Grant looked down. “Almost a month now. Logan told you what happened?”
She bit her lip nervously. “Well, Angelo said you got sentenced to three years, but I don’t know the details.”
His eyes darkened, like an ominous gray cloud obscuring the bluest sky. “What are you doing with Angelo? Stay away from him, Ashley.”
“That’s actually why I needed to talk to you. I want to invite you to Ben’s sixteenth birthday party.” She pressed her lips together. “At the compound.”
His voice trembled with anger. “Angelo is hosting Ben’s birthday party? No. You and Ben should never go there! Keep away from them!”
“How am I supposed to do that, Grant? I can’t ban him from his father’s entire family!”
“When the family is as sick as ours, then you damn well better keep your son away from them. Letting Ben see his father is one thing, but you need to steer clear of Angelo and Carlo.”
“I can’t let Ben see his father,” she hissed. “Logan has been missing for over a year.”
“Missing?” Grant took a step back. “Why?”
“The cops wouldn’t tell me, but they’re looking for him. What a surprise. He’s in trouble with the law.” Her tone dripped with sarcasm. “Such a wonderful father he’s turned out to be.”
Grant rubbed the bridge of his nose, feeling the morning’s headache beginning to return. “So Ben has been without a father for the past year?”
“Ben has been without a father his entire life,” she corrected. “Without a good one, anyway.”
“Still, you can’t let Angelo host a birthday party for him. You can’t let Angelo get his claws into him.”
“I’m afraid it may be too late. Ben worships Angelo and Carlo. He thinks they’re cool. They’re tough. That’s why you have to be there, Grant. You have to help Ben or he’s going to turn into a mobster just like them. He’ll end up in prison like his grandfather, and like his father too, once the police catch up to him.”
“And like I’m such a positive influence? I just got out of prison myself. I’m a felon, Ashley. Ben would be better off without me.”
“That’s not true!” She was sad to find Grant viewing himself so negatively. “I was so shocked when Angelo told me you were going to prison that I begged Logan to fill me in on what happened. Lo did admit that he threatened to hurt your Uncle Joe unless you helped him commit a crime.”
Grant’s wounded eyes met her intense gaze, and he swallowed, feeling bile rise in his throat. “I can’t believe he owned up to that.”
“I think he almost needed to tell me, like he had to confess or something. He seemed to feel really guilty about the whole thing.”
“Yeah,” Grant scoffed. “He feels really bad. He’s all torn up inside. In the meantime, I go to prison and he goes scot-free.”
“Logan did get sentenced to court-ordered counseling.”
Grant was too incensed to respond. His hands had curled into fists, and his breathing came in short, shallow rasps. All the tequila in the world could not numb the resentment washing over him.
“Grant?” she asked gently. “What happened that day? Will you tell me?”
He leaned against the console and rubbed his hand over his clipped black hair. He sighed, glancing out the window to see Sophie conversing with a female passenger on the deck below. He did not want her to learn the sordid details of his crimes, but he supposed he owed the story to the mother of his nephew. Maybe once Ashley heard the tale, she would cease recruiting him as a positive role model for her son. Ben certainly deserved better.
“It was two years ago, in March,” he began.
The brothers continued to stand at their mother’s grave, planning a robbery over her plot. Grant felt sick.
“We need the security code to the basement room in that bar near the base,” Logan said.
“And why do you think I would know it?”
“Because you have Navy buddies who gamble there all the time.”
“It’s against regulations to go down there.”
“You always had to follow the rules—Uncle Joe’s good little boy,” Logan sneered.
Grant’s blood boiled. “You never gave Joe a chance!”
The older brother, stronger and burlier, held out his arm to restrain the younger one. “Do I have to remind you what’s at stake here? The very man you’re defending. Get that code or Joe is dead.”
Grant had no choice. He got the needed information from his old bunkmate, Simkins, who was still stationed at Great Lakes. The next day he found himself in the driver’s seat of an unfamiliar car, idling outside the bar near the naval base. Logan sat next to him, dismayed to see his little brother trembling with fear.
“It’ll be okay,” Logan promised. “You’re a Barberi. You’re Dad’s son. This stuff runs in our blood.”
“Dad got caught,” Grant reminded him.
“We both know that wasn’t his fault. He was only protecting his nephew. Family means everything to him.”
“Whatever,” Grant scoffed, turning off the ignition. “Let’s get this over with.”
“Wait,” Logan insisted, extending his arm across his brother’s chest. He reached into the waistband of his jeans. “You need some protection.”
Grant gasped when his brother extracted the gleaming handgun from its hiding place. He thrust the weapon at Grant, who eyed the Glock 17 with trepidation. “I won’t need that, Lo.”
“I’m not gonna have my brother go in there holding only his dick.”
“I’m not going to shoot somebody!”
“Take it. You never know what you’re going to find. Just having a gun on me has gotten me out of some tight spots.”
Grant’s breathing quickened as his eyes locked on the weapon. He had trained with quite a few handguns and rifles in his Navy career, but those weapons were legally issued by his superior officers, who sanctioned and ordered their use. This was quite different. Grant was sure this gun was as illegal as the theft he was about to perpetrate.
“Take the damn gun! We’re stealing money from a gambling establishment, Grant, not robbing Garrett’s Gourmet Popcorn. If anybody catches you, this gun may be the only thing that saves your life.” Logan added condescendingly, “Joe would be crushed if his cherished nephew died because he was unprepared.”
Aiming a hostile glance at his brother, Grant yanked the weapon from his grasp and placed it in the rear of his waistband, tucked securely against the small of his back beneath his uniform. The cold metal felt odd against the sweat sliding down his spine. Get it under control, Madsen, he silently told himself. You can do this.