32

Callahan
“Hey, Brother,” Antonio says when I open my eyes.
He looks older than twenty-six. Already has gray hair at his temples. He’s too fucking young to have gray around his temples.
“You look like I feel,” I say.
“I should have been there.”
“So you could get shot up too?”
“So I could fight alongside you.”
“Fuck that. I’m glad you weren’t there.”
“I’m glad you’re alive.”
“I’m not going anywhere yet, Brother.”
“You can’t control that,” he says, running a hand through his hair.
I can. To some extent. Guilt gnaws at me, but I shove it away.
“Did you get the problem solved?”
“What? Oh. Yeah. It was nothing, really. Some stupid emails crossed and just nothing.”
“I’m glad Uncle David sent you, Antonio. It’s better if you’re outside of this. Like he is. It’s safer.”
“I’m not a coward, Brother.”
“I know that. But I don’t want you in harm’s way. This isn’t the end. It’s not even the fucking middle. And I’ve been thinking about this. I want you out.”
He stands, shakes his head and goes to close the window which is open a crack. “You’re either high or delirious.”
“I’m neither. I watched them die, Antonio. I don’t want to watch you die.”
“And I don’t want to watch you die. So what do you suggest? We both walk away? Fuck that. Fuck Fernando. Fuck the cartel. They’re not getting away with our family’s murders.”
I breathe in a long breath, watch my younger brother in the shadowy light of the moon.
“After, then. You’re out.”
“Let’s get to after. You need to get some rest.”
I feel myself drift. He’s right.
“After,” I say again.
“Sure, Brother,” he says, and I hear him chuckle as my eyes close.
– | – | –
I don’t know how much later it is when, after pulling on a pair of jeans, I open the door to my sister’s room. I don’t like coming in here. Every time I do, I think about how young she was. Just a little girl.
I can’t wrap my brain around how anyone could have killed a little innocent girl.
But what happened to Mara? Is it worse?
No. Alive is always better than dead. If she’s alive. They could have dumped her body in the ocean for all I know but that doesn’t feel right. They left a bloody mess behind. It was to make a point. Why go to the trouble of hiding one body?
Mara was sweet. I still remember how she’d always go to Antonio when she scraped a knee or fell off a swing. For anything at all, really.
Always trying not to cry. Always trying to act like she was older around him.
I’d watch him with her, too, my cool brother. Made fun of him for days after at how he was with her. So careful. So caring.
Moonlight drapes Portia in white light. She looks almost otherworldly if I look at her like this. She’s lying on her side on the single bed with the Princess pattern blanket pulled up to her shoulders.
Her hair has half come out of its braid and is splayed over the pillow. She mutters something when I stand over her, rolling onto her back, but her eyes don’t open. She settles quickly back into sleep. I study her face, free of makeup and dried blood, lips parted slightly to show a neat row of white teeth. Like this, relaxed as she is, she looks younger even than twenty-two.
My fingers play with the hair on Cerberus’s head. He followed me in. Since the moment I got up and he saw I was fine, he’s come to stand guard just outside her door. It’s strange. Cerberus hates people as much as I do. It’s one of the reasons I chose him. But he will protect her.
I cross the room to her bed and touch her forehead, brush hair back from her face. It’s the only place I see any evidence of what happened. A bruise, small, but there, turning a soft shade of purple. She must have hit her head when I tackled her. I think she’d been in shock standing there, watching her uncle on the floor.
An easy target.
I wonder if her uncle knows he saved her life tonight. Not that he’d have done it willingly given the choice of his for hers.
She blinks her eyes open once, twice. Once they adjust to the light and she realizes where she is, she runs the back of her hand over her mouth then her hair and sits up. I notice she’s wearing one of my button-down shirts. The clothes from our shopping trip haven’t been unpacked yet. The bags line the hallway outside. I haven’t decided where to put them.
Where to put her.
“What time is it?” she asks, adjusting the blanket when she realizes one thigh is exposed.
“Late. Or early, depending.” I move to sit and wince at the pain in my side. “Are you all right?”
She nods. “Are you?”
I shrug my shoulder, catch myself too late. “Fine.”
“Did you take that bullet when you were protecting me?”
“It matters to me. I wasn’t sure but… did you?”
“I don’t know, Portia, ” I lie, did take it when I was trying to get her out of there. “Doesn’t matter. We’re both alive.”
She studies me but drops it.
“What happened? Who was it?”
“Cartel. Fernando. Both.”
“You don’t know?”
We killed some from both crews. Captured a few alive.”
“It wouldn’t be the cartel. Why would it be the cartel? They killed my uncle.”
“No, Little Kitten. You’re not that lucky.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that cockroach will crawl out of his hole yet again.”
“He’s alive? I thought… I saw him though. I was with him when he went down.”
“He survived.”
She processes, her forehead creased, then continues. “It’s not the cartel, Callahan. Why would they try to kill him? He’s one of them.”
“It wasn’t a bullet that hit him.”
“What? What was it, then?”
“A tranquilizer. Granted it did some damage going in. He must have moved in front of you just in time. I’m pretty sure it was meant for you.”
She shakes her head, forehead wrinkling in confusion. “No way it was the cartel. It’s still my family.”
She stops at that and a moment later looks up at me.
“Well, lucky for you they didn’t seem to be the most organized crew. There were plenty of them, but the operation was a complete clusterfuck.”
“I thought the plan was for the cartel to work with you.”
“Yeah, well, take me out and the cartel is rid of their problem.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s more profitable for them to
work with Fernando.”
“Because he’s willing to make slaves of women.”
I nod. “I can’t assume it was Fernando, at least he couldn’t have done it alone.” Something about the whole thing doesn’t feel right, actually.
“What do you mean?”
“His family is weakened here. He wouldn’t stand a chance against me here or in Naples. Not now. It doesn’t make sense that he’d come back and have the manpower to attack alone. He simply doesn’t have it.”
“So, you think he’s working with my family? And you think that tranquilizer was to kidnap me?”
“I don’t know. It’d make sense, I guess. He marries you, there’s a link between the cartel and his family, but I don’t know.”
“But why?” I watch her as she says the words. “I mean, I’m not that valuable to the cartel. How can I be?”
“It will mean something to those who were loyal to your father. You’re valuable to them. Before, the cartel needed Fernando. Needed his connections. Now, Fernando needs them more than they need him. He’d need to get you back first thing, It’s what would pave the way for a union. Then they could attack me. Take me out. Together and with you back, ensuring the loyalty of those who’d walked away when your father was killed, they’d have the manpower to do it.”
“For money. All this just for money.”
“Money is a powerful motivation. Almost as much as love.”
“As much as hate you mean,” she mutters.
“Love is the most powerful.” She looks up at me like she’s surprised by that. Then her glance drops to my side. “You’re bleeding.”
I look down too and sure enough, the white T-shirt I put on has a splotch of dark red where the bandage is. I lift my shirt and look. “Doctor’s downstairs eating and he’ll be pissed I’m up. I’d get Lenore but she’ll mother me too. Antonio feels guilty enough not to bother him with this. “Does blood make you queasy?”
She shakes her head. “No.”
“Come with me.” I stand and wait for her to pull the covers back. She gets up, her feet bare on the carpet, the chipped polish on her toes matching the soft lilac all over this room. “She loved purple, as you can probably guess.” I walk into the hallway and Portia follows me.
“Elizabeth?”
I nod, enter my room and pull my shirt off over my head with my good arm. I drop it on the bed and turn to find her staring at my back.
“Frankenstein?” I ask.
“It’s not that bad,” she says, schooling her features.
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re a bad liar?”
“All right. A little like Frankenstein. I’m glad you’re not dead.”
I feel my eyebrows rise high on my forehead. “Why?”
“Because I think it would mean Nathan and I are dead. Or at least Nathan is, if you are.”
“And here I thought you were concerned for me,” I say lightly, but I detect the edge on my tone myself. I didn’t honestly think that, did I? I sit on my bed, lie back against the headboard and peel off the bandage. I’d do it myself but with my shoulder, it makes it tough.
“Let me help,” she says and comes over.
“You don’t have a sadistic side, do you?”
She shrugs, looks at the stitches and makes a face.
“Looks Worse than it is. Put some of that ointment on it then you can bandage it again and we can get on with things.”
“Get on with things,” she says, walking into the bathroom. I hear the water go on and a moment later she’s back drying her hands. “What sort of things?” She picks up the ointment, reads the label and gives me a grin. “This is going to sting, and I’m living for it.”
“It’s going to sting like a mother fucker but you’re going to do it.”
“Oh, I never said I wasn’t,” she smiles wide and makes a move so unexpected, it takes me by surprise.
She climbs up on the bed and straddles me.
Without warning.