But that’s love.
It makes you feel.
“Don’t,” I whispered. “Please Nixon, anything but this.”
He tilted his head, his eyes narrowing as he examined my face. “Thought you loved her?”
“I do.” My answer was quick. Confident. “But she doesn’t feel the same way about me.”
“Then she should have thought about that before she jumped into your bed, don’t you think?” He sidestepped me and started barking instructions to Chase about the marriage. Words like, tonight, make it fast, and hurry were not ones I ever wanted associated with what should have been the most important day of my life.
The most special day of hers.
I looked down at her flat stomach again. My eyes wishing they could peer at the tiny soul that had been created. I was protecting the innocent.
Even if that made me the guilty.
I was doing the right thing.
Even though I was pretty sure I was traveling down a road I would never be free from, to a destination that would feel a hell of a lot like constant torture.
Would I lay down everything I was? Everything I had to offer, to protect someone who didn’t give two shits about me?
I stared at her face.
The one I dreamt of every night.
Yeah. I would offer her everything. And in return take nothing. Story of my life.
I give.
They take.
I give some more.
They take it all.
CHAPTER SIX
Hearts weren’t meant to be broken.
Mo
“ARE YOU MAD?” My voice cracked. I might as well have yelled, the room had been so silent. Tex wasn’t speaking to me. He wasn’t speaking to anyone. The light had officially died from his eyes ever since earlier that afternoon, and it was all my fault. It wasn’t intentional. I’d do anything to protect my family. Anything.
Even if it meant damning both of us in the process.
“Am I mad?” Tex repeated, his muscles rippling across his arms as he flexed his hands and then made a fist with his right, punching the bed lightly. “No, not mad. Mad would mean I was crazy, nuts. Madness assumes the person is one step away from insanity. I think what you’re asking is, am I angry, and more importantly is said anger directed at you?”
“That was a really long explanation.” I tucked my feet under myself and leaned against his muscled shoulder. Everything about him was larger than life. From his body to the way he spoke. Tex didn’t do small. He did big. He moved his hands when he talked as if he was preaching at a Baptist church. He laughed like it might be the last time he did so. He made love… well he made love like he believed in it, like there was nothing in the world he’d rather be doing than spending time pleasuring me, exploring me; he made me feel special. And in the end, that had been my downfall with him.
I was owned by him.
No longer me.
I’d gotten kind of lost in his bigness, so I’d backed off. It helped that I’d had a good excuse; he’d cheated. Though, later on, one of the men told me the truth. He’d done it to get information about Mil’s family. Would have been nice to know it at the time, but I was too damn upset to say anything. Upset with him, upset with me.
And scared.
Yeah. I was really, really scared.
Terrified.
And I couldn’t even tell him why.
“For what it’s worth…” I shuddered. “I’m sorry.”
“Do you love me?” he asked.
My entire body seized. Did he just ask what I think he did?
“Mo? Do you love me? It’s a simple question. And no I don’t mean love me like the way you love Chase or Nixon. Do you love me? Do I own your soul? Your heart? Do you love me? Forget all the shit that went down with other girls, forget getting pregnant. It’s just you and me. Do you love me?”
Breath got caught in my throat. It was like my lungs weren’t working. I tried to answer him, really. My mouth was open and everything. I couldn’t lie. I couldn’t lie! Please God, don’t make me lie. In that moment I wished for death. Anything would be better than doing what I had to do.
“I’ve been watching you for months. I think it’s time to play my cards.” He leaned forward. “Just how important is protecting your family? Would you die for them? All of them? Go to the ends of the earth to save them?”
“Yes,” I slurred. “What did you put in my drink?”
“Just a little… concoction. Believe me, it won’t hurt. It will just make things, a lot less painful and allow us to keep a close eye on you.” Something sharp hit my arm, I looked down. Why was I bleeding? What was that? A needle the size of something I’d only ever seen on TV poked through me and something pushed into my wrist. I screamed in pain.
He held out the glass. “Drink.”
I drank.
I had no choice.
“Do you know who he is?” he asked and then laughed. “Of course you do. Everyone does now that the Cappo has been killed. See? See how I’m already laying out my cards on the table? Now, let me tell you how this is going to work…”
“No.” I whispered into his chest. When he tensed I slid up his body and whispered in his ear, “Volpe.”
Tex’s eyes immediately flew to mine. A bit of understanding dawned, but it was enough. He’d put me in an impossible position. But in that moment I could at least offer him hope.
Because things weren’t at all what they seemed.
And by using my word—the one I used to scream when I was little, when Nixon was trapped in the torture box my dad built, when I was locked in my room—Tex knew exactly that.
A war was coming.
And he was the target.
He just didn’t know it yet.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Impossible: Also known as trying not to love the person who holds your heart.
Tex
VOLPE MEANT FOX in Italian. Mo had a fascination with foxes with she was little. Okay, so maybe it was more of a fixation. She liked their tails. At any rate, it was the word Nixon told her to use when she was either afraid or something was suspiciously wrong.
It was the one word I knew she would never use.
Unless she truly meant it.
The only problem. Was she afraid of me? Of the situation? Or was she suspicious that things weren’t as they seemed?
I didn’t have time to think any further.
A knock sounded at the door, and then Nixon burst through. “It’s time, grab your shit.”
“Wow, good afternoon to you too.” I sang.
“It’s nine in the morning.” His eyes scanned the room. “Let’s go get the ceremony over with.”
“Just like that.” I whispered under my breath.
“Did you say something?” Nixon asked, his voice even, his eyes blazing with fury.
“Nah, man.” I rose from the chair in the corner. I’d been drinking by myself in that chair, sitting at the stupid courthouse just waiting for someone to tell me it was time. “Just thinking about how excited I am to be your brother-in-law.”
Take that bitch.
Nixon scowled and held the door open for me. “Please, I’m already going to have nightmares after today. Don’t make it worse.”
“You’re going to be an uncle.”
“Tex.”
“That was me making it better,” I snapped. “Because regardless of how you feel about me right now or even about Mo, there’s a child, okay? A child that has our blood.” I pushed against Nixon’s chest. “Our blood. Our family. We protect our family.”
Nixon hung his head, licking his lips. “You’re right.”
“I know.” I gripped Nixon’s shoulders. “Don’t make it worse than it is. You’ve had your fun, you shot me in the shoulder, beat the shit out of me, and made me bleed. You’ve taken out your anger, and you’ve let me take responsibility. So for the love of God, can we please, just hug it out and be friends again? Because I’m scared as hell, and I can’t do
this alone.”
Nixon nodded and then grabbed my face with both of his hands and kissed each cheek. “Welcome to the family, brother.”
“Now I finally get a family.” I joked.
Nixon didn’t laugh, instead his eyes softened. Oh, hell no, the last thing I needed was for him to feel sorry that I was an orphan.
I gripped his shirt and jerked him close to me so that our heads almost knocked. “Look at me like that again, and I’ll get your sister pregnant again just for the hell of it.”
“You son of a bitch!” Nixon knocked his head against mine sending me sailing back against the wall. Oh, look, a candlestick just got impaled into my shoulder. Damn it!
“Too soon?” I winced.
“Tex,” Nixon roared just as the door to the room opened.
“Boys?” Trace peeked her head around the door. “Everything okay? Everyone… alive?”
“Sad she has to ask that, huh Nixon?” I winked.
“Mother loving son of a—”
“Nixon.” Trace grit her teeth. “Leave it.”
And just like that, Nixon did. I never imagined I’d see the day where bad ass Nixon Abandonato would be shut up by a woman. But miraculously, he put his gun away, thank God, and walked over to Trace, softly pulling her into his arms.
Jealousy surged through me from every angle.
I looked down, immediately ashamed.
“Let’s go.” Trace’s clear voice rang out. “The family’s waiting.”
Numbly, I followed them down the hall and into the small room where the justice of the peace was waiting.
Mo was standing as stiff as a board in front of the room.
I wanted to weep. And I wasn’t a guy who let emotion take a hold of me that often; I was more of a believer in emotion being a weakness.
But she was so pretty.
Not beautiful, pretty.
Like something my ma would have told me not to touch when I was little, something so precious that I couldn’t play with it. Instead, it would be set far away from my grubby little hands. I wasn’t allowed to touch, but I could stare all I want. I could memorize the lines of the object, I could visualize what it would be like to be with it, I could even want it, love it, obsess over it.
But I could never, ever possess it.
I took purposeful steps towards Mo and gently grabbed her hand, clenching it in mine.
Yes, her choices might be the reason we ended up in this position. But I’d started the chaos. It wasn’t her fault she didn’t know when to get off the train. Because the thing about going over a hundred miles an hour all day every day? Eventually you forget you actually had a destination in the first place.
You forget to get off.
And that was all on me.
I’d put us there because of my job.
And I’d kept her there out of selfishness.
Never realizing I was damning us both to a marriage of something worse than convenience. Unrequited love—because I’d love her until my dying breath, but Mo? It was entirely possible by marrying her, I was keeping her from loving someone else, from being what she should have been, what she was good enough to be.
I was keeping her in the family.
The one place she swore to me she wanted to escape.
Welcome to the Mafia, blood in, well isn’t that just shitty part, there is no freaking out.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Words bring both life and death.
Mo
SHAKING, I PUSHED the wedding band that I hadn’t even chosen onto Tex’s finger and repeated the vows. My voice was hollow as I promised to spend the rest of my life with him, in sickness and in health. I wanted to collapse under the pressure, the weight, the fear.
When it was Tex’s turn, I looked up.
I shouldn’t have, because his eyes, those green eyes framed by perfect long, dark lashes gazed into mine and I was lost in a sea of desire. It hit me so hard it was difficult to breathe. Gasping was all I seemed to be doing, taking in huge gulps of air only to remind myself I had to actually exhale too.
He’d loved me once.
Would he ever love me again?
Forgive me?
Even though he was looking at me like he wanted me, I knew the truth, I’d driven a wall between us. I wasn’t sure if Tex wanted to scale it—I wasn’t sure I deserved to have him try.
Protect him. At all costs, protect those you love.
That was my mantra, the one my ma had taught me when I was little. And God, I was trying, trying so hard.
“…in sickness and in health, for as long as we both shall live.” Tex finished, his voice cracking in the end as my fingers trembled in his hand.
“By the power vested in me, I now pronounce you Mr. and Mrs. Vito Niscio Campisi Jr.”
Tex visibly winced at the sound of his name—his real name, the one his father had given him, his very dead father. The one he’d shot not three weeks ago.
I gave him a reassuring smile.
It did nothing but turn his eyes to ice.
“You may now kiss your bride!”
Everyone clapped awkwardly while Tex stepped closer to me, tugging my body against his. Slowly, he leaned down and kissed me briefly on the cheek before stepping back.
My body screamed with the injustice of it! Not even a real kiss on my wedding day? Not that I deserved it, but it was Tex. The final nail in the coffin had been smacked into the wood. Tex never did things like that. He was the peacemaker, he was the one that made me feel like everything was going to be okay. He was my constant.
And I’d hurt him.
I would have fallen into hysterics right then, had I not turned around and seen his face.
Swaying, I stopped walking in time to gather myself, but it was too late, he was already walking towards us.
“I think congratulations are in order.” He grinned then pumped Tex’s hand. After a brief exchange he tilted his head in my direction and grinned that devastating grin. “And Mo, looking as beautiful as ever.”
“Th-thanks.” I stepped closer to Tex.
“Thanks for coming, Sergio. “Nixon hit him on the back. “You’re family, you should be here.”
Sergio’s crystal blue eyes cut straight to me. “There’s no place I’d rather be than where I am right now.”
I sucked in all the air I could, and forgot to exhale… only this time, it ended up with me collapsing to the floor.
CHAPTER NINE
Truth always finds a way out…
Tex
“WHAT THE HELL!” I grabbed Mo’s body right before it crashed against the floor. “Mo? Mo!” I shook her and then pulled her into my chest. “Baby, talk to me…” Panicked, I kissed her mouth, urging her to wake up.
Her lips moved against mine as she let out a moan and then jolted back.
If I was being honest, it kind of scared the hell out of me—I hated not knowing what to do in this situation.
“Mo?” Sergio’s voice was laced with concern as he leaned down next to me and slowly touched her face. It was such an intimate caress that I was momentarily dumbfounded.
And then, like someone hitting me in the chest with a freaking two by four, I staggered back, nearly landing on my ass.
“YOU!” Had Mo not been in my arms I would have shot him. I didn’t give a rat’s ass that we were in City Hall. I’d go to prison. Gladly.
Sergio’s brows furrowed together in confusion. “Me, what?”
“You did this!”
His face paled. “I did not cause her to faint!”
“Not that!”
“Tex.” Nixon put his hand on my shoulder. “It’s been a long day and…”
Mo stirred. “Tex, sorry… I just, so hot…”
“Can you sit up?” I asked in the gentlest voice I could manage, which just so happened to sound gruff and irritated.
“Yeah, yeah, I can, um, I can get up.” Mo struggled a bit as I helped her to her feet.
Chase came up behind us with Mil. Everyon
e was hovering, and I was sick of it.
“Guys, give her some space.” I kept my eyes locked on Sergio’s. The bastard had no right to be staring at what was mine. I stepped around Mo so I was directly in front of him. With a grunt and a curse, he stumbled back.
“I’m fine guys, really, I’m fi—”
The sound of glass shattering pierced the air. I covered Mo with my body and looked up just in time to see Chase grunt and then fall to the floor followed by the Judge who’d just married us. Only there was no getting up for him.
He’d been shot in the head.
“Chase!” Tracey and Mil yelled at the same time, while he held up his hand from the ground with a thumbs-up.
“Get the girls out!” Nixon roared grabbing me by the collar of my shirt. Mo tripped as I pulled her to her feet. Trace and Mil kept their heads covered as they ran towards the door. Sergio pulled out his cell phone and followed me out then started barking orders in Italian to his men.
Well at least he’d brought backup.
Then again, why the hell would he need it?
Police filed down the hall just as Nixon and Chase emerged. They were both smiling and laughing like they’d just gotten wasted at a party.
“Split up.” Nixon growled, the smile fell from Chase’s lips as he winced.
Mil ran up to him.
“I said…” Nixon’s voice lowered. “…split up, I’ve got Chase. Girls you go with Tex and Sergio, we’ve got this. Make the calls.” He pointed his free hand to Sergio. “Get one of your men in here to look at the cameras.”
An officer ran up to us. “Sir?” He directed his sir to Nixon who sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Let the Chief know we were getting married. After the ceremony two shots rang out, silencer.” He tugged at Chase’s shirt.
I pushed his hands away. “Let me.” With a rip, the shirt weakened under my grasp. The bullet had lodged in his left shoulder. “Aw, we’re bullet twins.”
“Not. The. Time.” Sweat poured down Chase’s face.
I winced. “Sorry, been there, lived through that.” As carefully as I could, I pushed against the skin surrounding the wound. “Yeah, it’s lodged in there pretty good. From the looks of it, shooter probably used a rifle, possibly an MK12.”