“Don’t tempt me. I stole a feather from Tex’s bed.”
“I shake in fear.”
“Boys!” Mil rolled her eyes. “If you’re going to bicker at least take it into the kitchen.”
They winked at me, making me feel… relaxed.
“So?” Mil asked. “Anything else?”
“You’re the De Lange boss?” I asked instead of telling her information about me and Ax.
She smiled warmly. “Yeah, kind of badass right?”
“You’re a girl.”
“I think I speak for men everywhere when I say I appreciate that,” Chase interjected.
Phoenix groaned from the side of the room.
“Have you heard from your father?” Mil leaned forward. “Or your brother?”
“No and no.” I swallowed nervously; after all my brother was most likely dead—dead people couldn’t talk. “I haven’t had any contact with my so called family since they abandoned me five years ago.”
“Good. This will make it so much easier.” Mil stood and looked to Tex. “I think it’s best we stick with the original plan.”
“Right.” He pulled out his cell phone and walked out of the room.
“Um, plan?” I squeaked.
“Bait.” Mil grinned. “We need something to drive them out…”
“Wait.” Ax held up his hand. “I thought you said she had something you guys needed?”
“She does.” Mil’s smile was deadly. “A heartbeat.”
“That’s what I was afraid of.” I mumbled.
“Like hell!” Ax roared. “You can’t put her in the line of fire! Not after I just got her back.”
Nixon moved to the center of the room. “She won’t get hurt.”
“How do you know that?” Ax spat. “Is there some sort of mafia guarantee she won’t get grazed by a bullet?”
“You want her alive, right?” Nixon said smoothly. “Then we need to take out the only two people that want her dead.”
“Why?” I shook my head. “It makes no sense. Why would they care if I live or if I die?”
Nixon’s cold eyes met mine. I squirmed in my seat, uncomfortable with how much he saw, or how much it felt like he saw when he stared right through me. “De Lange started a rumor a while back that he left you with something… precious, something that would change the family forever.”
“All he left me were bruises,” I whispered.
Ax moved to my side and put his hand on my shoulder.
“It was meant to drive your father insane, insane enough to mess up and show himself. Instead, he went into hiding. It wasn’t until Mario De Lange died that your father started getting obsessed again. Desperate for money, considering no family would work with him, he started searching for you. And that’s where Ax came in. Had we known your living conditions were… dire—” His eyebrows lifted. “—we would have reached you sooner, but a certain someone—” His gaze met Ax. “—said you wanted no part of this lifestyle, so we left you alone until it was no longer safe to do so.”
“Ironic,” I whispered. “When you’re safer with the mafia than on the streets.”
“Not ironic.” Nixon smirked. “Do you even know how the mafia started? Lacking a bit of a history lesson are we? It was for protection… it was for… exactly what we’re offering you.”
“But I need to do you guys a favor to obtain said protection.”
“Right.” Nixon nodded. “But this favor… will be over before it even starts. We’ll put an end to your father and brother.”
“My brother?” I parroted. “He’s alive?”
“Somewhat.” Nixon cringed. “A bit brainwashed, worse for the wear, but alive.”
“He’s nineteen,” I said slowly. “A kid, you can’t just kill a kid.”
“Actually,” Tex said coming back into the room. “We can and we will. It’s called war, sweetheart. He may be a kid but he’s still got a gun and I think any soldier will tell you urban warfare is the scariest kind. A nineteen-year-old with a gun is unpredictable. I’d rather deal with five men then one nineteen-year-old who thinks he’s got something to prove.”
I looked away from all of them, barely feeling Ax’s hand on my shoulder. Mil was still sitting next to me; everyone was silent.
“So…” I said in a hollow voice. “What do I have to do?”
“That,” Phoenix piped up, “Is the easy part.”
I snapped my head in his direction. Why was his smile so big? Wait, why was everyone smiling? Confused I waited for someone to clarify why me walking into the firefight was something to grin about.
“I love weddings.” Tex’s smile grew to gigantic proportions as his eyes left mine and met the person standing to my left. Ax.
“Pardon?” Ax said, his voice cracking.
“Weddings.” Tex nodded. “Way more fun than funerals.”
“Vin’s funeral kicked ass,” Chase pointed out.
“True, because he was ninety and still carted a semi-automatic in his old truck. Not the point though, the point is, I’m going to look forward to this.”
I stood and crossed my arms, still terrified, but more angry that they were expecting me to read their minds. “What are you talking about?”
“Alliances. It’s how we control bloodlines.” Nixon looked between me and Ax. “Say hello to your fiancé.”
Ax’s hand fell from my shoulder.
I trembled in the chair.
Nixon rubbed his hands together. “You’re a De Lange.” He looked to Mil, “No offense.”
“None taken!” She held up her hands.
“The one thing your father always wanted—” Nixon tilted his head. “—was to be a made man in an important family. Guaranteed, he’s going to catch wind of you marrying into our family… guaranteed he’ll try to come to the wedding and claim what’s rightfully his — you. Guaranteed I’ll put a bullet-size hole in his body before you say I do.”
“And if you miss?”
Everyone burst out laughing. Nixon’s eyes narrowed as he took two steps towards me and whispered in a harsh tone, “Do I look like I ever miss my target?”
“No.”
“Add the sir in there, gets him all excited.” Tex nodded encouragingly while Nixon rolled his eyes.
“Don’t call him sir,” Ax said from beside me. “It’s like pouring gasoline on an open flame.”
Nixon’s eyes snapped to Ax’s. “Shouldn’t you be ring shopping?”
“Right, forgive me for not already being prepared… sir.”
Nixon bristled.
“Told ya he gets excited.” Tex laughed.
“What if I don’t want to get married?” I clenched my hands together, my heart wasn’t sure if it should be breaking or soaring. Ax was all I’d ever wanted… but I wanted him on my terms. I wanted him to want me, to propose to me, to say he loved me so much he couldn’t live without me. Not like this. I didn’t want him like this.
“Tough.” Chase shrugged. “We do what we do for the Family. You aren’t allowed an opinion, not when it puts every single one of us in danger, not when we’re doing our damndest to save your life. Got it?”
Whoa. And Chase officially just got scarier than Nixon.
“Okay.” I hung my head. “I’ll do it.”
“See, Nixon?” Chase said loudly. “You didn’t even need to point a gun at her.”
“Not now, Chase.” Ax reached for my hand, but I jerked away from him. Had he known the whole time? Had he been playing me? Making me believe he would protect me? Protect my heart? When he was just planning on breaking it all over again?
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Axton
THE GUYS LEFT.
The minute they walked out of the house I wordlessly pushed past Phoenix, grabbed Sergio’s gun off the table, and made my way outside to the field by our house.
I fired the first target. Bang. It hit dead center.
I fired the second. Bang.
I didn’t feel better.
I fir
ed again and again and again.
I fired until I had no more ammo. Stupid gun. I dropped it onto the ground and followed suit, hanging my head in my hands as I listened to the music of the cows in the nearby pasture. We lived away from society, away from the city. One could almost believe our family was normal. A normal mansion on a normal piece of land with normal cows.
Hell, the cows were even a cover.
Killers didn’t keep cows alive. Right?
“Hey.” Sergio dropped down next to me on the grass. “You alright?”
I grunted in response.
“There are worse things.”
“Seriously?” I turned and leveled him with a glare. “That’s your brotherly advice? There are worse things? I love that girl! I freaking love her!” My shout scared the cows closest to us making them run in the opposite direction. “I love her!”
“You think I don’t know that?” he said in a low voice. “You think I don’t realize the extent you would go to save her? To be a part of her life?”
“Then why the hell would you say that?”
“They offered me the job.” Sergio scowled. “Apparently Nixon thought it would cheer me up after Mo married Tex. Go find the long lost girl and marry her, make things right.”
My heart damn near stopped beating as I fought for air.
“Guess what I said.”
I looked away.
Sergio kept talking. “I said unrequited love isn’t really my thing… Mo didn’t love me… Amy could never love me and although I’m pretty sure everyone in my life thinks I’m a cold heartless bastard, I think I deserve that… love. I deserve to have a girl look at me the way Amy looks at you. The way Mo looks at Tex. I deserve it, Ax. And so do you. Like I said, there are worse things.”
“That’s why you pulled me out of hiding? To marry her?”
“Right.” Sergio smirked. “But knowing you I couldn’t just say, hey by the way save her life, rescue her, woo her, and then marry her to keep her alive. You would have laughed in my face, or worse punked out and run.”
“I don’t run.”
“No.” Sergio tilted his head. “You hide.”
“Excuse me?” I pushed to my feet; he followed. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“I messed up.” Sergio shrugged. “It was a long time ago, I was scared, but you used that one moment in our lives to define the rest of our relationship. That one moment defined your future and you just let it. You just… gave up.”
I looked down at the grass.
“I was afraid you’d do the same thing if I told you the whole truth.”
“That wasn’t your call to make,” I grumbled.
“Actually…” Sergio sighed loudly. “As your older brother it kind of was, it kind of is. Going through life… eating but not tasting food. Waking up only to go through the motions, that’s not life. And that’s exactly what you were doing. Mourning her loss every day, blaming yourself every hour, hating me every minute.”
Sergio fell silent then turned on his heel, but not before having one last word. “I did you a favor. Don’t let me down.”
“You suck at pep talks.” I winced as I felt a headache coming on. “But as a brother… you’re not awful.”
“Nicest thing anyone’s said to me.” He chuckled and walked off.
Leaving me alone with the cows and a useless gun. I didn’t know what to say to Amy to fix it. I told her I was going to fight for her, but how do you fight against someone’s insecurities? I knew she would assume that I had it planned all along. The last thing I wanted to do was make her feel trapped, but marriage? Damn, it sounded good. Anything with her sounded good.
I glanced back at the house. I had to find her, kiss her, make her stay.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Amy
“HOW ARE YOU holding up?” Phoenix sat down next to me on the large white leather couch and handed me the remote. Apparently staring at a blank TV was frowned upon in that house. I pressed the On button and looked back down at my hands.
“Football. Nice. Who’s your team?”
“Huh?” I looked up at the screen. “My team?”
“You turn on ESPN you sure as hell better have a football team.”
“Uh…” I wracked my brain trying to think of a team. “Blue Jays?”
“Baseball, try again.”
“Bulls?”
“Basketball.”
“Ants?”
He laughed. He was really good looking when he smiled. Less haunted, more human. “Now you’re just making shit up.”
“I don’t watch TV.”
“No sports, no TV, what did you do to entertain yourself?”
What was with the sudden twenty questions? I squirmed in my seat and shrugged.
“Total first grade answer, the shoulder shrug. Sergio says more words to me and I’m pretty sure he dreams nightly about what it would feel like to knife me in the back, so try again, doll.”
“Doll?”
“I’m an old soul.” He looked heavenward and winced. “So… did you read books?”
“I read textbooks.”
“Like the dictionary?”
“Yeah I like big words.”
“Was that a joke?” He smiled wider and reached for me, slowly tilting my chin towards him so we were face to face. “It will get better you know.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The pain.” He didn’t release my chin, didn’t allow me to avert my eyes, just kept talking in low soothing tones. “One day you’ll wake up… and you won’t hear your parents screaming. You won’t flinch when you hear glass breaking. You won’t duck when someone puts their arm around you.” He released my chin and placed his hand on my shoulder. “Like I said, it gets better. Those people, the ones who were just in this room stomping around and waving guns? They’re a real family. It’s hard sometimes, when you come from violence, to understand the difference between protection and violence. What they do is protect. They don’t shoot because it’s the first option. They shoot because it’s the only option. Get it?”
I nodded, slowly. Still a bit confused. “But you guys kill people. Ax almost died because of it.”
“Look.” Phoenix sighed. “I’m not saying we’re perfect, God knows the De Langes are seriously damned to Hell, all of us.” His face shadowed. “But we’re trying to do better. Mil’s picked up the family and she’s done a hell of a job. What happened to Ax should have never happened. What happened to you should have never happened. The innocent—” His voice cracked. “—should always stay innocent.” His entire face went tight, his jaw cracked as he clenched and unclenched it.
“What happened? To you?”
Phoenix looked away. “I died and was reborn.” His eyes met mine briefly. “Any other part of the story isn’t something I ever want you to hear from my mouth. I don’t want to be the reason you’re afraid of us, and believe me when I say my story… isn’t one that you should ever have to hear.”
“And if I want to?”
“Football.” Phoenix turned up the volume, ending our conversation. “One thing you should know. All men love football. Pick a team, wear the colors, chant their name, and be sure it’s not Ax’s team, it will piss him off.”
“What will piss me off?” Ax said coming into the room.
“That’s my cue.” Phoenix stood. “Play nice, children.”
Ax rolled his eyes as Phoenix brushed past him. When his gaze met mine, I immediately looked away. What was I supposed to say? What was I supposed to do? Or was it him? Was it his job to start the conversation?
I braced myself for a speech, a really long Ax type speech. Instead, he held out his hand and said. “Take a walk with me.”
With blind trust — a blind trust I’d had since Ax had promised to be my best friend forever — I grabbed his hand and didn’t let go. He led me outside and around the back of the house.
To a field.
We were staring at a field.
>
“What do you see?” he asked, not releasing my hand, but running his thumb slowly over my skin, causing goose bumps to erupt across my flesh.
I swallowed and found my voice. “Cows.”
He nodded and kept caressing my hand. Tears stung my eyes as I tried to fight all the emotions swelling within me. My world was changed — altered. It was suddenly so foreign I wasn’t sure where I fit anymore. Before I was trying to survive, get through another day, make who I thought was dead, proud of me.
And now I was facing every single dream I’d ever had head on. But the story hadn’t exactly followed a natural order, then again there was nothing natural about the Abandonato family.
“What do you see?” I finally asked, breaking the silence between us.
“Anything and everything.” Ax sighed. I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye, his jaw was flexed, but his eyes, they looked… relaxed as if he really was staring at something off in the distance, whatever that something was, it brought him peace, you could just tell. “But most of all.” He turned to face me. “I see you.”
“In a field?” I stepped back; he stepped forward. There was no fighting it, so I stayed put when he finally wrapped his arms around my body and crushed me against his hard chest.
“I see you everywhere,” Ax whispered, his breath tickling my face. “I see you in the fields, in the sky, in a stranger’s laughter. I see you — but most of all — I see us, Ames. I see us holding hands, not a year from now, twenty years from now. I’ve lived my whole life waiting… waiting for the right moment to be with you. You’ve always been my somebody — the person I’d die for, the person I’d live for, the person I look for. It’s always been you. So marriage? It was coming. Fight it all you want, but there is no chance in hell I’m letting you go. Ever. You run, I chase. You cry. I fix. You fight. I take the punches. Try your damndest to push me away, try me, Ames. I wouldn’t blame you if you did, but it would sure save a hell of a lot of energy if you just gave in.”
“You want me to give in?” My heart was beating so fast it was hard to breathe. “Give in to what?”
His smile was breathtaking, all white teeth and full lips. “Me.”