the way she’s going to obviously use you.
She jumped at the idea, by the way.” He paused a moment then smirked.
“Granted, I may have extorted some information to push her in that direction.”
Of course he did. He wouldn’t be Cassian if he didn’t.
“But…” He shrugged. “I needed an excuse for her to feel noble and a way for you to get the answers you wanted while entertaining me at the same time.” He stared into the distance for a moment.
“Too much heat’s been on me lately, so it’s better to let you take over the show for a while, got some wounds to lick. ”
“Why don’t I believe you?”