5. Max
MAX
Ihissed in pain as I pulled on the clothes Cas had left on the dresser. A simple t-shirt to match the pair of athletic shorts. Wherever the hell my clothes had gone, I had no clue. I didn’t even know where the fuck we were. My bruised body screamed in pain, but I needed to get up.
Leona said I could stay here, but who knew how her men would react to that news. Especially if she told them about the tattoo on my back.
Cas had to have seen it if he bandaged me and changed my clothes. I’d never let him see it before. I’d been so careful after I’d had it done. It was just mine. Just for me.
Another sentimental weakness that I’d grown to fear and regret.
The tattoo used to fuel me to follow through on my plans. To end Luciano. To fix our Family. To keep her safe.
It was supposed to be a memento, a reminder of them both once they were gone, tucked away in remote Alaska like I planned.
Now it just served as a reminder that things between us were irreparable. Not after what I’d done to her and Cas. They both deserved better, and she had found it with them, and that was all that mattered.
This tattoo would die with me, and that would be the end of it.
I dropped my head into my hands. Why did I say I wanted to stay?
She asked me to be honest, and I just…spoke. Whatever I felt about her didn’t matter. I didn’t deserve her kindness or her pity, and I probably never had.
So then why had I gone to her in the first place?
When I’d stumbled to their penthouse after being attacked by the Camorra, she was the only thing I could think of. Greco was after them, and I had to warn her, and my body had acted on auto-pilot to take me to her.
Before, at my house, everything had crumbled around me as all my plans fell apart, and now I had no idea what the fuck to do.
I’d caused this problem with the Camorra; I’d opened the door for them to walk through—but I’d done it to keep Leona safe.
To keep the feds off our backs. All my planning had amounted to nothing.
I’d done my best to fix what Luciano ruined, and it had been working, but I damaged even more.
Maybe Cas was right.
Maybe I should have let them both in from the very beginning.
Maybe I had royally fucked up, and I’d spend the rest of my short, worthless life picking up the pieces. I could have given up, let Greco’s men kill me, but I’d heard her in my ear telling me to fight.
An unknown emotion rolled through my chest so heavily that I clutched at it. For the first time in fuck knew how long, I had visions of a future that terrified me.
Visions of what it would be like to get what I truly wanted.
Her. The girl of my childhood, grown into the woman who had become the center of my entire universe, no matter how hard I tried to keep her out of it.
Cas. My best friend. My brother. I carved him from my chest, but the gaping hole remained.
A family. What I’d been missing since I was orphaned at fifteen and twisted by my need for revenge.
Peace.
God, the idea of peace. It was mist, slipping through my fingers. Peace? In my life? Never.
She wouldn’t forgive me. I wouldn’t even forgive myself.
It was impossible.
Wasn’t it?
My thoughts ran away from me. Hope, such a dangerous fucking emotion, pulled apart the scar tissue in my chest and left it bleeding and wounded.
If…if somehow they decided to let me in, she decided to forgive me, would I even be able to live this way? With her and five other men?
I had no fucking clue. I’d never even allowed myself to dream about it. I’d shut down every thought, because otherwise it would have been too painful to let her go, to do what I had to do.
I groaned as I stood, my palm pressing into the bandages on my ribs. That fucking capo. Piero Greco and his henchmen could rot in hell. I was goddamn lucky the knife didn’t stab through my heart.
She’d told me to rest while they made a plan to fight back against the Camorra, but I was alive. I’d lived and fought through worse. These were surface wounds, and there was no reason I couldn’t be at that meeting.
I had no idea what I was going to do about my future, but this was where I had to start.
The room seemed tucked away in the quiet, back part of this massive, supposed safe house.
How the fuck did we get here? Where even were we?
Leona and the Shadows had the penthouse building, but I didn’t know they owned this other place.
Even after stumbling through the first few rooms and limping down the stairs, looking for where they’d gathered, it still felt a good size larger than my estate or the Vero estate.
Glimpses through the windows only showed surrounding trees and a bright, late summer sky overhead. I couldn’t see anything else.
When I finally found my way to the living room, they were already deep in conversation surrounding an unlit fireplace. Random furniture was arranged around it. A long sofa. An armchair. Dining chairs. Enough seating for everyone.
My eyes instantly found Leona. She was curled up on the leader’s lap, practically dwarfed by his size.
Beside him, Ryuji, the asshole, flipped a knife end over end while he stared at her.
The hacker, Ciel, and the stoic one, Wynn, sat side by side on one couch with their hands entangled. Cas sat on the other side of Obi.
Together, the group of them looked so comfortable. A family. I rubbed my hand over my chest, frowning at the sudden pain, deeper than the bruising. I’d felt so dead for so long. This…emotion was uncomfortable. And unwanted.
“Cas,” she said. “What did Giulio say about our supplies?”
“He can bring us everything on your list,” Cas answered. “Food, more med kits, the hardware Ciel needs. Some extra clothes. We just need to give him the address.”
Obi pulled out his phone. “I will text it to you now. It goes without saying that this cannot be leaked. Our location must remain a secret.”
Cas’s fingers tapped away. “Yeah, I’ll tell him. We can trust Giulio.”
Giulio. He’d defected from my men to Leona’s when they announced their engagement. The tumultuous emotions I’d felt that night, and so often after, shot to the surface. Even though I had no right to feel that way, jealousy was one of the few emotions that slipped through my mask.
“Max,” Leona said, perking up to lock eyes with me across the room.
The rest of them turned to look at me, five heads glaring in my direction like I were an intruder. Only Cas looked somewhat relieved to see me.
I told Leona that I wanted to stay, but what the hell was I doing here?
“Where are we?”
“What are you doing here?” Cas asked, always an echo of the thoughts that darted through my brain. “You need to sleep.”
I shook my head while I braced myself against the wall and fought a wave of dizziness. “I’m fine. I want to hear what’s next.”
“Can’t have a planning meeting without the mastermind behind it all, can we?” Ryuji said, gripping his knife with a sneer.
My lips pressed together. “I just want to help. If I can.”
They were silent as they stared. Obi rubbed his eyes with one hand while the other gripped Leona’s waist firmer. My heart clenched at the sight of her tucked into his arm. He murmured something in her ear, and she tilted her head up to whisper something back to him.
“Sit,” he said as he gestured to the only free seat in the room. He leveled his careful, dark eyes at me.
I sat down with a huff, withholding my groan of pain. The bruises rattled my bones with every movement. “Where are we?” I asked again.
“Staten Island,” he replied carefully.
I nodded. Close enough to the city, yet far enough away for privacy and safety. Some neighborhoods here were wealthy enough to have houses like this.
“I believe I owe you all a thank you,” I said as loudly and clearly as I could. My head pounded and my side ached, but this needed to be said. “So thank you for taking me with you and giving me a safe place to stay.”
“For now,” Ryuji taunted.
“Regardless,” I continued. “Thank you.”
The room was tense with silence until Cas finally huffed a breath. “You’re welcome.”
“So now what happens?” Wynn, the stoic one sitting next to the hacker, asked. “Are you going to leave?”
I pressed my lips together. I’d heard violent rumors about him on the streets.
My men had whispered about how bloodthirsty he was, and I’d seen it firsthand that night at the Albanian auction in the subway tunnels.
His pretty face would have had me second-guessing the rumors, but I’d learned long ago that what you saw on the surface was rarely the truth.
“Max told me he wanted to stay. I see no issue currently,” Leona said. The way they all turned to look at her…it was the same way they listened to her at my house when we agreed on our temporary alliance and on the missions that followed. They respected her.
Cas told me they gave her a chance to become who she was meant to be.
Neither her father nor I ever did that. I’d gotten my thoughts about her wrapped up in the same hatred I had for Luciano, and it made me stop listening to her, stop thinking about who she was or who she could be.
Shame made bile rise to the back of my throat.
“I think we should vote on it,” Ryu said, leaning back and crossing his foot over his knee. He still held the knife, glinting in his hand. “He’s fine now. There’s no reason he needs to stay. Let him fend for himself.”
Leona looked at Cas. My hands clasped in my lap while he gave her some unspoken message through their look alone. They’d always been close, closer than her and me certainly, but now? Their love was evident in the soft way he gazed at her and the way she looked right back.
I looked away.
“Well, bodyguard?” Ryu probed.
“Where else is he supposed to go?” Cas asked.
My mouth went dry when their attention turned to me. The Camorra had probably already weeded out men loyal to me and taken control of everyone else under my prior command. Besides my home, which they’d kicked me out of, I truly had nowhere else to go unless I ran and left the city.