Thin Lives (Donati Bloodlines #3) (5 page)

Emma had strained to hear his words, but she couldn’t possibly miss the pain coating each one when he said them. Her heart hurt for him, and for Father Day.

Who would have done that?

And why?

Her gaze drifted past Calisto to Affonso. What was it that he said? Calisto had come in accusing Affonso …

Oh, God.

She didn’t want to think Affonso was capable of doing something like that, but the better question on her mind was why he would have to do it.

The two men went back to staring at one another again, silent but warier than before.

Finally, Affonso spoke first, breaking the tension. “Why would you have that sort of suspicion about me, Calisto? Because you called me this morning and then you found him? It was coincidence, nothing more. I don’t understand what would make you think I did this. I cared for that man—he’s been my priest for years.”

“I just thought—”

“Thought what?” Affonso shouted.

Calisto turned his head to the side, giving Emma a view of his pained profile. “I spoke to you about the dream, and like you always do when I’m trying to remember something, you were unhappy and irritated. Snapping at me like I was doing something wrong. I want to remember,
zio
. Why don’t you want me to remember?”

Affonso stood straight, his stare flicking quickly to Emma and then back to Calisto. “Of course I want you to remember. Cal, it’s not that I don’t want you to remember, it’s that you’re happy, and alive right now. The past two and a half years that you’re missing were hard for you. After your mother died, you didn’t just go downhill, you might as well have ran down it. You were in so much pain, my boy. And now you’re not, you’re okay again. Why would I want you to feel that way when you don’t have to?”

Emma literally had to clench her fists to keep herself quiet.

Calisto had all but relaxed entirely. His anger was seemingly gone as his fists uncurled at his sides, his arms limp. The tension in his back released as well, softening his posture.

“You’re right,” Calisto said. “I just …”

Affonso sighed. “What?”

“Still feel like I’m missing something.”

Emma’s eyes prickled, but she willed the tears away.

Right then would have been a good time to leave.

She almost did—Calisto’s confusion, his unknown pain, was so clear to her that it felt like a thousand tiny knives slicing at her very soul.

Because this man was her soul.

He was everything to her.

Calisto just didn’t know it.

“Of course you feel like you’re missing something,” Affonso said, bringing Emma from her warring thoughts. “You’re missing time, sadness, and your mother. Why wouldn’t you feel like something wasn’t there, Calisto?”

Emma despised her husband a little more with every word he spoke. She didn’t even know how it was possible for her to hate him more than she already did, but somehow, she managed to do it.

Affonso was manipulating Calisto and the affection he held for his uncle. He was using Calisto’s own feelings and confusion against him, making him seem like the paranoid party, or the guilty one between them. Affonso was the innocent. Calisto was making up things that didn’t exist.

Simple.

Gaslighting.

God, she hated Affonso for doing it.

But she hated herself a little more for staying quiet while it happened right in front of her. How could she possibly help Calisto without endangering herself, Calisto, and their child?

Emma didn’t have the first clue.

Calisto raked a hand through his hair, nodding quickly. “I’m sorry. I don’t even know why I thought like that,
zio
. It was just … a shock, and maybe I was trying to make sense of it.”

“Maybe,” Affonso agreed. “I can understand that, but it hurts me that you think I want to cause you any kind of heartache, Calisto. I’ve only tried to help you when I could.”

“I know, you’re right.”

Emma clenched her fists tighter in her lap, feeling her fingernails biting into her skin.  

Calisto hadn’t been wrong, not if he felt paranoid or distrustful in some way about Affonso’s actions or thoughts. The man couldn’t be trusted—he was a snake.

Whatever had happened to the priest, Calisto had in some way blamed Affonso for it. Somewhere, deep inside, he knew to be wary of his uncle.

The old Calisto—her Cal—was still there. Somewhere inside the shell of a man standing just feet away from her. He was there, waiting to come out again.

“Do you want to discuss what you saw in the priest’s office, hmm?” Affonso asked. “It might help. I know you said when you first called that it was a … bloody mess.”

“It was. I have seen worse, but it might just be because of who it was.”

“Likely.”

Calisto shot a look over his shoulder at Emma. “You should go.”

Emma opened her mouth to refuse, but Affonso cleared his throat, stopping her.

“Sure,” she whispered, standing.

The very last thing Emma wanted to do was leave Calisto behind with Affonso. Especially alone. In a matter of minutes, Affonso had already managed to quell whatever concerns Calisto had, and rid him of suspicion.

And really, it seemed like he’d also placed guilt on Cal for feeling that way at all.

She didn’t want Calisto to be manipulated like that.

He was so much better than that. He never would have allowed Affonso the chance to do that to him before his accident, but he was left vulnerable and weak without his memories and the truth.

Calisto had to depend on those around him to fill in the blanks, and point him in the right direction. The one person he trusted above everyone else was the same man who would probably kill him just for remembering it all.

It killed her.

But Emma walked out of the office, tears in her eyes and a sob already catching in her throat, and closed the door behind her. Calisto had to remember on his own—he had to do it without her help, because if Affonso caught her doing what he had forbade, it would all end terribly.

Everything.

Their lives.

The love.

Her world.

Emma had to let Calisto do it on his own. Her hands were tied.

What else could she do?

Calisto

“Took you long enough, Donati.”

Calisto shot his sparring partner a grin as he let the gym worker tape his hands up properly. “Best I could do on a last minute call, Gio. Next time, give me some more time to get out of shit.”

Giovanni bounced on his heels, slapping his hands together from the other side of the cage. “I wondered when you were going to be back up on your feet and ready for another go in the cage with me.”

“Been a rough few months.”

“So I heard. Sorry about that,
amico
.”

Friend
.

The softer tone of Gio’s words weren’t lost on Calisto, but he let them be said without much of a response. Giovanni Marcello wasn’t the kind of man who was openly affectionate, even with friends. Frankly, no man in their business was.

Gio belonged to a fellow New York family, the long-reigning Marcellos, actually. His older brother was the Don of the family, and the most powerful man who sat at the Commission table once a year when all the major crime syndicates got together to chat about territory, business, and issues.

Usually, men from different families didn’t mingle. That’s just how Cosa Nostra worked. Calisto had his own shit to handle being Affonso’s consigliere, and Gio had his thing to handle being who he was in his family.

But the two had been friends for a long time—about a decade.

Calisto didn’t see the problem with meeting up every once in a blue moon to shoot the shit with Gio, and pass a few punches in the cage. If anything, it helped to keep the peace between their families and on the streets of New York, given that there was a camaraderie and an old friendship there.

That
was
good for business.

With his hands taped up properly, Calisto turned to face his old friend. A mouth guard dangled from Gio’s fingertips. The gym worker passed a new one to Calisto before he left the cage.

“Heard your head is kind of scrambled,” Gio said, smirking just a little.

Calisto couldn’t help but laugh. “Yeah, you could say that.”

“How would you say it?”

“Two and a half years of blackness.”

Gio lifted a brow. “Completely?”

Calisto shrugged, wishing the weight on his shoulders would leave. “Basically.”

“Shit. That’s …”

“Rough?” Calisto supplied.

“I guess that’s a good enough word as any. Are you sure you’re supposed to be sharing punches with your head and all?”

“Exercise is healthy. This is exercise.”

Gio shook his head, chuckling. “Not what I asked.”

“I just …” Calisto trailed off, scowling as he glanced around the gym and the people watching. He hadn’t even known about the place when Gio called him earlier in the day, asking if he could meet up. But apparently, according to Gio, he and Calisto had been coming to this gym for nearly two years at least a couple of times a month if they could spare the time.

“Spit it out,” Gio demanded.

“I want to feel normal for five minutes. I haven’t felt okay in a long while.”

Gio quieted for a stretch of time before he said, “Getting your ass kicked feels normal to you?”

Maybe.

Calisto couldn’t really explain it, but despite how he didn’t know the gym or the cage, and he couldn’t even remember spending any time with Gio here, it did feel familiar.

Somehow

“It’s a part of that two and half years,” Calisto said vaguely, offering little else.

Gio seemed to understand. “All right. Can we chat a bit of business first?”

Now, Calisto was a little shocked to hear that come out of his old friend’s mouth. Very rarely over the years did Calisto and Gio talk
la famiglia
when they spent time together. It was like an off-limits zone that they didn’t even have to acknowledge, but was simply just there.

“What kind of business?” Calisto asked.

Gio rapped his fingers to his side, leaning against the cage. “Dante is getting irritated about the mess your uncle caused with the Irish. It’s spilled over into our territory, and the Calabrese.”

Dante Marcello could be a difficult man to handle when he was in a mood. It was one of the things Calisto liked best about the fact he wasn’t the boss. When shit happened between families, Affonso was the one who needed to deal with it, not Calisto.

“It’s been ongoing for a few months,” Gio added when Calisto stayed quiet.

“Since my accident, I know.”

The O’Neil family had been the cause of his accident, apparently. Calisto only knew what he was told, but he’d had a meeting with the Irish boss earlier that day, and it must have not ended well given the fact someone came after him, intent on ending his life.

“No,” Gio drawled, his brow furrowing, “it was happening even before that, but it’s gotten worse since then.”

Calisto rubbed a hand down his face, blowing out a heavy breath. “I don’t—”

“Remember. Yeah, I get that, man.”

“Affonso is determined to cull the Irish. That’s really all I can say. Given what they did, it’s his right.”

Gio didn’t look pleased with that answer. “But it’s affecting other families now. Mine, the Calabrese. Even the Russians have had some run ins, and I don’t like that shit at all, since I have territory down in Brighton that mingles with theirs. I’m the only man between the Three Families that doesn’t feud with the Russians, and I would really like to keep it that way.”

Calisto tossed his hands up in the air. “What do you want me to do? It’s not like I think killing the fucking Irish is going to magically make shit better. I’m not the one out doing it, I’m just doing what the Don wants me to do, Gio.”

“Dante wants a sit-down. The Marcello, Calabrese, and the Donati families. He wants a solution figured out now before this gets any worse.”

Fuck.

Wonderful.

“And that’s why you called me over here today, because he figured you could get a response out of me faster than Affonso?”

Gio shrugged, but he didn’t deny it.

“That’s a dirty way to play,” Calisto said when his friend stayed quiet.

“We Marcellos do what we have to do when things need to be done,” Gio replied, unfazed.

Well, that much was true.

Calisto also had a healthy dose of respect for all of the Marcello family, not just Gio. They were the dominating family in New York for a reason and had been for several decades. The three major Cosa Nostra families in New York had long since learned to get along, but there was no denying that the Marcellos held more power than the Calabrese and Donati families, and as such, they bent to the demands of the Marcello boss when he wanted something.

Clearly, Dante wanted something.

“I’ll get it arranged,” Calisto said. “Tonight, even. I have some papers for my restaurant at my place to grab, but on the way to the restaurant, I’ll stop by Affonso’s home and sit down with him. It’s the best I can do.”

“It’s appreciated.”

Calisto smacked his hands together. “Enough talk. Are we going to spar a bit or what?”

“Still not sure you should.”

Laughing, Calisto brushed it off. “If anything, you might knock some memories back into me.”

Gio scoffed. “Right. With the way you constantly protect your head, I fucking doubt it.”

Calisto blinked across at his friend, his fingers going numb. Maybe it was like a daze had settled over his senses for a second, too, but he wasn’t all that sure.

But it was there, just on the edges of his memories.

Something …

“Calisto?” he heard Gio asked. “Donati, you okay?”

He clenched his tingling fingers into a tight fist, breathing deep.

Gio’s got a bloody mouth.

Next week, stop protecting your face so much.

The voices flew into Calisto’s mind, but he didn’t get a visual to go along with them. Just the words, the familiar tones of the gym’s manager and Gio. But even without the visual, he had the memory of his emotion and senses washing back the words.

Irritation. Restlessness. Sadness. Jealousy.

It swirled in and around the memory, coloring it heavily with bright strokes, making Calisto feel like it might be important.

The doctor hadn’t said how his memories might come back, but he did say it could be different every time something triggered it. And instead of full memories flooding him all at once, it could be a slow trickle of information that eventually came together like a puzzle.

One little piece at a time.

“Cal?”

Calisto swallowed hard, willing the dryness in his throat away. “When was the last time we sparred here, anyway?”

Gio’s gaze flickered with concern, but he answered. “The summer, I guess.”

“Give me more than the summer, man.”

“Uh … June? Yeah, June. Birthdays and all that month. I had a lot of shit going on.”

Calisto nodded, filing that away. “June, okay.”

“Did you remember something?” Gio asked.

He wasn’t sure.

Yes. But no.

It wasn’t like saying he remembered how he felt on any given day and what someone had said in a passing moment would do him any good.

Calisto chose to brush it off, hoping the memory would lead to something else. “No, just curious.”

Gio didn’t look like he believed him, but he didn’t push for more. “All right. Spar?”

He shoved the mouth guard in.

“Spar,” he mumbled.

“
Cazzo merda
,” Calisto growled, smacking his hand against the face of the black metal safe.

Metal clanged, but it did him no good.

Again, he dropped down into a squat and fiddled with the dial on the face of the safe, determined to get the damn thing opened. Earlier, he hadn’t lied to Gio when he said he needed to get some paperwork for his restaurant. An issue had come up about the deed for the place, given it was in a plaza like situation.

Calisto had bought the restaurant years ago, and he’d purchased it as if the property were a sale, and not a rental. Nonetheless, legal issues had come up.

And he needed, amongst many things, the paperwork for the place—including the deed and contract when he purchased it.

It was in his safe, in his office.

A safe he’d apparently changed the fucking code to.

Obviously, he had changed the safe’s code over the course of the last two and half years, because he couldn’t remember the damn three numbers it wanted if his life depended on it. He also couldn’t figure out why in the hell he would change the three digits, as that required a whole process with a safe master who came in and changed the guts of the safe just to reset the tumblers.

Well, Calisto knew why he would at least keep the safe instead of getting rid of it. It had belonged to his deceased father, but his mother had given it to him about a year before her death. Though he didn’t remember the months leading up to her death, he did remember her wanting him to take the safe. She hadn’t kept anything in it for a long time.