3. Caspian
CASPIAN
We pulled into the driveway of a mansion on Staten Island.
The three-story home was set far behind the treeline, blocking the view of it from the road, and the driveway wound around like an asphalt river.
Leona’s face pressed up against the window of our SUV, her hair hanging down her back as her head tilted.
She’d shucked off the Kevlar vest, and it sat on the ground at her feet.
“Whoa,” she breathed. “Obi, seriously?”
He gripped the steering wheel. “What?”
“Is this the new house? The one you just bought.”
“Yes.”
“This place is huge!”
He smirked, catching her eye in the rearview. “I take it you like it.”
She grinned. “I’ll withhold judgment until I see the inside.”
Ryu, Wynn, and Ciel followed us in the other car, and we both parked at the doors of the five-car garage.
The house stretched above us and spread out to the east and west. Columns upheld the second story, and manicured foliage decorated the front lawn and around the house.
It was larger than even the Vero estate—the first time I’d seen that house, I’d almost choked in surprise.
But this one? It gave me the same feeling: that I was just a little boy who didn’t belong around this kind of wealth.
With a sigh, I unbuckled my seatbelt. That boy was long gone.
Max groaned softly, still passed out on the seat next to me. His bandages were already soaked through. I frowned. We needed to get him patched up fast. Medicine, stitches, and fingers crossed that he’d avoid infection.
“I’m buying a Lambo,” Ryu announced while we all hopped out of the cars and began unloading what little we’d brought with us. The go-bags with a few changes of clothes. The duffels with the weapons. “This garage is perfect for the car collection I deserve.”
“There are five other people living here, Ryu,” Wynn said with an eye roll. “Save some room for my motorcycles, please.”
“I want a Maserati,” Leona quipped. Ciel raised an eyebrow, and she shrugged. “What? I love the logo.”
Obi pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I will buy you whatever you want.”
“Buy me an armored G-wagon next,” I said with a grunt as I slung Max’s arm over my shoulder and pulled him out of the SUV. He stumbled against my body with a groan, his head lolling to the side on my shoulder.
My gut twisted uncomfortably.
The mind-fuck feeling I’d been processing since I learned what Max had been hiding from us all these years—how Luciano had killed his father and continually threatened him over the years, how he’d been trying to get Leona and I to safety—came back in full force.
Once, when we were in enforcer training, probably close to fifteen, we got caught out by a group of Sandrini’s men.
They roughed us up pretty badly, and we had to carry each other back home in shame.
We’d gotten an earful from Max’s father, Massimo, about how reckless we’d been, how we could have lost each other.
That same feeling was a fifty-pound weight in my stomach right now.
I could have lost him again tonight. I hadn’t even been there to fight beside him. My gut knew I would have taken the blows for him, even after everything that had happened between us.
I shouldn’t fucking care, but I did.
With a heavy sigh, I carried him toward the house, behind Leona and the rest of the guys. My jaw clenched at their uneasy looks. I didn’t know what tomorrow would look like, but right now, we needed somewhere safe to sleep and recover.
We could figure out the rest later.
“Keys?” Ciel asked.
Obi ducked his shoulder and slammed it into the door from the garage into the house. It jolted open with a slight splintering sound. Ryu snorted.
“So,” Leona started while pursing her lips. “If you bought it, why don’t you have a key?”
Obi ushered us all in. “The sale is…in progress. The house was empty, so it’s safe to use. No one will know we’re here.”
“So we’re squatting,” Leona said with a suspicious eye as we walked into the house.
“Squat on this dick, hanii.”
Leona flipped him off.
“I bought it,” Obi answered her. “It’s mine to use as I please.”
I wasn’t interested in debating ownership. “Obi, where can we put him?”
Obi led us into a massive, state-of-the-art kitchen.
A huge island with white marble countertops bisected it.
Ryu started dumping all his weapons on top while Obi pointed behind him and to the hallways leading away from the kitchen.
“There are three floors. Upper floor, main floor, and basement. Eight bedrooms. A study. A room where we can build a gym. Most of the bedrooms are upstairs, so take your pick.”
“Furniture?” Ciel leaned to the side to look at the living room attached to the kitchen.
The house was open-concept, at least here, so the kitchen bled into the next room as if they were the same massive space.
Objects that looked like covered furniture dotted the rooms. A faint air of dust floated in what little light we had.
“The house is partially furnished, or at least it should be,” Obi said. “The estate has been managing the property while it’s been up for sale, so it should still be clean.”
“Great,” I said, adjusting my grip on Max’s arm around my shoulder. “I’m going to put him in a room. Hopefully, one with a bed where he can sleep.”
Max groaned on my shoulder, a whisper of unintelligible words leaving his lips. I swallowed, giving Leona a sideways glance. She wrung her hands while her teeth tugged on her bottom lip, eyes flicking between me and Max.
“Ryu, Ciel, Wynn, let’s put our bags down and start implementing some security measures.
Caspian, I’ll follow you shortly to assess Volpe’s status,” Obi said.
He gave specific instructions based on the house’s layout and our available supplies while I hobbled down the massive hallways to find the stairs.
Their voices faded in the background, but I still caught his orders for our girl.
“Leona, I want you to look at our food situation. There are emergency food supplies in the bags. Make a list of what we need for a few days, and we’ll figure out how to get it.
After you’re done, I want you to find a couch or bed and rest.”
They continued assigning duties while I took Max further into the house.
The stairs were slightly challenging, but we made it with only a few grunts of pain.
After peeking my head into a few rooms that shot off the main hallway upstairs, I found an empty bedroom that looked clean enough to use. It would have to do.
I gently eased Max down onto the bed. His head rolled to the side, eyes fluttering for a moment before they shut again.
Why had he come to us? What did he want? Would he stay, or would he run off on his own again, like he’d been doing his entire fucking life?
“You’re an idiot,” I said, even though he couldn’t hear me. “But at least you’re alive.”
I sighed. The best I could do for now was get him changed, clean his wounds again, and patch him up. Leona could decide what to do with him later.
With a frown, I assessed his current state.
Rips and tears marred his button-down shirt.
Slowly, I undid the rest of the remaining buttons and then pulled it off to a chorus of his groans.
His pants were dirty and bloody and also needed replacing, but I’d deal with his chest and face first since it seemed like the worst of him.
I had a couple of extra clothes I’d thrown into my go-bag that would fit him.
He had cuts all up and down his arms, plus that jagged gash on his ribs. His face was bruised and swollen, along with multiple contusions on his chest. It also looked like he’d run into the wrong side of a knife.
What had gone down between him and the Camorra?
“Caspian,” Obi said from behind me. “I brought the med kit for stitches.”
“Hey. Yeah, he’s still bleeding pretty badly.”
He tilted his head to the side and crossed his arms over his chest. “Would you like me to do it, or would you?”
I ran a hand through my sweaty hair. Fuck. He used to be my best friend. I’d stitched him before, and I could do it again. “I will.”
He nodded solemnly, then helped me undo his bandages and position his arm right so I could get at the gash first. I grimaced as I prepped and cleaned the skin. The blade had torn the skin to shreds, but he was lucky it didn’t go into his ribs. Whoever did it was clearly trying to get his heart.
Obi video-called Willow, and she talked me through how to get the stitches around the wound.
Mine weren’t as tight or clean as Obi’s usually were, but they’d do.
A few other lacerations needed some butterfly bandages, and we’d just have to wait to see how the swelling around his ribs and face did. He’d be bruised to all hell.
Max slept through all of it, only waking up once to groan and swat at me weakly, and then pass back out.
The guys stopped by a few times, and I could have sworn Ryuji only looked into the room to see if Max had perished or not, and left with a disgruntled huff when he saw the man still clung to life.
When Obi helped me roll him to the side to get the final, clean gauze wrapped around his chest secure so he didn’t accidentally pull it off while he slept, we glimpsed his back, and we both froze.
Obi rolled him onto his stomach. We stared at his back.
Shit.
Silence stretched between us.
“Did you know?” Obi asked quietly. He crossed his arms over his chest with a frown.
I shook my head as I tried to process this. “Nope.”
When was the last time I saw Max shirtless? Or in anything less than a T-shirt, which would have covered…all of this?
“It is a—”
“I can see what it is.” Despite the gauze wrappings crossing over his back, the image was crystal clear.
My mind was running at light speed, trying to make sense of it. I’d left Max’s journal behind at the penthouse. In all the chaos, I hadn’t thought to grab it from where I’d left it in the library after my third read-through.
All the secrets. All the lies. They all connected back to this.
Why didn’t he tell me? When—
“Caspian,” Obi murmured. Gently, his hand gripped my shoulder.
My head snapped up, and I met his gaze. I suddenly realized it was the third time he’d called my name. “What?”
“She should see this.”
My throat went tight like I’d swallowed a rock, and it got lodged in my windpipe. “Yeah. She should.”
“You understand what this means, don’t you?” His tone was careful as he watched Max’s sleeping form.
I exhaled through my nose. “I can guess.”
“And? What is your response?”
I barely held back my bitter laugh. “Does it matter?” I gestured to his back. “What is your response? Are you really going to accept what this means?”
“We shall see.” His words said one thing, but his tone said another. He was just as unhappy and confused about this as I was.
“Oh, yeah?” I snorted. “And what about the other guys?”
Leona was one thing. Ryuji, Ciel, and Wynn were another.
This was so fucked.
“Hmm.” He clicked his tongue. “I think it is time for the truth from Maximiliano, once and for all. He owes it to all of us.”
Yeah, it was about fucking time. Too many secrets, too many lies, too many mistakes. The time to confront them had come.
I dragged my hands down my face. “I don’t know if I can…”
The words died in my throat. Max slumbered on.
“Neither do I,” he said, giving me a look. Obi’s dark eyes, as always, revealed nothing. Except I knew him well enough now to know that he had plans on plans on plans, and this would just get added in there somehow.
Max shifted, clutching the sheets with faint murmurs in his sleep. I still needed to get him out of those bloodied suit trousers. “I’ll get him changed from here. We’ll deal with it when he wakes up.”
Obi clasped my shoulder and left me staring down at our enemy.
This could go one of two ways, and I had no fucking idea which path was the right one.