Chapter Ten
Cian
I lay in bed with my phone in my hand, staring at Caity’s empty bed. It was late, but she was still in the living room watching television. I’d never expected Caity to be a television person, but maybe she couldn’t sleep. Maybe she was looking for a distraction.
I wanted to be that distraction.
I wanted to climb into bed next to her and make her forget everything that worried her. Make her forget everything that put that sad, depressed look on her face.
Oh, she tried to hide it, and for the most part, she did it well. Sal was convinced that while she and Maddie still weren’t talking, everything would work out the way it was supposed to.
He was so fucking delusional.
I clicked on the camera in the living room and watched her as she curled into the corner of the couch, covered by a blanket. She had a tissue in her hand as she stared at the TV. I clicked the camera on the other side of the room to see what she was watching.
I sat up straight as I looked at the dark TV screen. She was sitting alone, crying.
“What’s going on, Caity?” I asked out loud, as if I expected her to answer. “What’s got you so sad, baby?”
I switched back to the other camera and zoomed in on her beautiful face. Her green eyes were puffy and red as she sniffed into the tissue.
“Talk to me, sweetheart. Let me help,” I pleaded into the camera.
Caity inhaled deeply and blew out a breath before she stood up and tossed the blanket she’d been covered with onto the couch.
For a woman in her fifties, she was still fucking gorgeous. Her long, toned legs went on for days and led up to the roundest ass I’d ever drooled over.
The shorts she wore barely covered that round ass, and I bit my lip as my dick began to swell. Sal would cut off my dick if he knew I was spying on his sister this way. But fuck him.
Caity was mine, and I would look as much as I wanted until I was allowed to touch her again. Taste her again. Fuck her again. Caity, and only Caity, would be the one to determine when that happened. And while I wouldn’t force her, the time had come to start encouraging her.
It hadn’t taken much that night, almost thirty years ago. But now was a different story. Caity had lived a lifetime worried about how the world saw her. How the family saw her. I wondered if she ever stopped to think about how I saw her.
Eamon had been dead for two decades, and Kelley had been dead for two months. Plenty long enough for her to move on from the asshole she never loved. The one she’d been forced to marry.
I followed her through the house until she walked into her room and then into her bathroom. I leaned back in my bed and waited for her to climb into hers.
I heard the door open, and a moment later, Caity stepped into view. She pulled the blankets back and crawled to the middle of the bed. I reached down to rub my dick as I imagined her crawling to me.
She lay back on her pillow and stared at the ceiling as tears spilled over her temples. She was killing me. My strong, confident woman was crying alone in the dark, and I didn’t even know why.
“Talk to me, Caity,” I said again, hoping somehow she would hear me.
“We fucked up, Ci,” her quiet voice spoke in the darkness as if she heard my plea. “One magical night and I fucked up my whole damn life, and our daughter’s.”
My heart broke listening to Caity.
“We didn’t fuck anything up, baby,” I whispered at the screen. I knew she couldn’t hear me, but she didn’t know I could hear her. “Without that night, we wouldn’t have Maddie, and without Maddie, we wouldn’t have Henry.”
Except we didn’t have Henry. That Russian asshole had my grandson.
“We’ll get him back, baby. We’ll be a family one day, Caity. You can count on that.”
Caity reached over and turned off the light next to her bed. The camera switched to infrared, and I watched her toss and turn until she finally fell asleep. Her breath evened out, and I stared at the beautiful woman who had made me a father almost thirty years ago.
We couldn’t have more babies, not at our age. But we could still be a family.
I stepped off the train into Grand Central Station. I hadn’t told anyone I was coming into the city. I didn’t need to see the disapproving looks from my friends. Nor hear the lecture Mac would give me about letting things be.
I couldn’t let this shit be. I had a grandson. One I’d never met or even seen. When we learned about Henry, I was angry. At Maddie, at her fucking husband. It didn’t matter that he was dead. He’d failed her and her son.
When I found out Maddie was my daughter, weeks had gone by before I realized what that meant. Henry was my grandson. He had my blood, my DNA. He was part of my family.
And I wanted him back.
His mother should be raising him, not his fucking aunt, who had her own son. I had talked to Maddie at length about Henry, and why she’d done what she did. It didn’t make sense. If she’d only come to us, we would have protected her. I would have fucking protected her.
I cut through the crowded station out onto the street and walked toward Central Park. I stopped and bought a coffee; tasting nothing as I sipped it, my focus solely on my grandson.
Maddie had been here almost daily, watching him grow. She’d missed out on so much of his life already. For what reason? Why didn’t her son-of-a-bitch husband protect them?
The Valentinettis were feared in Chicago. Yet Salvatore never told his family about his son until he was four or five years old. Why? What was he hiding Henry from?
I entered the park and walked along the sidewalk until I reached the playground. I sat on a bench far enough away as not to draw attention, but close enough to see Henry.
I watched as a young boy ran after a smaller one. When he reached the little boy, he grabbed him up in his arms and swung him around, the two of them laughing.
The smaller boy, Maximiliano, was the image of his father. The older boy was Henry. My grandson. His hair was dark like his father’s, and I couldn’t see the color of his eyes, but I saw my daughter in him. The way he walked, the way he laughed.
Everything about him reminded me of Maddie when she was his age. I leaned forward, my elbows resting on my thighs as I held my head in my hands.
All these years we had missed out on. So many of Maddie’s firsts.
Her first words, first steps. I wasn’t there for them.
But her first day of school had been a big production.
Her first school play, when all she played was a tree who danced in the background, yet it felt like I was watching her on Broadway.
Her first boyfriend. When Maddie was thirteen years old, Sal found out Maddie had a date, and he, Mac, Duncan and I followed them to the movies. We sat in the back row and watched as the little shit put his arm around my daughter’s shoulders.
Maddie hadn’t had any of those firsts with Henry, and if I didn’t do something, she would never have any others either.
I felt the bench sag as someone sat down beside me. Looking up, I took one more look at my grandson before looking to my right and finding Callum Malone.
“What are you doing here, Cian?”
I looked back over at my grandson, noticing the Russian fucker watching me. It wasn’t Maxim, but one of his men. I couldn’t think of his name, but he was the younger one in Maxim’s inner circle. Men who together escaped Russia during the Russian Blood War, also known as the Bloody Massacre.
There were six of them. Brothers by choice. Like me, Mac, Duncan, and Sal.
“He’s my grandson, Callum.”
“You can’t just pop into the city like this, Cian. You should have called, and I would have made a way.”
“He’s my fuckin’ grandson.”
“He’s not.”
I stood and towered over Callum. “The fuck you just say?”
Callum stood up and let out a breath. “He’s Maxim’s nephew, Cian. Maddie made her choice. Sal backed it up.”
“I want to talk to Maxim.”
“Why?” Callum moved in front of me, blocking my view of Henry. “What will that do other than start a war you can’t win?”
“Fuck the war. Henry belongs with his mother.”
“His mother gave him up.”
I grabbed Callum by the lapels of his coat. “Because she was afraid. Not because she didn’t want him.”
“Afraid of what? Kelley? Someone else? Has she even told you everything? What if Henry still isn’t safe?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I stepped back, letting Callum go. “What the fuck did you find?”
“I haven’t found anything yet, but shit doesn’t add up, Cian. I found a reference to another office. One Kelley may have been sharing with someone else.”
“Where?” I asked, stepping around Callum to focus on Henry. As soon as my eyes landed on the boy, I felt my heart rate slow down.
“We haven’t found it yet. We need more time. It’s only been a few months. There is a lot of shit to go through. And we have to do it around regular business.”
“How did you know I was here?” I asked as I stared at the Russian fucker, who stared back, his arms crossed over his chest as if daring me to take a step in his direction.
I had to respect that he would protect my grandson, even from me. But I hated it all the same. Henry belonged to us. At worst, he was half Italian. But he wasn’t fucking Russian.
“Niall got a call.”
“From whom?” I asked, looking at Callum. His eyes were trained on something behind me, and I followed his gaze to the nanny.
“Why the fuck would she call him?”
“He’s made a friend. He swears nothing is happening, only that he’s seen her a few times on her days off and struck up a friendship. He asked her to call if she saw certain people here.”
“What the fuck, Cal? Why?”
“So we could head off the fuckin’ Bratva.” Cal shook his head and glared at me. “Sal put me in charge of this city. My goal is to make allies, not enemies, and you showing up here to stalk the Bloodletter’s nephew doesn’t help shit.”
“Cal—”
“Shut the fuck up, Ci. Everyone knows what’s happening in the Biker Federation.
New York is in the line of fire, and if we are going to survive, it won’t be because Montana was watching out for us.
But Fedorov might if I can stay on his good side.
You spouting off about wanting to take his nephew from him is not how we stay on his good side. ”
“Fucker doesn’t have a good side.”
“Be that as it may. I need you to work with me here. Go home, Cian. Trust me and my men to make sure Henry stays safe.”
“He’s my grandson.”
“And Maddie is your daughter. She needs you. Henry doesn’t. Not right now.”
“Fine. But if I decide I want to have eyes on my grandson, Fedorov can fuck himself because I will be right back in this park watching him.”
“Do me a favor and call me first.”
I grunted out a nod and looked at Henry one more time before leaving. I didn’t know how Maddie had done it all these years. How she walked away time and again.
It was time I sat down and had a long talk with my daughter about my grandson and how we were going to get him back.