Since when did everyone become a doctor?
“I was shot twice in my shoulder, but it missed the bone, so I’ll need a sling but no cast. I have to stay off my leg for a few weeks, plus physical therapy.” Thanks, Mom.
“Would you like me to make any calls? I can get the best th—”
“No outsiders. If I need help, I’ll come to you.”
She stared at me oddly. “Ma’am, I don’t have any training in…”
I just stared at her. Today was not the day.
“I’ll see what I can do,” she whispered.
“You do that,” I replied, grabbing the tea again. If it was going to help with the pain, I would bear it. “But before you go, I need information.”
“On what, ma’am?”
“Profile Aviela DeRosa.”
She froze and stared at me.
“Ma’am, I don’t know en—”
“Adriana, I will not ask you again. Profile Aviela DeRosa,” I ordered.
She sighed. “From what I can tell, Aviela DeRosa is an extremely narcissistic sociopath. She cares for no one but herself, and has never felt anything for anyone, ever. She appears to be charming, yet she’s covertly hostile and domineering, and sees her victims as instruments to be used. She likes to dominate and humiliate her victims. She will never stay in one place for too long. She will most likely spend the rest of her life hopping from one place to another. I would be shocked if she even had a home. I’d also blame it on her childhood, but there have been cases where some people are just born without feelings.”
“Then why did she have me?” I sneered. She could have had an abortion and been done with it.
“There could be many reasons. She could have just wanted another person to praise her. Another person to control. She could have—”
“Goodbye Adriana,” I cut her off, drinking the rest of the tea.
She nodded before walking out of the room. I just stared at the door. Her words replayed over and over in my mind.
Aviela was a sick, twisted bitch, and I wanted to cut her head off and let it burn. I wanted to hunt her down like a motherfucking dog. But I couldn’t do that.
Rubbing my stomach, I remembered how it felt to have steel inside of me—inside of us. It was cold and warm at the same time. Saige, in a mere second, had stolen someone from me. From us. Liam never blamed me, but it was my fault. I had put my pride above my family. In that moment, I had become somewhat like my mother, and I could never do that again. I was alive—my child and I were alive—because Aviela didn’t know. If she had, I would have another bullet wound. Part of me hoped Liam found her and another part of me hoped she hid like a snake in a hole until I knew our child was safe.
For the sake of Liam, for the sake of our child and our family, I would back down from her. I hated it. It wasn’t in my nature, but I had to. I had to step down until it was safe…safer.
Hopefully the drugs would be a healthy distraction. We had heroin sitting in the south that we need to move. Not to mention the weed Liam had bought right before the accident. I still didn’t know anything about that. I never had a chance to look at the information.
Reaching for the call button, I waited for someone to come. Sadly, it was the bitchy blonde who had eyed Liam when she thought I was sleeping.
“How can I make you feel better today, Mrs. Callahan?” she asked with a fake megawatt smile.
“Tell Declan Callahan I would like to see him.” She knew who that was. Everyone knew who the Callahan brothers were.
Her eyes narrowed at me. “Mrs. Callahan, this is a hospital. The nurses aren’t here to run personal favors for you.”
Not today.
“The nurses are here because we gave a big fat check that spared the board from firing half of its staff. If I wanted to, I could own this damn hospital and have your ass fired and blacklisted so quickly, you’d end up on food stamps until you’re ninety. I’m guessing it’s really hard to provide for a family, on what is it? Four dollars a day? So if I were you, I would shut my mouth, turn around and run a personal favor for me…wouldn’t you?” I snapped, causing her eyes to widen and mouth to drop open.
“You’re not moving.”
She swallowed and nodded before turning around, all but pulling Declan back into the room.
Declan looked between the retreating girl and myself. “Even in a hospital bed you can still scare the shit out of people.”
“It’s a gift. What happened with the buy?” If everything went well, we should have been twenty million dollars worth of weed richer.
Declan frowned, moving toward the end of my bed. When he looked at my chart, I felt my eye twitch.
“Touch it and I will make dealing with Coraline look like a cake walk.” I was so sick of people looking at me like a victim. I’d gotten shot, it happened. It was time to get back to work, the stupid pricks.
“Mel, you should…”
“Remember the last time you thought I should rest?” Right after I lost our last child.
He sighed. “The deal didn’t go as planned. We settled on twenty mil. They wanted thirty mil. Liam was about to, well, be Liam and start cutting them down, he was talking to you, and then the accident. He settled on thirty and we left.”
I could feel the headache coming on. My teeth clenched and my fists tightened.
“Liam paid those motherfuckers thirty million dollars? Was this weed laced with cocaine as well?”
The idiot!
“Mel, he wasn’t thinking straight. He didn’t want—”
“Shut up and get me a phone!”
“You know we will make double that. We were underpaying them anyway. It—”
Pulling the IV from my arm, I slid off the bed, causing him to rush towards me with his eyes wide. Balancing on one foot, I hopped over to him.
“Declan, call them and tell them I want my money back.” I glared into his eyes.
“This isn’t Bergdorfs, Mel you can’t—”
Grabbing his jacket, I pulled him to my face. “Call them back, or you’re going to pay me that extra ten.”
“How the fuck am I supposed to do that?” He was panicking.
“Not my problem. Get it done or you will never be a father.” I smiled, slapping his cheek softly before letting go and hopping back over to the bed.
LIAM
I sat in Fedel’s room, eating his Jell-O as he lay in bed. Checking my watch again, I looked at his cut-up face. Glass was a bitch.
“He’s late,” I told him as I took another bite.
“He’s in a wheelchair and my mother is gone. It will take him a moment to get here,” Fedel whispered, flipping on the television.
Yes, Gino was in a wheelchair only because my father put him there.
“You do know that I will kill you in front of him if he doesn’t tell me what I want to hear?” I told him honestly, watching the game.
From the corner of my eye, I saw no fear in his eyes, and I wasn’t sure if that was because he didn’t believe me or because he’d already accepted his fate.
“If I’m going to die, can I please have my last meal back?” he asked, glancing at the food I was stealing.
“It’s shit,” I told him, handing back everything but the Jell-O.
“The Jell-O too,” he said.
“Seriously?” I snickered, looking at the cup of half eaten Jell-O.
He nodded.
“You’d better hope it’s not your last meal.” I handed him the cup as the door opened.
“Gino!” I stood. The blonde nurse wheeled him in. Walking over to her, I grabbed the handles of his chair and pushed him to Fedel’s bedside.
“Do you need—” the nurse said.
“No, you may leave,” I told her. After she did, the room was silent.
Gino eyed Fedel with anger and worry, but in return, Fedel ignored him, eating his Jell-O as if he didn’t even notice he was here.
Gino didn’t look old, he looked ancient. Like he had gone to hell and back, an
d now he was just waiting to go back again. His face was melting, his once long hair was gone and only a few stands of grey hair covered his head. I could see the scars that were marked all over his arms. He was proud of them; they were his battle scars.
“Mr. Morris…”
“Cut the shit, Callahan,” he spat out in disgust. “What do you want from me?”
Taking a deep breath, I tried to control myself, but I was done with control. Grabbing him by the neck, I all but lifted the old man out of his seat.
“I was trying to be civil. We were enemies once upon a time, but because of my wife, you became part of the package. It’s for that reason that I’m not going to break your arm. You will tell me what you know about Aviela DeRosa. If your loyalty lies with the Giovanni family, then it lies with me, and this is an order.”
When his face turned blue, I dropped him in his chair, and took a step back, trying to regain my composure.
Gino coughed and sucked in a breath of air while holding onto his throat like he was trying to expand his airway with his own hands.
“Aviela DeRosa is dead,” he said, and I pinched the bridge of my nose.
I was going to kill this man.
“You’re lying to me, Gino,” I whispered taking out my brass knuckles. “Gino, I don’t have the time nor the patience for wasted words. Aviela DeRosa is alive. I know this because she shot my wife three times. Your son, who I am about to kill right in front of you, is in this room because of her. So tell the truth or else your son will die, and you will spend your life as vegetable.”
“I…I can’t.” He shook his head as he stared at Fedel.
Fedel begged him with his eyes. “Pop, we’re on the same team. Melody is Orlando’s daughter. She’s a Giovanni, and we’re loyal to Giovannis.”
Gino leaned forward, his body now ridged. “That’s why I can’t. I swore to Orlando I would—”
“I killed Orlando. He’s dead, so swear to me and then deal with his shit in heaven or hell, Gino. I doubt he wanted this, so be smart for the first time in your life.”
I really wanted this and he was my only lead. Everything else, Aviela was slowly destroying.
“Pop. If not for me, if not for Liam, then for Orlando’s baby girl,” Fedel said, and I had to hold back an eye roll. Mel was not a baby girl. He knew that. But hey, whatever got the job done.
“Orlando always had a thing for the feisty ones.” He sighed, staring at his hands. “We were in southern Italy, and there she was, Aviela Costa, she called herself. She had everyone eating out of the palm of her hands, and Orlando wanted her. She looked like she wanted him too. The whole night, they were in the back of the club, just dancing and talking. The talking became more, and the next thing I know, I’m driving her to and from Orlando’s home when we got back to the US. He was so smitten that he just couldn’t leave her. I didn’t trust her; her eyes held no real emotions. I ran a background check, but everything came out fine. She was Aviela Costa, but I still had this feeling…
“I asked around and no one knew much about her. But her family was dead. So I had the boys double-check for paper trails. They found out almost all of our files—both digital and physical —had been tampered with.”
“You told Orlando?” I asked, walking in front of him.
Gino just snickered. “Iron hands was more like an iron head—and not his cock either. The fool was in too deep. He had no idea she was playing him. We were bleeding money, losing connections, and we were about to lose everything else, and she had only been in our lives for three months. He thought it was us. That we were stealing from him. I think he was losing it. Part of him knew, and the other part of him was in love. He set a trap. To this day, I still don’t know how he figured out it was her. But I saw him the moment after. He held her neck, ready to snap it and the bitch just said, ‘Go ahead, kill your kid too and save me the trouble.’”
Part of me wished he had killed the bitch, but she was still Mel’s mother.
“What did he do?” Mel was here, so he didn’t kill her.
“What any madman would do. He chained her to the bed and hired a nurse. His room became her prison. Aviela fought and cursed, she even tried her charm, but Orlando wouldn’t let her go. She slit her wrist. He brought a doctor and had the whole room stripped so she couldn’t hurt herself. She tried starving herself, so we gave her soft drugs and fed her through tubes. It was like that for months until finally she caved. Suddenly she began to behave like a wife, and Orlando loved it. But it was only after she gave birth that he unchained her.”
“Fuck.” I sighed.
Why were our lives so fucking complicated? All I wanted to do was sell drugs, make love to my wife, and rule in peace.
“She ran, didn’t she?” I asked.
Gino shook his head. “No, she stayed. I thought it was the kidnap, bound, Stockholm thing you hear about. Or maybe she loved her daughter. But I soon discovered that wasn’t the case. Orlando had found Aviela’s lover, Leonardo Severino. If there was anyone she cared about, it was him. No one else, just him. Out of spite Orlando had him locked up in the basement, and every time she did something he didn’t like, he cut off a limb and gave it to her as a gift.
“Those white gloves she wore, were gifts from her lover, she swore she wouldn’t take them off until they were stained with both Melody’s and Orlando’s blood. She said she wouldn’t be satisfied until all the white had turned red. Orlando wanted Mel to have a mother, one who loved her, so he put up with it. Little Melody grew up with her mother cursing her every step. It was only when Mel was six that she started to notice her mother’s “love” for her wasn’t really love. So Orlando agreed to let her and Leonardo go, as long as they never came near his daughter again.”
Things were making sense, but in way, I was still confused. “If this is true, how did Mel get on that plane? Orlando would have never let her go.”
Gino frowned. “That’s why Aviela stole her. We drove them to the airport, even waited for them to get on the damn plane. We needed to make sure they were gone. We thought we were sure. However, she somehow managed to steal Melody from right under our noses. It went from bad to fucking worse. Orlando didn’t realize she had Melody. None of us did. He was the one that brought that plane down. He had the whole thing wired to blow. He hated her that much. There was no way he was going to just let her go. By the time we realized where Melody was, Orlando…Orlando was beside himself with grief. He thought he had killed his own daughter. That’s when we found out that Aviela was a DeRosa. We got word from one of our snitches in the Vance household that Vance’s men had gone and saved her. The explosives didn’t work as planned. It took out the wings but the pilot managed to land on the water. The video was pretty much destroyed but—”
“There was video? On a plane… in the ‘90s?” Fedel asked him, speaking up for the first time.
Gino stated. “Orlando had it installed, he wanted to see her burn. Because Vance’s men didn’t know about Melody, and Aviela wasn’t awake to kill her, Melody lived. She was left alive because Vance’s men just wanted to scare her and left her to freeze. Orlando never thanked God more than he did that night after he had her back. All Melody’s childhood memories are basically a lie and he wanted to keep it that way. He made us swear never to tell her and burn anything that would reveal the truth.”
Sighing, I sat on the edge of Fedel’s bed. “I am a Callahan. I head one of the strongest, if not the strongest, organizations in the world. We deal and we sell. Killing is just a side effect of that. I do not have the time nor the patience to deal with your fucked up lives. I do not want to waste my time, money or men in your family shit!”
“Then you married the wrong woman.” Gino frowned. “We knew Aviela was a DeRosa because she wasn’t a Callahan, and she sure as hell wasn’t a Valero. How many other families have enough power to step to us. Back then it was the Callahans led by Sedric, the Valeros led by Vance, the Giovannis led by Orlando, and lastly the DeRosas led by Ivan. All the in
formation Aviela had stolen from us ended up in Ivan DeRosa’s hands. I haven’t even seen the man—no one has—but that bastard was always been one step ahead of us. The Giovannis and the DeRosas have been at odds since Melody’s grandfather murdered Ivan’s family. You think Aviela is fucked up? Her father wants every Giovanni erased from existence. This is all just one big battle for revenge.”
“Melody is a Callahan. She is my wife.” I was getting a headache; I could feel it growing. “There has to be more. What did the DeRosas have on the Callahans? And how the hell did they get Shamus to do what they wanted?”
“Shamus?” Gino questioned, pissing me off. “The old ass who’s too busy sucking himself off to give a shit about anyone else?”
“That’s my grandfather.” I reminded him, not that it mattered.
“Shame,” he spat out in disgust. “I don’t know anything about Shamus or the Callahans. I told you all I know. Aviela wanted Melody dead before she was even born. After this attack, she’s most likely out of the state if not the country. Aviela strikes then leaves. She can’t stay in one place for long. Orlando’s prison almost drove her crazy… crazier.”
“There’s more to it than this.” I grabbed the Jell-O. “He talked,” I said to Fedel. “It isn’t your last meal, deal with it.”
I walked out. I was so done with this web of lies and clues. Who the hell did I look like, Nancy motherfucking Drew?
The walk to Mel’s room was short, and I noticed Declan giving me death stare as he spoke on the phone. I didn’t know what his problem was, but if he didn’t stop staring at me like I was a low level criminal, I would bust his teeth in. I didn’t have the time, nor the energy, and I hated hospitals. There were too many ass-crack junkies and dead people in one place.
I need a fucking vacation.
I handed the empty Jell-O cup to Monte, who stared at me oddly. Walking into Mel’s room, I leaned against the door.
“I want a new mistress,” I told her.
“I want a new husband!” she snapped. “You bought the shit for thirty? What the fuck is wrong with you?”
I really need a fucking vacation, and brandy. A lot of brandy.