15. #2
Wrath and Creed were seated at the chess board, playing a game they’d probably never finish since their time together was usually spent talking shit to each other and laughing with the people around them.
Uncle Styx was on a lounge chair nearby with his baseball cap over his face so he could nap, and Thorn was sitting next to my dad in the corner.
As I parked my bike, Papa walked out with a mug of coffee in one hand and a paperback in the other.
Once I turned the motorcycle off, I ran my hands through my hair before I dismounted and walked toward the steps.
“Well, he doesn’t have any visible wounds,” Styx said from his chair. When I looked over at him, the hat was back on his head and he was studying me as I walked toward them. “And he didn’t haul ass up here, so I assume the cops aren’t on his tail.”
“He’s upset,” Thorn said as he watched me.
Dad got up to stand next to Papa before he asked, “What’s wrong, son?”
“I’ve been thinking . . .”
“You’re too pretty to tax your brain that way. You should leave that to people like Wrath,” Creed teased.
“You’re uglier than a baboon’s ass, and you’re still dumb,” Wrath retorted.
“That proves there’s an exception to every rule,” Styx added. “But back to our regularly scheduled programming. What’s up, Rin?”
“It’s about a woman.”
“Already?” Dad asked.
“If you tell us you’ve started dating another stage five clinger, I’m going to take you out into the yard and beat you until your stuffing comes out,” Wrath threatened.
“I had one that damn near killed me,” Styx boasted. Papa frowned at Uncle Styx, so he hurried to say, “Not that we’re having a competition or anything.”
“Would everyone shut the fuck up and just let the boy talk?” Wrath ordered.
It irritated me to still be referred to as a boy by the men in my family when I’d been an adult for quite a while now, but I didn’t take offense.
Since my life experiences paled in comparison to what they had been through by the time they were my age, it was understandable that they still considered me a kid.
I walked up the steps and hugged Papa and then Dad before I made myself comfortable against the porch rail. This conversation was going to take a while.
“I have a question.” When everyone looked at me expectantly, I said, “If something happened that caused you to forget yourself and all of the memories you had with the woman you love and also caused you to need long-term rehabilitation to do the simplest of things like feed yourself and learn to communicate, what would your wife do?”
“Val would work herself to the bone trying to figure out how to help me,” Wrath answered.
Thorn nodded before he said, “So would Phoebe.”
“Katrine would cook up a million natural concoctions to try while talking to every medical professional she could find,” Styx replied.
“It makes sense that the women who love you so much would stick with you through thick and thin. But what would happen if she found out that you would most likely never remember that you love her?”
“That could never happen,” Creed said with a dismissive shrug.
“It can with a head injury or stroke. And when it comes to the brain, there’s no guarantee that it will ever find those memories again,” I insisted.
“She’d still love me,” Thorn said firmly.
“How long would you want someone to wait on you to possibly recover?” I asked everyone, not just Thorn.
Dad blew out a long breath and said, “I wouldn’t want him to give up the rest of his life on a maybe.” He looked at Papa and said, “I’d want you to find someone else and be happy again.”
“Fuck, that’s a hard one,” Styx admitted.
“I wouldn’t want her to wait for me,” Wrath insisted. “I want her to be happy more than anything.”
“Okay, so here’s a hypothetical situation. Let’s say you’ve been recovering for a year with nothing but flashes of memories together that seem foreign. She is involved in every aspect of your care and still sees you all the time, but she meets someone new.”
“Okay.And?”
“She’s torn because she still loves you and wants to be involved in your care, but she’s kinda fond of this new guy and wants to give him a chance.”
“That’s a hard one to imagine,” Creed admitted. “It would be difficult for her to move on if she was taking care of me, and I know Sabine would never ditch me.”
“But if she met a man who understood her situation and accepted that her past is still part of her present, she wouldn’t have to choose,” Dad said with a shrug. “Is that why we’re discussing this, son?”
When I nodded, Papa ordered, “Tell us more about this woman and her situation.”
“I’m curious myself,” Creed admitted.
“Her name is Constance, and she’s from New York.
I met her through Bella’s new man, Matteo.
Her father is a business associate of his,” I explained.
It wasn’t a secret that our friend Bella Conner was about to marry into the New York mafia, and by telling them that Stan’s family was associated with him, they understood where I was going with this.
“Her father is the head of the Romano family that belongs to what’s called The Four Families.
It was all over the news for a while when they joined up together after generations of warring with each other. ”
“I guess I missed that,” Thorn said with a frown.
“We’re not exactly in the know about the mafia and gangsters,” Styx allowed.
“It’s probably because of my work that I pay attention to shit like that, but I remember being surprised when that announcement was made. Didn’t they all come together for a wedding or something?” Creed asked.
“Yeah, it was Stan’s aunt’s. She’s a doctor who lives in Texas that went up to New York to get married. I found pictures of it online, and it looked like a huge blowout.”
“Like Bella’s wedding is ramping up to be,” Dad said with a nod. “I’ve heard about all the preparations that are happening since she’s having it in Rojo.”
“That makes sense,” Wrath said. “But go ahead, Rin, keep talking.”
“Constance was raised in that lifestyle, so there are things that are perfectly normal to her that would be weird as hell to us.”
“I’d think so,” Papa said with a bark of laughter.
“Like what?” Thorn asked.
“She’s never without at least one guard. For instance, we went on a date last night and were accompanied by two. They hung back most of the evening, only interacting when Stan wanted to talk to them.”
“Constance is Stan?” Thorn asked. When I nodded, he said, “That’s cute.”
“That would be hard for me to handle,” Styx admitted.
“Me too,” Wrath agreed.
“Her guards, at least two of them, are women. I haven’t met the guy, but she’s talked about him before.”
“I met him that day you guys had a cookout,” Styx said. “He was intense but really nice.”
“I thought so too,” Thorn agreed.
“Well, okay, here’s where it gets . . . different .
” I cleared my throat before I explained, “When she moved out to go to college, her father needed to find people he could trust to be with her but would blend into the crowd while she was in school, so he hired two men who happened to be a couple.”
Wrath chuckled before he said, “Points to her father for thinking ahead.”
“That’s perfect,” Creed agreed.
“Well, it turns out they had a lot in common with Papa and Dad.”
“Ooooh,” Styx said, drawing out the word before he grinned. “Bet her daddy didn’t see that one comin’!”
“They fell in love and hid it from her family, which is a big no-no in the mafia world. But that didn’t really matter, because her father found out about the relationship after they were injured.
She mentioned that one had a head injury and the other lost a kidney and that led to a stroke or something.
I don’t remember all the details, but you get where I’m going. ”
“They got shot,” Dad said simply.
“Are we sure her dad finding out isn’t why they got injured?” Wrath asked.
“I don’t think that’s what happened, but I don’t know for sure,” I admitted. “She said it was a big thing she couldn’t explain, but her father felt responsible and was footing the bill for their medical care. She moved to Colorado so they could get treatment at the hospital here.”
“Like I did. Makes sense,” Thorn said.
“Let’s get to the meat of the matter,” Papa ordered. “She was in love with two men who were hurt and will never be the same?”
“The one with the head injury is having to learn to walk and talk again. He will most likely never be the way he was.”
“And the other guy?” Styx asked.
“She said that he remembers that he loves the one with the head injury but doesn’t remember that she was part of the mix.”
“Fuck. That’s horrible,” Thorn said sadly.
“He got upset when he had a flash the other day of her with the two of them, but he doesn’t really remember anything of substance.”
“I can’t imagine forgetting Sabine,” Creed said, his voice thick with emotion. “That would devastate her.”
“Stan has had some time to get used to it. She said she grieved the loss as if it were a death.”
“It was. It is. That’s harder than a breakup,” Dad said sadly. “It took us quite a while to recover even though things weren’t exactly great when our lives blew up.”
“I remember.”
“You like this girl,” Thorn said simply.
When I nodded, Wrath said, “And she needs to know that you’re willing to accept that she’s got two exes who need her.”
“Yes.”
“Are you okay with it?” Creed asked.
“She bought a massive place with all of this in mind. It’s that resort at the top of the mountain near Springblood with all those suites.”
“She bought that place?” Wrath asked. “I didn’t know Mayne was selling it.”
“I thought Mayne owned that, but I wasn’t sure,” I admitted. “She said that her dad had done business with the previous owner, so it never officially went on the market.”
Dad raised his eyebrows and asked, “Her father knows Mayne?”