After thanking the pilot, I sent a quick note to Nikolai to warn him about the mess and offer to pay for the damages. Not that he’d probably care, but still.
A Mercedes-Maybach waited on the tarmac, its engine running, and one of the Family associates, Darin, in the driver’s seat. The minute we stepped off the plane, he got out of the car and opened our doors.
“Did you have a nice flight, Mr. Abandonato?”
I dared not look at Val.
“It was turbulent,” she answered for me. “But a quick trip.”
Darin nodded his head, pieces of salt and pepper hair fell over his forehead. “Good, I’ll take your bags.”
His eyebrows shot up as he moved by me and grabbed the bags from the plane. I’d known him since I was a punk kid, his expression said it all.
She was beautiful.
Yeah, message received.
And she looked like the Family — like Luca.
“Get in,” I barked to her. “We’re out in the open.” It was a lie, nobody would dare touch us in Chicago, on our turf, but I didn’t want Darin making any more comments or looking at her for that matter.
Val nodded and slid across the plush leather seat.
I followed, waiting for Darin to hurry his ass up so I could get home and lock myself away from my new wife.
“I’ve never been to Chicago,” Val said in a small voice. “It’s colder than I thought.”
“It’s always cold,” I muttered. God save me from small talk.
She shook a bit next to me. “Do you think I can turn the heat up?”
Frowning, I glanced over at her hands only to see both of them clasped in her lap, shaking like leaves. When I met her gaze, her face was pale, like a ghost.
Hell, the last thing I wanted was to feel like shit about it, but I did.
Because this was all new to her.
On top of everything that happened on the plane, she was fully entering into my lifestyle.
And had no idea how to do it.
There was no manual.
No directions.
Nothing, but stay alive and watch your back.
I needed the girls.
With a sigh, I reached over to the panel in the back and turned up the heat and flipped on her seat warmer, then grabbed my phone from my pocket and dialed.
“Yo,” Mil answered on the first ring. “You land?”
“Yeah.” I was suddenly exhausted. “Look, can you bring the girls over to the—”
“Dude, we’ve been at your house for the past two hours. I’m a mind reader. You can thank me later.”
“Or not at all,” I joked.
“You’re an asshole. Why do we keep you around?”
“I’m too expensive to kill?” I offered.
“Eh, nobody would even find your body. Mo’s got that shit locked down.”
“Word!” Mo yelled loudly.
“Are you guys watching gangster movies again?”
Silence and then. “They’re Trace’s favorite, and apparently you get special treatment when you’re pregnant.”
“Hear, hear!” a voice yelled in the background. I couldn’t tell if it was Bee or Trace, but did it really matter? The women were adjoined at the hip; it would be annoying if it wasn’t so necessary in our lives.
Family was everything.
Sighing, I said, “We’ll see you guys in about fifteen.”
“’Kay, and Sergio?”
“Yeah?” I croaked out, my vision blurring from exhaustion and stress. “What?”
“It may not be okay right now. But one day it will be.”
“That’s the problem, Mil, that’s the damn problem, isn’t it?”
She was quiet.
Mil and I had always gotten along. Being Phoenix’s stepsister hadn’t been easy for her and, on top of that, she was married to Chase of all people, she was quick, a fast talker, terrifying, and the only female mob boss in the history of the Cosa Nostra. She saw things other people didn’t see.
So my response probably wasn’t a surprise to her.
Because I knew, the day when everything was okay.
Would also be the day — that I let Andi go.
That would hang us, every mother’s son. –A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Valentina
I WOULD BE lying if I said I was okay, that I wasn’t feeling humiliated, angry, frustrated, confused. And yet, I was also sad.
Sad for him.
Because the battle was so evident in his face, in the way his shoulders slumped the entire ride through the city. He was upset.
And for good reason.
I was an interloper.
A stand-in for what he really wanted — what he’d always needed.
I would never take the place of what he’d had — but part of me wondered if that was how these things worked. I mean, I was a completely different person, I would never be her, but saying that out loud to him just seemed like a really poor life choice.
He had a gun.
And he’d punched the crap out of a wooden bar.
Nearly sliced open arteries with glass shards.
Yeah, he needed space.
But when you’re hurting — at least in my small, innocent mind, what you said was usually the opposite of what you wanted.
So I’d held his hand, terrified that he was going to turn on me. His wild eyes were more exhaustion than anger, now that we’d been driving for a few miles.