Chapter 7
MARCO
New York wasn’t a city—it was a sentence.
The kind handed down quietly, without explanation, and definitely without mercy.
I wasn’t sure what crime I’d committed, but I’d stopped arguing a long time ago.
Now I served the time with clenched teeth, hands deep in my pockets, counting down the days as if they were tally marks scratched into concrete walls.
I should’ve been halfway to DC by now. A flight home weeks ago would’ve made sense. Hell, not showing up at all would’ve made more sense. But logic was taking a back seat lately.
And now here I stood, smack in the middle of Max’s living room, watching people smile these empty plastic smiles and wondering how exactly I’d ended up here. Again. I was starting to think I must enjoy making myself miserable. Maybe it was a hobby. Maybe it was the only hobby I had left.
I held a whiskey I wasn’t going to drink, partly because I didn’t trust myself with it, and partly because it felt better to have something to hold onto.
It gave me something to do with my hands, at least, besides shoving them deep into my pockets and clenching them into fists, which was usually my other go-to.
“Still here?”
Remy’s voice cut through my thoughts. I turned to face him. He was with Max. They were side by side, standing so close it was as if they were two halves of the same person. Funny how people could do that, blend together until you didn’t see one without immediately looking for the other.
“Remy,” I said, tipping my head slightly. “Max.”
Max gave me one of his usual half-smiles—the kind he kept in reserve for people who’d seen him at rock bottom.
It still caught me off-guard sometimes, seeing him sober, clear-eyed, clean.
Before Rosalie, he was always high. Eyes glazed over, looking right through me.
I’d hated seeing him like that. Seen too many people like that before.
“Merry Christmas, Marco. Thought you’d have run off by now.”
I shrugged one shoulder. The bad one was stiff, aching from the cold I could never quite escape here. “I was planning on it—after the party Remy insisted I come to.”
“You sure I can’t convince you to stick around this time?” Max asked. “I can double—hell, triple—whatever they’re paying you down in DC.”
I almost laughed, because it was tempting.
Tempting in that dull, persistent way I knew I’d ignore.
Truth was, Max had gotten good at making offers I could barely refuse.
It was probably why we’d become something like friends.
Circumstantial friends, I guess, because I’d never agreed with how he did things.
But I knew him better than most. And maybe knowing someone counted for more than agreeing with them.
Still, money wasn’t the issue. It never had been.
“I appreciate the offer,” I finally said, “but no. The city doesn’t agree with me.”
Max nodded slowly as if he expected my answer. He always asked anyway. Maybe it was his way of checking, of leaving a door open without actually admitting he cared whether or not I walked through it.
“Fair enough,” he said after a pause, taking another sip of his whiskey. “Well, if you ever reconsider, the spot’s yours. You know I’ll save it for you.”
He meant it too. We both knew he wasn’t talking about the money or the job—not really.
He was talking about history, the fact that despite all our differences, we were still here, years later, standing around in his living room pretending neither of us remembered how bad things used to be.
How far we’d both come. How strange it felt, being the last two people anyone would’ve expected to end up on speaking terms.
“I’ll keep it in mind,” I said quietly, and I meant it.
No matter how many times I walked away, he never fully shut the door behind me. Maybe because he knew better than anyone, sooner or later, I always ended up coming back.
“Where’s your wife tonight?” I asked.
One mention of Rosalie and Max went from stone-cold, ruthless bastard to something else entirely.
Suddenly, there he was, smiling that same stupid, lovesick grin he always wore whenever she walked into a room.
I’d seen grown men shrink under Max’s stare, reduced to nervous stammers and shaking hands, but around Rosalie?
The man turned into some lovestruck teenager.
“She’s around here somewhere,” Max said, already scanning the crowd, instantly distracted. “Ah—there she is.”
I followed his gaze, but the second I saw Rosalie, my attention snagged on something else. Or, more accurately, someone else—the woman Rosalie was talking to.
“Talking to Valentina, of all people,” Max muttered, shaking his head with mild annoyance.
Valentina.
Now I had a name to go with the weight I’d been dragging around.
She looked different tonight somehow. Not because she was dressed up or had changed her hair, but because she wasn’t wearing that ridiculous oversize coat she always seemed to hide inside.
Without it, she blended quietly into the crowd.
Why I even noticed, let alone cared, was beyond me.
It wasn’t exactly my job to pay attention.
“How’s she been doing?” Remy asked as if he were talking about an old friend and not someone tangled up in our mess. He did that sometimes—acted more familiar than he had any right to.
Max’s voice cut into my thoughts, pulling me back from wherever they’d wandered. “She’s been circling the drain ever since Cillian died.”
Cillian.
The name should’ve rolled off my back like every other name that had come across my radar. Just another name, another job. One more in a long list of things I’d handled without thinking twice.
Except it didn’t roll off—not quite. It stuck around.
It shouldn’t have mattered. The job was done.
I’d followed orders, as always. I didn’t feel bad about it.
At least, that’s what I told myself whenever it crept back into my mind.
Cillian had become a liability. If I hadn’t taken care of things, someone else would’ve.
That’s how this worked. Still, logic had a way of sounding hollow after the fact.
Remy cleared his throat, looking my way for just a second before turning back to Max. “Well, her husband’s assets have been squared away. The estate in Chicago—it’s all ready for her.”
Max gave a small, dismissive shrug. “It’ll be hers when she gets her shit together.”
Remy frowned slightly, that familiar line forming between his eyebrows—the one he always got when he disagreed but wasn’t sure how far to push it. “It’s been months, Max. You’re holding onto it as if she’s incapable.”
“Because she is incapable,” Max shot back. “And loud. And reckless. Not to mention, she’s become a liability with the Callahans.”
That got my attention immediately. The Callahans—the Americans—were the reason I was standing here at all.
The reason Max and Remy had needed me in the first place.
They weren’t the kind of people you wanted to owe anything to, and you certainly didn’t want to be on their radar.
The second you were, life became complicated.
And now, apparently, Valentina was complicated too.
“She’s involved with the Callahans?” Remy asked.
Max sighed, running a hand through his hair in frustration.
“Yeah. With the youngest brother, Sebastian. She’s volatile.
Yeah, sure, she’s grieving, but it’s more than that.
She doesn’t know how to keep her damn mouth shut.
She’s a broke alcoholic with a sick mother.
One bad day, one drink too many, and suddenly, she’s talking to the wrong people about the wrong things. ”
He didn’t have to specify who those “wrong people” were. I knew. The Americans had come sniffing around before. Max thought Valentina was exactly the kind of person who could give them something they’d want to hear.
I didn’t know she was an alcoholic though. It explained a lot—maybe too much. That desperation I’d heard in her voice suddenly made sense. Alcohol had a way of stripping people raw, wearing away whatever they tried to hide behind.
I’d seen it enough times. It was never pretty, watching someone unravel like that.
“And if she does talk?” I heard myself ask quietly, not sure why the words had even come out.
Max turned his head fully toward me. “Then I hope you’ll still be around,” he began. “I’m sure you understand why.”
I understood. He’d need me to handle the legal issues. Which meant the Americans were circling again. They liked to play dirty, and they liked to play close. Too close.
And Valentina?
She’d make it easy for them. A woman with no money, no stability, and no one to tell her to shut up. It was the perfect combination for leverage.
I didn’t know much about her, only the scraps Max and Remy had let slip.
Valentina was a grieving widow with a sick mother, no money, and a drinking problem she didn’t seem to bother hiding.
It wasn’t hard to piece the rest together.
Women like her didn’t make it far in this world—not unless they were smarter than they looked.
Or luckier. Valentina didn’t strike me as either.
I thought about the subway—about the guy who’d catcalled her. She’d laughed it off, calling it charming.
Charming.
I’d heard men like that charm women right out of their lives. Women who thought they could handle themselves, who thought nothing bad would happen to them, because bad things happened to other people.
Valentina didn’t know any better.
That was the problem. She didn’t know anything about survival—not really. Not the kind of survival that kept you alive when the people around you wanted you gone. Her instincts were all wrong. She’d play into someone’s hands without even realizing it.
Hell, she already had.
The Callahan’s didn’t keep people around for long if they weren’t useful. She’d figure that out eventually—probably too late.
“Hopefully, it won’t come to that,” I said.