A Bloody Kingdom (Ruthless People Book 4) (37 page)

I was younger than they were when I lost both my parents.

There is a price for love. There is a price for power…and at some point we all have to pay it. That’s how it goes.

I wanted to tell her this, explain the darkness, but instead I did what all the mafia husbands had done before me: I lied and made a promise.

“I don’t know how it could have happened, but I will protect you until my last breath.” It was all I could do.

TWENTY-SEVEN

“The song is ended, but the melody lingers on…”

~ Irving Berlin

LIAM

DAY 7

It was dark out by the time we came home and my mother walked in with Wyatt because of my shoulder. He was awake but all the screaming and crying he had done at the burial had tired him out. He could barely walk straight on his own. We all walked into Ethan’s room and he just lay on the bed.

“I have something to tell you all,” my mother said, sitting down beside Wyatt as Dona crawled into the middle. It was funny; they were almost teenagers, but whenever any of them were upset, they all stayed together.

“Before your mother…passed…she asked me to read you a letter.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a piece of paper. My heart started to race.

All of them sat up.

“Can I read it now?” She looked at each of them, but they didn’t answer.

“Please,” I whispered, desperately wanting to hear it.

The paper crackled as she unfolded it, and she took a deep breath before reading.

“
Le mie piccoli leoni
…” She paused. “Did I say that right?”

“It means my little lions.” Ethan smiled. “And no you didn’t, Nana, but it’s okay, keep reading.”

“Yes, sir.” She tapped his nose. “
Le mie piccoli leoni
, I’m so sorry I am not with you. I can only imagine the pain in your hearts right now, how angry and confused, but most of all sad you are. I’m sad too…because if I was a better mom I could be with you all forever. I’d watch Dona grow and date and laugh as you boys and your father became protective. I’d get to see your father try and calm me down if a woman ever tried to replace me in your hearts, Ethan and Wyatt. In my mind, there are so many happy dreams I wish were memories. I want to be with you all so badly. I never knew I could love anyone as much as I love the three of you. You all are my heart. The only moments of my life that I regret are the days I didn’t spend with you. I gave Nana many letters, letters I learned from your grandfather Sedric to write. I have a couple for each of you and when the time is right, she’ll pass them along. No, Ethan, you can’t read them now, and Wyatt and Dona, you won’t be able to find them by yourself.”

My mother paused to stare at their stunned faces. Those would be their reactions; if anyone knew them well, it would be Melody.

“Ethan, my first treasure, remember even on your worst days that you are my son and that means nothing is impossible for you. Yes, taking care of your siblings is important, even if Wyatt annoys you—”

“Hey! He’s the one that annoys me.” He sulked, sounding like himself for the first time in days.

“Let her finish,” Ethan snapped back at him.

“Yes, taking care of your siblings is important, even if Wyatt annoys you, but you also need to take care of yourself. Your happiness is important too, and yes, you should be happy. I don’t want you all moping around; that will only make me sad. Wyatt, my precious, remember you are just as good as your brother and sister. Your father has no favorites and you are important. Ethan needs his little brother, who else will watch his back? You always say Ethan’s a know-it-all—”

“I am not!” Ethan cut in this time and Wyatt grinned, sticking his tongue out.

“Know-it-alls sometimes can’t see the smaller picture, so help him see, Wyatt. Lastly my Don Don, the new queen of the castle, you have the most important job there because boys are idiots.”

“HEY!” Both Wyatt and Ethan called out as I laughed.
Of course, Mel.

“They fight because it’s easier than taking the time to talk it out and often say what they don’t mean. It will be hard, but if anyone can keep Ethan and Wyatt in check, it is you. You, Donatella, have Italian and Irish blood in your veins; prove it to them the next time they make you angry…you may even become green.” Dona giggled, wrapping her arms around her brothers, who were both still sulking. “Also Don Don, give your father a hug as often as you can. He lives for those precious seconds…don’t forget it, when you are a teenager and he’s fighting you over makeup, okay?”

“Okay,” she replied as if Melody were sitting in front them. In a way, she kinda was.

“I love you all so much. Growing up tall, powerful, and beautiful shouldn’t be a problem for you all; it’s in your genes…so stay healthy, and remember I will always watch out for you.”

That was it. The vision we all saw of Mel in the moment drifted off and when it did, so did the smiles on their faces…not completely, but it was like they realized all over again she wasn’t really there. They were better than before, but this would never heal…

“Let’s go to bed,” I said to them, lifting the sheets up for them to crawl under.

“Dad, we don’t need to be tucked in.” Ethan made a face, grabbing a book off his side of the table to read.

“Speak for yourself.” Dona grinned proudly, lifting her arms like she was five again.

“Goodnight, Dad,” Wyatt muttered, lifting his arms too, his cheeks red.

“I’ll be back later, now sleep.” I kissed Dona’s forehead, placing my hands on their foreheads.

Limping around the bed, the pain in my leg getting much worse, I moved to the front of the room with my mother.

“Mel had a note for you too…I put it in your room, along with stronger meds.” She kissed my cheek. “I love you, sweetheart.”

“Love you too, Ma.”

Closing the door behind her, I put my head against it, debating whether or not to go. My heart couldn’t take much more today…I was barely hanging on.

But I walked toward the doors anyway and passed through Dona and Wyatt’s room. Wyatt wanted her gone now, but Dona still liked sharing a room; I gave it another year before they drove each other insane. Entering our room, the pain hit me like a wave when I opened the door. It felt different there.

I saw the white envelope on my desk and my throat went dry. What could she possibly have to say…when had she even written this goddamn letter?

Reaching for it, my hands shook as I ripped it open.

I’m sorry.

That was it?

“Damn you Melody…damn you.” I turned around and chucked the paper across the room. “THAT’S IT? REALLY MEL!” I screamed up at the sky.

“As hard as it is for me to say sorry, that’s saying a lot isn’t?”

I froze. I stopped breathing. I wasn’t sure if I was about to be sick or just going crazy.

“I’m not going to disappear if you turn around, I’m not a ghost,” she said.

I couldn’t turn around. I just stood there.

I’m going insane. I’ve lost my fucking mind. Just fucking brilliant, my kids are going to lock me up in an asylum.

“Liam, it’s me. I’m really here.”

“You can’t really be here,” I whispered, shaking my head. “I saw you…dead…cold and very dead. I looked into your coffin before they buried you…so I’m losing my mind—”

“It was me…just… We made it seem like I was really dead.”

I turned around, the ache in my chest from what I was sure was either a heart attack, stroke, or just plain rage was the only thing keeping from speaking. There she stood in jeans and a casual shirt. Her brown eyes were puffy from what I could only guess was crying…why? I had no goddamn clue, because I was the one who had supposedly lost a spouse.

“We?” was the only word that came from my mouth.

“Evelyn, Frankie, and me. The biochemist Fedel found…he turned out to be real useful—”

I couldn’t think straight. I grabbed her by the neck and slammed her body into the wall. “HAVE YOU LOST YOUR DAMN MIND?”

“Liam…hear me out!”

“No!” I backed away from her, my whole body trembling. I couldn’t believe this shit. “No, you don’t get the right to speak, dead people do not speak. Seven days Melody, seven fucking days and you come in here and say hear me out? Are you fuckin’ with me? Either I wake up or one of us is really going to die tonight!”

“I’m obsessed with you Melody. No matter what you do, I’ll always forgive you. Even if you were to kill me, I’ll always forgive you.”
She repeated my words back to me and I nearly lost it.

“Oh my God.” Those were the only words I could say. My hands were in the air, ready to strike her down, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

“I did this for us…for all of us.” She leaned against the wall.

“You dropped a nuclear bomb on our family
for us?
How so? Please explain, because maybe I’m too goddamn stupid to understand how you faking your death could be a good thing! You bitch!”

She hung her head.

“Come on, you are the master of the universe, Melody. Explain your grand plan for us little folk here on Earth!”

“I almost died…” she whispered, finally looking up at me. “Four years ago when Liling shot me, I honestly thought in that moment I was dead. I said goodbye to you in my head and the moment I did, I realized I didn’t want to. There are a million and one things I want to do with you, things I had never even thought of popped into my head, Liam. I want to eat gnocchi in Italy with you. I want to ride our motorcycles down the Transfagarasan Highway in Romania. I want to stay in a really shitty motel somewhere in the red light district of Amsterdam. It all flashed through my head in that one second and I remember thinking, when? We would never get the chance. We would spend the rest of our lives fighting and fighting and fighting. God knows if Orlando has any other bastard children out to kill me or us or our children. So what if I became the president? If we left this city for eight years and came back, we’d have start fighting all over again…my own people proved that to me when they weren’t all loyal. Why the fuck am I fighting for those people? I don’t want to be the president! I had power and I just wanted gnocchi…” She broke down and started laughing, tears falling from her eyes.

“M… I…” I didn’t even know what to say.

“You can’t believe it? Have I let you down? I know I’m supposed to be Bloody Melody, power before everything else, and a decade ago I would never have believed this would be me. But I was happy Liam, with us and our family. I was happy, but I could never enjoy it because I kept seeing the traps, the dangers. My father told me I would never rest until I was dead. Well, I’m dead…at least to the rest of the world.”

Sitting on the couch in front of our bed, I took a deep breath. “And what about our kids? Huh? Melody, you’ve abandoned them… Maybe you didn’t see the news in whatever hole you were hiding in, but the world saw our daughter break down—”

“I saw…and before that, I saw you with the gun.” She cut me off, slowly falling to the ground. “I almost called back then, but Dona went out and she got you to stop. It was the scariest moment of my life and seeing Dona…it almost broke me.”

“And because you wanted gnocchi you let our children mourn a mother who’s alive?”

“I’m cold Liam, not heartless.” She sneered at me.

“Are you sure? Because it’s hard for me to tell. Melody, you’ve broken them! You’ve done exactly what your mother did to you. For years, I’ve tried to save you from yourself, all for what? To prove you’ve learned nothing—”

“Tell me, Liam, how many mafia bosses do you know that came from happy stable homes?” I couldn’t answer. “Exactly. Your family was the closest I ever saw and you still had a fucked up childhood. Our kids? Every second of every day we showed them how much we loved them. Even when we trained them, we couldn’t bring ourselves to be as cold as our parents were. They are Giovanni-Callahan’s; they can’t be soft. In five years Ethan will be a legal adult. If we were gone, people would kill them just to make a statement. I love my children. I love them to the point that this…me sitting here and knowing they are two rooms over and I can’t touch them…is hell, but I will do that if it means they grow to be the most ruthless and powerful people this city has ever seen. You don’t become ruthless with hugs and kisses. It is pain that makes us. They are going to be great…they will rise above this…and I will smile every time someone doubts them and they prove them wrong.”

She smiled at me and yet all I saw were tears in her eyes.

“Melody, this is too much…it’s…I…” I just kept seeing Dona’s face in my mind as I tried to think of any way to undo this. “How could you even think of this? How could you abandon them?”

“Stop saying that—”

“Newsflash, Melody, you did! You threw them out of a plane without a parachute! What were you going to do, watch them grow up from afar the rest of their lives? How can you—”

“We’ll call this a punishment.” She snickered bitterly. “Karma for everything I’ve—we’ve done. For the rest of my life I’ll feel pain for the blood I spilled by not being able to be near my own children. Tell me how else would this have worked out? I thought of faking all our deaths…us all going together, but no one would believe that, and even if they did, our children would have to hide for the rest of their lives. They’d never be able to come back to Chicago. I thought I’d wait until they were teenagers…but by then they would already be stuck in their ways, used to never having to really fight—”

“Fighting Emilio changed everything. They understood the dangers, they were kidnapped—”

“They weren’t even gone for a half hour. Yes, it was scary, and yes Ethan proved he would do what was necessary when the time came…but with us by his side, in a few years, it would fade into the background. I also thought of telling them I was still alive, but that defeats the purpose. And I’m back at square one. So tell me, Liam, how do we make sure our children are ruthless enough to handle the shit storms that will come when we are gone. How do you make anyone strong without breaking them? Who in this family isn’t broken? Cora killed her cousin and gave me her heart, Mina waited years for revenge, Declan lost both his parents at a young age—both of them, and he was much younger than they were. You were sick, Neal was ignored and overlooked. This is the mafia. The person who’s the most broken is the one who wins at the end of the day.”