The Woman in the Pawnshop (Costa Family #13)

Chapter One

Christopher

This place used to be as familiar to me as my own home. More so. Now, it felt like staring up at a stranger’s house.

I guess, in a way, it was.

I’d been gone for a long time.

I’d been so busy that I’d barely even kept in touch.

All these people I used to know as well as I knew myself might as well be strangers. Hell, I knew I was going to be just as much a stranger to them. So much had changed. I had changed. In more ways than I could even count. Sometimes, I barely even recognized myself.

The man I’d been the last time I stood looking up at this brownstone was so much younger. Hardened, yes, by this life, by the instability of the previous leadership. But lighter. Less weighed down by life.

I barely even knew what had gone down with the family since I’d been called away. I got the marriage and birth announcements. For women I’d never met. Whose stories I didn’t know.

I was still part enough of the organization that I got highlight reels here and there, mostly from the boss’s wife, Gigi, but that was it. I didn’t know shit about what had gone down with the business, who the major players were, or, it seemed, who some of the new members of the organization were.

Because I had no fucking idea who the guy standing guard at the door was.

He was a good-looking kid, everything about him screaming ‘mobster’: tall, fit, black hair, brown eyes, classic bone structure, and put together in a nice suit.

My own suit felt heavy and itchy. I once lived in them, wore them like a second skin. But it had been so long since I’d worn one. I felt like everyone could tell they didn’t quite belong on me anymore.

Finally clocking that I was looking a little too long, the guard glanced at me. “You got business here, get about it. Otherwise, get gone.”

My lips curved up slightly, remembering how things like that used to come out of my own mouth.

Fuck, it felt weird to be back.

“I need to see Lorenzo.”

“Yeah? I need a long weekend on a beach with Megan Fox. But that ain’t happening either. Fuck off.”

I stepped closer, watching the way his hand slipped into his jacket.

“Tell him Christopher is here to see him.”

“Christopher? That supposed to mean something?”

“It will to him.”

He watched me for a second before reaching to open the door, keeping his eye on me until he was inside.

It was maybe ten seconds later when the door flew open.

And there he was.

The capo dei capi of the New York mafia.

The last time I’d seen him, he’d just taken over for his old man.

He looked older, with some gray threading into his dark hair. Then again, I didn’t look the same either.

“Holy shit,” Lorenzo said, a smile breaking across his face. “I didn’t believe Nero when he said a Christopher was here. Man, what the fuck?”

He jogged down the steps toward me, then wrapped me up in a bear hug.

“Haven’t seen your face in fucking ages,” he said as we broke apart.

“Yeah. It’s… weird to be back.”

“Weird? To be back with family? Dunno if I like how that sounds. How have—”

“Boss,” the kid—Nero—called, “hate to be this guy, but you’re not supposed to be on the street right now.”

“Something going down?” I asked, feeling a surge of adrenaline that I hadn’t experienced in years. But there was something familiar and almost comforting about it. Maybe because it was a sign that my body did remember this, that it would all come back to me if I just gave it time.

“Always something,” he said, slapping my shoulder and leading me up the stairs to the brownstone. “Nero, this is Chris. He’s a, fuck, what is it? Second cousin once removed or some shit? Chris, this is Nero. One of Miko’s brothers.”

“Miko,” I repeated.

“Shit, yeah. You have been gone a while. Miko was an associate under Cosimo a while back. He’s a capo now. This fuck is hoping to get there one day.”

A whole new generation getting Made.

That should have been me years ago.

If life had gone differently.

I shook away those thoughts, trying not to let the feelings about being left behind take hold and root.

My life went differently.

Got sidetracked for a while.

I was getting it back on track now.

“Used to have your job,” I told Nero.

“Want it back?” he asked, shooting me a smirk.

Young and hungry.

I remembered those days.

I moved into the townhouse with a man who used to be like a brother to me.

It had been nothing like this the last time I’d been inside. Lorenzo had just started renovating when I left. It looked like a whole home now.

I could see his wife, Gigi, all around in the décor. And evidence of the kids all around: a half-built model car on the coffee table, a pile of children’s books on an end table, a forgotten single sock.

Lorenzo led me into the dining room and waved toward one of the chairs.

“Where’s the family?”

“Kids are at school. Gigi left with a tray of food, so I’m assuming she’s off with the other wives, stuffing someone’s freezer. She’ll be happy to see you, though. Been years, but she still asks about you. She’s gonna insist you come to dinner.”

“Got two extra chairs?” I asked.

Lorenzo’s head tipped to the side, his brows pinched.

I exhaled hard.

“Alright. There’s no easy way to lead into this.”

“I got as much time as you need,” he invited, resting an arm on the table.

“So, you know I went home when my old man died.”

“Of course. To take care of your ma.”

My mother had always been, to put it nicely, delicate.

She’d been one of those women who was always a damsel in distress, always needing saving and pampering.

My old man had been happy to do it while he was alive.

And the loss sent her into a spiral. My sister had been dealing with it all.

But with kids to take care of, she couldn’t handle it all.

“Yeah. She just had a never-ending list of new conditions to deal with.” Some of them were real. Some were made up for attention.

“Sorry to hear that.”

“Over time, she got less and less mobile.” Mostly because she didn’t want to do the work to stay that way.

Something not only I, but her doctors, and her physical therapists were on her case about.

But she didn’t want to hear it. “Eventually, she got really frail and broke her hip. Went into long-term care.” Where, honestly, she was happy.

She loved being taken care of. That was what she got there.

“But you didn’t come back?” he asked. He tried to cover it, but I could hear a bit of hurt in his voice. Like he thought I wanted to stay away.

I exhaled hard.

“Uh oh.”

“Yeah. So after my ma stabilized in long-term care, my sister… my sister got walked out on.”

It was more than that.

She’d been relentlessly cheated on for years, which she only learned about when her yearly visit with her gyno led to an STI panel lit up like a Christmas tree.

“Asshole.”

“Honestly, she was better off without him. But… but the whole situation took its toll. Her mental health went in the toilet. She ended up in and out of treatment for mental breakdowns and, later, suicide attempts.”

“Christ. Chris, why didn’t you call me?”

“I was just… dealing with family.”

“We’re family too.”

They were. But they had lives in the city. They couldn’t be out in the boonies upstate with me. On a good day, it was an eight-hour drive from the city to my hometown. Too far for anyone to make the trek.

“There really wasn’t much anyone could have done.”

“We could have lightened the load,” Lorenzo insisted. “I’m guessing when your sister was trying to recover, you were taking care of the kids?”

“Their old man took off and disappeared to avoid child support. I was all they had left. Then, about a year back, my ma passed.”

“Chris, fuck, man. You needed us.”

I did.

I’d never felt as overwhelmed and alone as I had when trying to keep my family afloat.

“Here’s the hardest part,” I said, rolling the tension out of my neck. “Six months ago, my sister’s last attempt was… successful.”

“Jesus. Fuck, Chris. I’m so sorry. Why… why didn’t you tell us?”

“Honestly, I couldn’t see straight at the time. I had my own grief, but then the kids’ too.”

“I can’t fucking imagine.”

I would never say it out loud, but some part of me knew that it was going to happen.

My sister never seemed to find joy again after her first suicide attempt.

No matter how much therapy or how many meds she tried, she was lost in the darkness of her mind.

There was just some gut feeling that one day would be the day.

So much so that I’d removed all the knives and box cutters from her house.

I filled her garage so she couldn’t pull her car inside and turn it on.

I emptied the medicine cabinets. Removed toxic chemicals.

In the end, though, she still had to get around in life. She still had her car. And she used it to drive to a liquor store, chugged a bottle of vodka, then drove her car off a bridge.

I’d been driving to her house when all the cop cars and emergency vehicles came flying past me. I had no idea until there was a knock on the door later. And two cops outside with serious faces.

They didn’t even need to tell me. I knew with one look.

And that had been hard.

But telling the kids?

That fucking shattered something in me.

And, of course, them.

I shook off the memories, grounding myself in the moment.

“Anyway. It took a while to get things all settled. Funeral, her house, the custody of the kids. Then I heard that job that I’d worked on all those years ago, the construction one?”

“Yeah, I vaguely remember that.”

“It was funding life still. Then the contractor I worked with died. And it all dried up.”

“Chris, one call. One call and you’d have had more money than you ever needed.”

He meant that, too.

“That’s not the kind of man I am,” I said. “I want to earn it. Besides, the kids… we all just needed a fresh start, man. We all lost… everyone.”

“No, not everyone. You have us. You need us now more than ever.”

Truer words had never been spoken.

“I know,” I agreed. “That’s why I’m here.”

“What do you need first? An apartment?”

“I have my old place. I sublet it all these years. The tenant moved to Texas two months back. I’ve just been stringing it along since. We just got in last night. The place needs work, but it will do for now. What I need is work.”

“You got it. I will talk to Emilio and figure out what we have open right now. We will get you on something as soon as you want it.”

“As soon as possible.”

“Look, I get having pride, Chris. But if money is tight, an advance on work can be done. Got the cash right in the other room.”

“No. It’s not that dire. I still have some savings. And my sister’s house is under contract. That money is coming my way eventually. More than enough to hold me over until I can really get back to work.”

“Alright. But the offer is open. I know kids are expensive. Where are they?”

“Home.”

“Alone?”

“They’re twelve and seventeen. Don’t wanna leave them alone long in a new house and new city, but they’re fine for right now.”

“Wow. Didn’t realize they were so old.”

In a way, I was thankful for that. Not for myself, per se. I’d been a stand-in father figure for years already. But for them. So they had memories of their mom. So they were mature enough to process the loss.

“Yeah, getting big fast. If any of the wives know a good child psychologist, I’m gonna need one of them.”

“I’ll ask around. I’m sure you want to ease them into it, but they have a lot of family here. Think that will help eventually.”

“I agree. That’s part of the reason I’m back. They need more than just me.”

“Walk that back. You’re enough. But more love is never a bad thing.”

“Yeah,” I agreed.

“Now, got all the shit settled. How are you?”

“I’m… on autopilot right now. Just trying to steer this ship so it doesn’t sink.”

“Yeah. Well, look. Let’s tentatively plan a dinner. Let the kids meet me and Gigi and our kids. That way, if there’s ever a time you need someone to watch them so you can have a night out and decompress, you have someone.”

“Yeah, that’ll be good. Just give me a week to get work going and get the apartment right for everyone.”

“Done. But I can’t guarantee Gigi won’t show up unannounced with a lasagna or something.”

“I’d never turn down a lasagna,” I said, getting to my feet.

“Your number is the same, right?” Lorenzo said as he followed me toward the door.

“Yeah.”

“Alright. I will call or text later with details about a job. But the phone works both ways. If you need anything, don’t hesitate.”

“I won’t. Thanks, Enz. I know it’s not right to come back all these years later and ask for a—”

“You’re not asking for shit. You’re taking a place that’s always been yours, just a couple of years later. You have nothing to thank me for.”

With that, he gave me another hug, then I was walking away, feeling lighter than I had in years.

I was still carrying a lot of weight around, but it felt easier to carry now.

I had a job.

An income.

A support system.

Eventually, everything was going according to plan.

Until, of course, I got assigned to her.