Chapter 4
Kingston
My brother had finally started speaking to me again regularly.
Even if it took him beating my ass, and me giving up Presley, it was worth it.
Gio was my best friend, and while I did love Presley, I knew she would be happy with Gio, but I would never survive without him.
He was essential in every way, so I had to do whatever it took to ensure he got Presley back.
“Why exactly are you pulling Henry and the men into this meeting?” my brother asked while we skirted the side of the house where Henry lived. He maintained a residence off the books in town. It was a shitty setup he shared with a few of his men, but for the time being, it worked for him.
I checked how many cars were out front, made sure I didn’t see any police cars or anything out of the ordinary, and then explained myself. “I just have a gut feeling that Dad was lying about Markos being dead.”
Gio’s light eyes searched the street before glancing in my direction. “Why would Dad lie about that?”
We scaled the wooden porch steps. “To keep us out of it. Knowing Dad, he doesn’t want us to pull El Peligro back into something. I can’t prove it, but I need to know for sure if he’s alive.”
If Markos wasn’t dead, then we’d need to begin pulling layers back on all the various members who made up the Addesso family. Nine months; Presley should have been married by now, although she had come back home those few months ago, and I had never learned why.
The white door opened, revealing a member of El Peligro, holding an assault rifle.
He greeted us with a nod before moving to the side.
My brother and I entered, passing through the living room, around a few members who were counting product they’d just made a deal for.
Henry knew the details, but as long as the money was coming in, we didn’t care to look too closely at all of it. The less we knew, the better.
Henry had lighter skin than either my brother or I, but his eyes were dark brown, just like his hair.
He had on a boxy white T-shirt that did nothing to cover up the myriad of tattoos that covered his hands, arms, and neck.
His dark hair was pulled back into a small bun at the base of his neck, and his mouth spread into a smile as he saw us.
“Heyyyyy. Boss one and boss two!” He held his hand out for Gio to grasp and clap him on the back. My brother just watched his outstretched hand until Henry lowered it.
“Right. I assume you’re here for a reason.”
I pulled out a map and let it plop on his kitchen table, over a few plates and cups. “You’d assume correctly.”
“Shit, boss. Let me grab my fucking chicken nuggets first.” Henry complained while digging for his plate underneath the map. We caught him up on our concerns while he ate, and once he finished, we stood around his table.
“This is his home?” Gio asked, pointing at a point on the map.
I nodded while using a red marker to circle it. “Yeah, we’re headed back to New York.”
A few other men joined us in the room, but I had no clue who they were. Henry ran recruiting and vetting all the members and we trusted him to know who should be in the room and who shouldn’t. We allowed this, mostly because we just didn’t give enough of a shit, but also because Henry did.
One of the men set a tablet in front of us which had pictures of the inside of the mansion we were looking into.
I glanced at the images of the various rooms on the screen in front of me. “Where are the weak spots along the perimeter?”
If Markos were dead, then his estate should be easy to breach.
“The posterior portion of the house, however...” Henry used the marker to draw a line around the front part of the property. “That’s also fairly obvious…so it’s possible that it’s a diversion tactic. We would be safer taking a page out of your old man’s book and just go through the front doors.”
I caught Gio’s expression before looking over at Henry.
Dad gave us a little bit of a background on how he knew Markos, but I didn’t realize he’d actually gone to war with him.
It was never a good look to reveal that you didn’t know as much as your men, so I’d keep the fact that I had no idea what he was talking about to myself.
“We’ll have two parties set up––use both entrances. Make sure the men are armed and wearing vests.”
Henry barked out a few commands to the men, and they dispersed, leaving Gio standing near me with his hands clenched at his sides.
He spoke quietly, “Dad never told us any of this shit.”
I shook my head, unsure of what to say in response.
There were a lot of our parents’ lives they hadn’t shared, and while I typically would be angry, I was too hurt over the idea of my parents leaving.
Dad had mentioned that we didn’t know what we’d gotten ourselves into by reviving El Peligro, and I was inclined to believe him.
Better to just leave him to his secrets and allow him to have peace.
This was our problem now.
Gio sighed while pulling his phone out. He’d started doing that more than he used to and I wondered if it had anything to do with Presley and hoping she’d reach out. I knew she wouldn’t.
We’d broken her, and I was the one who held the hammer, smashing away at all the goodness and love that was once inside her. If she waited a year to reach out the first time, there was no way she’d consider responding now.
“Should we stop and see tía?” Gio asked, looking a little nervous by the way he rubbed his neck.
We were still trying to make up for the shitstorm we’d brewed all those months ago that put her and her two sons at risk.
She and her boyfriend, Archer, were more than gracious about forgiving us, but it took effort to make relationships work, and I knew we had both agreed to try and make one work with her and our two cousins.
“We should see if she’s in town, might be nice to see her and the boys,” I replied and added, because I knew he’d be nervous about it, “I’ll text her.”
His nod of appreciation was slight before he was back to business.
“Do you want to go in through the front together or are we splitting up?”
Henry was more than capable of handling things without us. “Let’s go in through the front, together.”
My brother fell into step next to me as we exited the house. I tried to relax, feeling the peace of having him nearby again calmed me. It had been lonely these past three months, all alone in my thoughts. I hated being inside my head, full of regrets and stupid dreams that would never come true.
We drove back to the farmhouse in our armored car in comfortable silence. Having my brother with me again had me thinking of our old Camaro that was parked and covered, inside the barn. I didn’t know why I had bothered to keep it, but I wasn’t ready to let it go yet.
“Where do you sleep?” Gio asked as he exited the SUV.
I tilted my head toward the barn. “I renovated it a bit, so it’s more like a room…”
Gio’s blue eyes flashed with something like curiosity as he glanced at the refurbished structure behind me.
The barn was the first thing I’d poured my time into.
There were fresh boards all along the exterior, and a new roof was added just last month.
The inside was newer too, but I kept most of the original setup so when Presley moved back, she’d be able to put her animals inside.
“How about you?” I asked, still curious as to where he’d been.
“I was in one of the outlier buildings, we’d used it as an outpost over by where we store military grade weapons, and the helicopter. But I just moved back in with Mom and Dad after I heard they were wanting to leave.”
Guilt tugged at some broken place inside of me for being here instead of there with him, but while we were making progress, I knew it was too soon to be under the same roof again.
“How about the house…there’s visibly less holes than the last time I saw it.
” My brother turned toward the two-story farmhouse, inspecting it as if he were going to go inside.
He might have found me in there the other day, but he hadn’t gone through and looked at all the changes.
He probably didn’t even know I had finally ripped out all the old wood on the top floor.
We’d been trying to get to the top floor forever.
“It’s coming along.” Was all I said because he still seemed erratic, as if one wrong word and he’d dash away and go no contact with me again.
Gio stepped closer, twirling a familiar-looking hair tie around his finger. “How many rooms will it have?”
The gravel crunched as I slowly stepped closer until I was a few feet behind him. “Four, and an office.”
“That’ll be good. She’d like that…” Gio mused, trailing off.
I stared at the side of his head, seeing that his hair had grown out and his skin looked paler than usual. “Would you?”
His head snapped over as if I’d just struck him. “What?”
“Would you want the four bedrooms and the office? Our whole plan here is to get you two back together…is this what you envisioned?”
The way he glared at me made something dark and uncomfortable shift in my chest. As if someone had come and shoved the stone over my heart and realized it was infested with insects and decay.
“So what, you’ll build us our dream house and then walk away?” he asked skeptically.
Glancing back at the house, I tilted my head to take in the height.
I wanted fresh shutters on the outside of the windows and to build out the porch.
I wanted her to be able to sit on it one day, holding a baby that had my brother’s eyes, while she watched rain fall on a world that was so different than the one we’d come from.
I shrugged, indifferently. “Gives me something to do, but I can stop if you’d prefer.”
My twin waited, watching me intently while the muscle in his jaw feathered. There was a shit ton he wasn’t saying. “Saves me a ton of work. Knock yourself out.”
With one last glance at the house, he turned toward the path that connected the farmhouse to the manor without looking back.