Franco laughed. “Well fuck, with a name like that he was begging to be killed.”
I don’t know why it bothered me so much—his disrespect for this dead kid who was literally going places, whose only fault was enjoying the occasional high while still being able to maintain a decent lifestyle. Maybe it was because I’d found myself comparing those kids to Bailey, and somehow that had given me a soft spot for them (at the same time I wanted to punch them out of pure jealousy). Who fucking knows? Either way, I found myself reaching for my gun and holding it to his head. Franco’s eyes widened, just slightly, and behind me, Tiny muttered an exasperated “fuck” almost as if he knew this was coming.
“I’m fuckin’ tired, Franco. I’m pissed off, and I’m tired, and right now, I’d rather just fuckin’ kill you and have Tiny deal with your body than have this conversation, but we all know I can’t do that, so just tell me what the fuck is wrong with your supply.”
His eyes narrowed, and his mouth opened as if he wanted to say something. But then he shut it quickly, his lips thinned to a line. He looked over at Tiny, and then back at me, and I knew the exact moment his hand shifted, reaching for his own weapon. I’d already clicked the safety by the time the barrel of his gun was against my head, and the barrel of Tiny’s was against his.
So there we were, three assholes in an abandoned parking lot in the stark daylight, cars flying by on the highways around us, all with weapons drawn, aimed at our targets, and the only thing I could think about was crawling back into bed with Bailey.
I dropped my arm and sighed, frustrated. What the fuck could this possibly achieve? “Fuck this,” I spat, putting away my gun and motioned for Tiny to do the same. He lowered it, but he didn’t retreat. “Get our guys off the streets and offline,” I told him. “We’re on lockdown until this dies down.”
Tiny nodded once as I switched my gaze to Franco. “If it comes out that it’s your supply causing all these fuckin’ overdoses then the Francos will be dead to us. I’ll make it my mission so that you have no fuckin’ place here, or in the entire state.” I looked him up and down, a calm washing over me. “You’re fuckin’ pathetic, Franco. Your entire family is. It’s going to be a pleasure taking you down.”
I don’t really know why I said all those things, but there was a pressure building in my chest, pulling at my gut and of all the other shit I was dealing with, he was the last thing I needed to worry about. How easy would it be for me to bring him down? For me to start spreading the word, a single whisper, that it was his shitty supply killing those kids? The only thing that’d stopped me was my respect for Uncle Benny and their fucking relationship. Maybe I said too much, got too personal, but I fucking hated him, and I’m sure the feeling was mutual.
It wasn’t until I’d turned my back and had taken two steps away from him that I heard him laugh, this sinister fucking laugh that had my feet instantly rooted to the ground. “That’s all you got?” Franco paused. “Oh no. I get it,” he said, the sarcastic lilt in his tone unmistakable. “I thought PJ was just talking shit about you and that girl who killed Pauly.”
What. The. Fuck?
“Don’t, Nate,” Tiny ground out, his voice low, words meant only for me.
Franco laughed again. “What does it feel like, Nate? To be so disrespected that your own men are talking shit about you?”
I turned to him, jaw set, but I was too angry to speak.
“What the fuck do you do with her, anyway?” he asked, smirking as he ran a hand through his slimy black hair.
I took a step forward. I couldn’t stop myself, and of course, Tiny followed.
Franco was smiling, cocky, proud of the effect his words were having on me. “Oh, don’t tell me,” he said, hands up as if to stop me from speaking. “PJ showed me pictures of her… those pretty little lips,” he sang. “They’d look so fuckin’ good wrapped around my cock. Do they look good—”
He didn’t get a chance to finish before he was thrown to the ground, me on top of him, my fists flying, one after the other. It was almost serene, the way the blood oozed from his cheeks, his nose, his mouth. “Keep talkin’,” I warned, moving from his mouth to his gut.
Behind me, Tiny muttered another “fuck” and added a “not this shit again,” but I didn’t care and apparently, neither did he. He didn’t try to stop me like he did with PJ, he didn’t tell me to calm down, he just stood to the side, watching, waiting.
Franco smiled, his lips widening, displaying his blood-filled mouth. “I bet her pussy’s tight,” he taunted, laughing between hits.
“Shut the fuck up,” I spat.
Rage.
Rage is by far the strongest, and most uncontrollable emotion there is.
Franco lifted his head and spat blood on my face, and that’s when I pulled out my gun and held it to his chin. The motherfucker had a death wish. There’s no other way to explain it. “I bet she’s a real good fuckin’ whore for you.”
The rage built, so strong, so fast, I couldn’t breathe. My muscles turned to stone. My willpower turned to dust. Please, I begged internally. “One more fuckin’ word, and I’ll kill you.”
He had to be insane. “It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone, I guess…” he said, his voice strained, right before he coughed, blood splattering from his lips. “You are a DeLuca after all.”
For a second, just one split second, I almost let his words get to me. Almost. Then I felt Tiny move, his hand on my shoulder.
Franco blinked once. Twice. Then he smiled. “And everyone knows your mother was a whore.”
I don’t know what came first. The sound of the gunshot, the hot white behind my eyes, or the blood on my hands. But afterward, everything was still. Silent. Blood poured from Franco’s wound, down the solid steel of my barrel and seeped between my trembling fingers.
“Get in the car,” Tiny said, lifting me like a rag doll and forcing me to stand. I walked backward to the car while Tiny stood over Franco’s dead body. I waited until I was next to the car before emptying the content of my stomach, over and over. It was all a blur. I remember nothing after that. Not even how I managed to get in the car.
I came to only minutes away from my house, the shaking gun in my hand the first thing I saw. Slowly, I looked over at Tiny behind the wheel. “Why’d you do it?”
He shrugged.
“It’s your job to protect me, Tiny. Not to kill for me.”
He glanced at me quickly, before focusing back on the road. “I protect you because you’re my boss, Nate. I kill for you because you’re my family.”
29
Bailey
I smiled against the pillow when I heard Nate say my name, and it grew the second I felt his lips on my bare shoulder. “You need to wake up, baby. It’s time for your meds.”
I groaned. I didn’t want to get up. Getting up meant solitude and silence and tiles. So many damn tiles.
The bed dipped when he got up, and a moment later, he returned, sitting back on the edge of the bed. If ten years from now you asked me to pinpoint the exact moment I fell in love with Nate DeLuca, it’d be the moment he lifted the covers from around my waist, careful not to wake me or let the cold air hit me in other areas. The way he made sure to warm up his hands before lifting my shirt, exposing my stomach to him. It’d be the gentle way his lips pressed against my skin after he’d given me my insulin and tested my blood sugar. The care in his touch when he ran the pad of his thumb across the pierced flesh. The way his eyes settled on mine when he realized I’d been watching him, not a single ounce of regret or shame in his features. “Tiny’s coming back with bagels,” he said, completely unaware of what his actions did to me. He peeked under the covers again, taking in my lack of clothes and he smiled. “You might want to get dressed. I’m really not one for sharing, Bailey.” And with that, he stood up and made his way to the bathroom, taking my medicine bag with him.
I slowly got up, the sharp ache between my legs a reminder of what happened last night. I sat on the edge of the
bed, my legs pressed together, trying to ease the pain, and that’s when I saw it—a tiny bag filled with white powder sitting on Nate’s nightstand. With a thousand thoughts racing through my mind, I picked it up and examined it. I didn’t know exactly what it was, but I knew it was drugs and as stupid as it sounds considering what Nate did for a living, it still hurt when my heart sank to my stomach.
I checked the seal on the bag and noticed it was open, and when I looked over at where it had been sitting on Nate’s nightstand, all my worst fears hit me at once. The powder was there… not a lot of it, but it was still there, which meant he’d been the one to open it.
I felt Nate’s presence before I saw him or heard him whisper my name but I couldn’t pull my gaze away from the bag, and I didn’t want to look at him because I knew, for sure, that there was no way I could hide my disappointment.
He sat down next to me, his loud, drawn out sigh lingering between us.
“Did you?” I asked. I didn’t need to elaborate. He knew what I meant.
He inhaled slowly, held it for a beat, then said, “I wouldn’t do that to you, Bailey. I know how you feel about that shit.”
I faced him quickly, dropping the bag on the floor by my feet. “You shouldn’t want to do it to you, Nate. I don’t know what happened yesterday. All I know is that it’s bad, but it’s not just about me—”
“I’m in love with you,” he cut in, and everything in me froze.
I searched his gaze as he did the same, and then his throat bobbed with his swallow, before he looked away. His focus was on the floor as he leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees. His voice was weak, but his words were opposite. “It’s kind of insane and a little dangerous, to be honest, just how in love with you I am. And it’s really important to me that you trust me enough to believe that I’d never do anything to hurt you. Everything I do is for you.” He turned to me, his gaze intense. “Everything.”
I didn’t get a chance to respond before Tiny knocked on the basement door and Nate rushed to answer it. I was grateful for that because I had no idea what I would’ve said.
Guilt weaved its way through my veins when I picked up the bag from the floor and set it on Nate’s nightstand. I’d jumped to conclusions, and worse, I accused him of something I had no right accusing him of. In fact, I had no right to question a single thing he said or did.
I winced when I stood up, forgetting for a moment the pain between my legs. “You okay, Bailey?” Tiny asked as I made my way to the bathroom. “You’re walking funny.”
I didn’t answer him verbally. Instead, I nodded and quickly moved to the bathroom, closing the door behind me. I was only there a few seconds before the door opened and Nate walked in, his brow bunched in concern. “Are you still in pain?” he asked, one hand on my back, the other sifting through the contents of the medicine cabinet.
“It’s not so bad.”
He nodded once, but his mind was elsewhere, focused on finding the aspirin. Focused on taking care of me.
*
The three of us ate breakfast at the small table and chairs in a corner of the basement, the silence only broken when Tiny and Nate talked business. Soon enough it was time for them to leave. I sat on the edge of the bed next to Nate as he slipped on his shoes and looked over his shoulder at Tiny, who was waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs.
I swallowed nervously. “Nate?” I said quietly, and he paused mid-movement, staring ahead for a moment before finally giving me his attention.
“What’s up?”
I scooted closer, my hands settling on his upper arm.
He seemed to release a breath, his shoulders dropping with the force of it.
“I love you,” I told him. I felt stupid saying it the way I did, when he’d been so passionate in his declaration, and all I gave him were three simple words that had been recycled over and over. But going by his reaction, the smile that completely took over his face, the three simple, recycled words were enough.
“Yeah?” he asked, leaning in, his mouth finding my neck.
I squirmed, tickled by his touch, but he held me to him, his arms wrapped tight around me. “Yes.”
“Good,” he said. Then he kissed me quickly, aware of Tiny watching us and held my hand. Fingers linked, he led me to where Tiny was standing.
“Ready?” Tiny asked.
Nate nodded.
Tiny glanced at me quickly before moving back to Nate. “We gotta go see Benny.”
I felt Nate’s hand squeeze mine, though I doubt he would’ve known he’d done it. He turned to me and said, “I’ll be back soon, okay?” He released my hand at the same time he kissed my forehead, and I watched, my heart heavy, as he and Tiny climbed the steps.
“Tiny?” I called out, my voice weak.
They both stopped on the landing, Tiny’s hand on the door handle. “Yeah?”
“Bring him home to me, okay?” I asked, the quiver in my voice giving way to my worry. “No blood this time.”
Tiny smiled reassuringly and nodded once. “You got it.”
A few seconds later, I was alone again, alone with just my raging thoughts. Mainly thoughts of Nate, of course, and the fear that I’d never see him again. Those thoughts consumed me more than they did any other day. I’d counted the tiles five times only to realize that I wasn’t really counting them at all because all I could think about was how deeply in love I was with Nate DeLuca.
But, I’d realized the problem with love was simple…
It’s that the problem with “simple” was LOVE. And within the walls of this room, with the bonds that kept us together, neither simple nor love could exist.
30
Nate
“No, but I love you, Bailey,” I said for who the fuck knows how many times. I was trying to convince her that I loved her because I did. I was also drunk, and I’d fucked up, and she was beautiful, and I loved her.
She smiled softly, glancing at Tiny quickly before looking back at me. If she was mad or annoyed that I’d come home like this, it didn’t show. “I love you, too, Nate.” The words rolled off her tongue as if she’d said them so many times before and I hated every single person she’d ever said it to. It was a stupid reaction because I doubt she’d said them to anyone in that way before, and it didn’t really matter. What mattered was that she was beautiful and she was mine, and I loved her. I told her all this, again, slurred words falling from my lips, and she smiled just that tiny bit wider as she placed her hand on my face and pulled the covers up to my chin. My eyes drifted shut at her touch… or maybe it was the alcohol, but fuck I loved the way she touched me.
“I probably shouldn’t have let him get that bad,” Tiny offered.
Truthfully, I was a little ashamed that I was a full-grown man who needed the help of another man (though probably ten times my size) to stop me from falling ass over tits down the basement stairs, but it wasn’t his fault.
“It’s not your fault,” Bailey answered, reading my thoughts. “You’re not going to tell me why he’s this drunk, though, are you?”
He didn’t respond verbally, but I knew what his answer was. He wouldn’t tell her. He never would. And neither would I.
*
I hadn’t gone in with a game plan when we’d visited Uncle Benny. Tiny, however, did. He’d confessed to killing Louis Franco to protect me. Which, I guess, is the same reason he’d lied about what had happened. To protect me. He’d told Benny that Franco had reached for his gun when my back was turned, and he didn’t think twice about doing what he did. Benny hadn’t had the reaction I’d expected; he’d simply told us to get the fuck out of his office and deal with the shitstorm we’d created.
He would deal with the Francos.
So, in that moment, I was surrounded by two people whose sole purpose in life was to protect me.
I couldn’t keep my emotions out of it and I fucked up. I guess that was the reason I found myself at O’Malley’s bar, downing an entire bottle of whiskey with the hopes it would
drown out the taste of Franco’s blood in my mouth.
It hadn’t.
“He probably just needs to sleep it off,” I heard Tiny say, pulling me from my thoughts. His voice seemed distant, or maybe it was the soft rabbit-type-hole in the bed I was slowly falling into.
“Yeah, probably.” Bailey’s hand left my cheek and a moment later, I felt her lips there, replacing the touch. “Sleep, baby,” she said. And then she whispered the three words that seemed so natural to her, only this time I didn’t just hear them, I felt them. She kissed me once more, and I found myself giving in to the exhaustion (and maybe a little of the alcohol), but before I was there, in the place too dark to find light, I murmured, “Ti amo, mia bella ragazza.”
“What does that mean?” she asked, but I was too out of it to answer her, so Tiny did it for me. “It’s Italian. It means I love you, my beautiful girl.”
*
I don’t know how long I’d been asleep when I awoke to the sound of Bailey’s voice, soft and warm as it flooded all my other senses. “She was a nurse,” I heard her say. “…at the children’s hospital. Sometimes she’d take me there on her days off so we could visit with the kids.”
“She sounds nice,” Tiny said, and I slowly opened my eyes. They were sitting at the small table and chairs set up in the corner of the basement, empty takeout boxes sprawled out in front of them.
“She was nice,” Bailey responded. “I mean she is nice. I probably shouldn’t talk about her in past tense. It’s not like she’s dead… that I know of.” She peered down at her hands resting on her lap, a frown pulling at her lips. She was obviously talking about her mother.
“Sometimes it’s hard to differentiate the two,” Tiny said. “Sometimes it’s almost easier to pretend like someone is dead when they choose to be absent. Makes it hurt less.”
Bailey looked up, same frown, same soft eyes. “You sound like you’re talking from experience…”
Tiny nodded. “My dad. He bailed when I was fourteen, and I haven’t heard from him since.”