Chapter 3 – Mari
“Are you sure you’re going to be okay?” All three men were at the door to the hospital suite, watching me. Greyson needed to take a break and get out of the room but was refusing a wheelchair, so Dominic had agreed to be his leaning post. They could’ve gone alone if we were at Seattle Gen, where we had a whole floor blocked off to ourselves, but we weren’t. So, Nate was waffling between going with them as a bodyguard and staying with me for the same reason.
“I’ll be fine. I’ve got to make a call.”
All three of them winced.
I’d taken a week to sit with Two-Bit’s news, to let it sink in. Our recovery took precedence anyway, but the information was always in the back of my mind. It wasn’t learning about another cousin that bothered me; it was the fact that he’d been hiding under my nose the whole time.
A fucking Fed to boot. Christ, I’d never live it down.
Nate walked over, tipped my chin up, and kissed me softly before pulling back. “Do you want me to stay? I don’t mind, even if it’s just for moral support.” His face was so open now that he’d told us everything. Things weren’t perfect and they wouldn’t be for a long time, but I was just happy he seemed to have less on his shoulders.
“No, go with them. I’ll be fine.” I tapped the gun lying next to me on the bed, but I refused to get snarky. This was the first time we’d been separated since Grey’s surgery, and it made all of us antsy.
Nate moved away, just for Grey and Dominic to take his place. I stood, making it easier for Greyson to dip down and kiss me too. “Be careful.”
“You too.”
As soon as Greyson had his kiss, Dominic passed Grey over to Nate and hauled me into his body. “You’ll stay in here with the door locked until we come back. Do not open it for anyone but us. I don’t care what they say. You wait until we get here. Got it?”
Any other day, I would’ve argued that I was capable of making my own decisions, but Dominic took the opportunity from me when he kissed me stupid. We were nothing but teeth, tongues, and the need to connect. When he finally let me go, I was breathing heavily and my brain definitely leaked out of my ears. “I mean it, mariposa. Lock the damn door.”
My lips were still tingling when they shut the door behind them, three sharp raps reminding me to lock it up.
In the time we’d been at the hospital, I hadn’t really considered my libido. I liked sex and the connection it brought, but I’d had more pressing matters to think about. Now that Greyson was mostly out of the woods and we were working on getting back to the real world, that low-level need my men instilled in me seemed to flare back to life.
Maybe I can convince Dominic to have a quickie in the bathroom later. I needed all of them again, but there was no way Grey or Nate was up to sex yet. They needed more time to heal. I was sure Dominic could carry the weight of responsibility happily until they were.
Chuckling to myself, I took my gun to the window and sat on the bench seat before dialing the number. It rang twice before he picked up.
“Mari.” There was obvious relief in my uncle’s voice, and I hoped it wasn’t the last time I heard some sort of softness pointed my way. “Where are you?”
“Safe. Did you know you had another son?” I didn’t see the point in beating around the bush.
Rafael’s sigh was loud over the line, but he didn’t ask how I’d found out. I had a feeling he knew exactly who had spilled the beans. Which, I guess, answered my question.
“Is Christian aware?” I’d never met any Osorios besides Rafael and the Wolf, so I didn’t want to assume that my cousin knew. I’d barely known about my father’s actions when he was alive.
“He is,” Rafael admitted. “It’s part of the reason we don’t get along very well.”
I wasn’t aware they weren’t on good terms. “He doesn’t like that he has a half brother?”
“The boy was the product of an affair.”
Was it the disrespect of his mother’s marriage that bothered Christian, or was the problem that Two-Bit—Dante—was a potential rival for his birthright? “Ah.”
“I wasn’t around the boy when he was younger.”
The boy, not Dante. Interesting way to keep himself distanced from his youngest child.
“Because of your wife?” Most mafia wives knew their husbands were cheaters because the generations that raised them had been too. Absolute devotion like my men gave me was abnormal in our world. This conversation made me all the more grateful for it.
When someone made you their whole world, it was hard to believe they’d ever turn their back on it.
“Because I felt awful that he existed. She left because of him.” The heartache in his voice told me who he meant. His wife. “She could have handled the affairs in general—and had more than once—but creating a child with someone else was too much. She walked away, and Christian never forgave me.”
“You never saw Dante?”
“No. Guilt kept me away, and his mother raised him as long as she was able to.”
“But not the whole time?”
“She moved to the States and died young. Overdose. I wasn’t aware she was into drugs when we were together, not that it would have mattered. By the time I found out she was gone, Dante had disappeared.”
“How hard did you look?” He had the resources to search the world twice over. I didn’t believe he couldn’t have found Dante if he’d wanted to.
“I looked into his family, but when it was obvious they didn’t have him…”
He’d left him there.
Anger burned in my gut. It was common knowledge that foster care in the States was rife with abuse. The man had more than enough money to give his sons separate households if that was what they’d needed, and he’d done nothing.
“You’re a piece of shit.”
“Your mother would’ve said the same thing. I should’ve fought harder to find him, but I was a coward. I didn’t want him to implode the peace I’d finally found. Christian’s anger didn’t help.”
“Don’t blame your son. They were your decisions.”
“They were, and I regret them.”
He sounded so sad and defeated, so unlike what I expected from any mafia man. Marriage was an heir’s requirement to secure alliances and power; it rarely had to do with love. I assumed Rafael’s was the same, but what if it wasn’t? Did that make his cheating worse? Did it absolve him of abandoning his son to a corrupt system?
I’d expected this conversation to change things, but I hadn’t expected it to adjust how I viewed the man who’d saved my life. I wasn’t sure I could look at him the same again.
“Do you regret getting married?” I eventually asked, needing to know how far the changes went.
“I regret hurting the person I loved more than anything, the one I vowed to protect. I regret hurting my son. But I’d live it all over again if it meant I could love her as long as I did.”
Son, not sons. Wife, not ex-wife. I had no doubt that he still loved her, despite the fact that she was long gone, and I didn’t know how to reconcile that with what he’d told me. Had his marriage meant that much to him? Had his family?
So much of mafia life meant sacrificing happiness for the good of the family, and I’d always assumed marriage was the same. A sacrifice you made because you had to. Empty vows that meant nothing because there wasn’t mutual respect and admiration behind them.
My father certainly hadn’t proven my feelings wrong.
Then again, what about Antoni and Shara? What about Aislynn and Cameron or Tennessee and Moore? There was love there, even if it was new and unexplored. They’d built lives together and embodied the vows they’d spoken.
What about my men? Did I expect them to change down the line? Did I think they’d leave me and find another they didn’t have to share?
No, I didn’t. I had them forever, even if we didn’t have an official commitment. Maybe it wasn’t so hard to believe that Rafael could have loved his wife at one point too. He’d just loved her too late.
“You’re not calling me about my mistakes or my son.”
“No.”
“I heard about the wake.”
“I assumed you would.” I didn’t need to explain more; he knew what I wanted. The same thing I’d always wanted. The same thing he and Emmanuel had dangled over my head, just to snatch it away. Help. Allies. A way to save my fucking city.
Rafael’s silence was pointed and clear. He knew what I wanted and, once again, it didn’t matter.
“Why show up if you aren’t going to help?” I snarled, suddenly so fucking angry I thought I could scream. Yes, he’d saved my life, but other than that, had he actually helped much?
“I can’t give you any more help than I already have.” That was always his answer. It would always be his answer. I’d known it was coming, but it still pissed me off.
“By that, you mean skulking around my city occasionally?”
“Keeping you safe,” he corrected. “I’m honor bound to stay, just as I’m honor bound to leave. I can’t give you anything else without upsetting the balance. I’m sorry.”
“You can. You’re just a coward. If the Wolf doesn’t command you, you don’t move.”
That rubbed him wrong, and his voice got heated. “What would you like me to do, Mari? Fight my father for you?”
“I’d like you to try. You say I’m so important to you, yet you’re comfortable standing on the sidelines while we’re being ambushed.”
“Because I can’t!” he yelled. “Not without risking my legacy. I’m not even supposed to be here anymore.”
So, Emmanuel had called his son home. Two-Bit’s warning was real. “Your legacy is more important than my life? Than the lives of the people in my city? Money and power and drugs matter more than people’s lives?”
“Of course not, but there are other things to consider. It isn’t easy to walk away from your birthright, tesorita.”
Isn’t it?If Cash were a better option and it meant the people in my city were safe, I would walk away from everything my father had built in a heartbeat. If I knew that Cash would let us live, I’d disappear from Seattle forever to live a life of peace with my men by my side.
That was the problem, though. Cash wouldn’t let us live, and the people I’d sworn to protect wouldn’t be safe. I’d be trading a leader for a death-dealer.
Taking a breath that did nothing to calm me down, I tried again. “You’re concerned about Christian’s legacy. I get it, I do. But this is about more than him. More than you or me or even the Wolf. People will die if Cash gets ahold of Seattle. Not just some, a lot. He’ll slaughter anyone who looks at him wrong or sees something they shouldn’t. Once I’m gone, he’s going to be too powerful to oust.
“He’s too unstable to live as it is. It’ll only get worse once he has no clear target to take his anger out on. Just because it’s my city doesn’t mean the ramifications won’t fuck everyone over. If Cash wins, he’ll have the Feds on your ass as fast as he can, just to prove he’s got the power to manipulate them. Killing him now will protect your legacy.”
“Marianna.”
He was going to say no again. “Look, I know it’s hard to step out from under the Wolf’s shadow when he holds so much power, but who do you want to be, Uncle? The man on the throne one day, or the man who risked it all to save lives? Which one will sons be prouder of?”
Rafael’s bitter laugh hurt my ears. “You say that like I’m a good man, tesorita. I’m not. I’m selfish and vain. Foolish, even. My family matters most to me?—”
“I’m your family.”
“You are, but you aren’t all of it. I need to think of my son.”
“Sons,” I hissed because I was pissed, and honestly, he deserved it thrown in his face because I doubted anyone truly had.
His actions were what had led to his divorce. His actions were what had estranged him from Christian, and in choosing to bury his head in the sand about it all, he’d left a child alone. In the dark. Even if I needed his help, I wasn’t sure I could ever forgive that.
Dante had needed him once too, and Rafael had let him down, just like he was letting me down.
“None of us are good people, Uncle. It’s not ingrained in us to be good. We were born into a life of bloodshed and death, and that’s never going to change. But this isn’t a selfless act. People dying is going to bring too much attention to the city, to imports, to our world. Cash is a risk to everyone, whether Grandfather believes that or not. Ignoring it is a fool’s game.”
“He’s your problem, Mari. Until he becomes ours, my hands are tied.”
Disappointment hollowed out my stomach, and I forced myself to sit up straight. To remember who I was.
I’m Marianna fucking Marcosa, and I run this city. If he doesn’t want an alliance, then fuck him and his bullshit family.
When I spoke, my voice was controlled again. “I won’t force you to help, but I’m telling you now, this isn’t over. I’ll make whatever alliances I need to save my city, even if it means teaming up against you.”
“Mari—”
“If you aren’t on my side, then you’d better not stand in my way, Uncle.”
He sighed, and I could feel the defeat in it. “I understand. Do whatever you need to do.”
I hoped he knew how fucking stupid he was being. He was throwing away the rest of his life on a man who didn’t truly care about his family. If he had, Dante wouldn’t have grown up alone. He’d have been there with the Osarios the whole time. The Wolf was nothing but a power-hungry asshole, and my uncle was going to figure that out one day. I just hoped it wasn’t too late.
“Good luck, tesorita.”
“Goodbye, Uncle.” The wedge between us dug deep as I ended the call and tossed my phone away.