Elicit (7 page)

I shivered.

Nixon was pissed at me too; actually it seemed everyone was pissed at me. We had a dead body, a marriage that wasn’t actually legal, and more questions than answers. The horrible part was that when Nixon asked me if I knew anything, I straight up lied to his face.

Sergio had been in there.

He’d watched me lie.

He’d let me, the bastard. But he was doing his part too, both of us were. I just wish it wasn’t so damn hard to do the right thing. I’d always believed that if you chose others over yourself, you were rewarded, never once did I understand the extraordinary sacrifice it was, when you were asked to be selfless. My chest ached.

I reached across the bed and grabbed Tex’s pillow, holding it close to my chest, inhaling his scent like he was my drug. He’d been the only constant thing in my life, and I didn’t want to live in a world where he wasn’t annoying the hell out of me, where he wasn’t trying to crack a joke in order to make me laugh when all I wanted to do was cry.

The sound of a door slamming jolted me from my pity party. Tex! He was home. I just needed to see that he was okay. I just wanted to know he wasn’t bleeding or dying.

Quietly, I padded to the bedroom door and reached for the knob, only to have it pulled open. I staggered back and gaped.

Tex stood there, shirt off, swaying on his feet.

Drunk as hell.

“Mo.” He said my name like a curse, like he reserved it for the darkest pits of Hell. “Why can’t I be done with you? Why?” He pushed past me and stumbled on to the bed. “I can’t quit…” He shuddered, his voice muffled by the pillow. “I can’t quit seeing you when I close my eyes. I hate you so much, but not as much as I love you. I could never hate you as much as I love you. It’s impossible… believe me.” Tex sighed and rolled over, his fists balling as he hit the pillow. “I try every day.”

Stunned, I could only stand and wait for him to say something else.

Instead he fell into a fitful sleep and started snoring.

With a sigh, I shut the door, walked over to the bed, and pulled the blankets over his muscled body. My heart was beating so loudly I was afraid it would wake him up. I wasn’t sure if I was upset over what he’d said or hopeful that the hate hadn’t taken over just yet, meaning there was room for forgiveness, right?

He stretched his hands above his head and then curled an arm underneath the pillow, making his bicep bulge to epic proportions. I gasped. He was too beautiful for his own good and the crazy part? He didn’t even know it. He’d always felt different than Nixon and Chase because his coloring was lighter. Instead of having dark hair he had light brown hair with pieces of red sewn through, almost like highlights. His eyes were a crazy deep blue, not a light blue but a dark blue, like an ocean storm. When he was pissed, he could seriously give Poseidon a run for his money in the angry god look.

Sighing, I pushed his hair away from his forehead and leaned down to kiss his cheek. The minute my lips graze his skin, he grabbed my hand and had me flipped on my back, pressing my hips against the mattress. Tex hovered over me, his eyes blazing.

“I don’t want to want you,” he ground out slowly “I don’t want…” His chest heaved.

“Tex…” I cupped his face, warm tears sliding down my cheeks. “You should sleep.”

“No time for sleep.” He moved off me anyways and laid his head on my shoulder. “No time for sleep when you’re about to die.”

I froze. “You’re dying?”

“Ten million.” He sighed. “Insulting.”

With that he fell asleep.

And I stayed up the rest of the night wondering if every sacrifice I’d made had been in vain, because they were still after him.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

We’re only as strong as our boss is to other bosses. Period.

Sergio

“
S
O?”
I
ASKED
throwing my keys onto the table and reaching for a bottle of water.

“Ten million.” The voice said in a bored tone.

I stared down at my phone and kept staring. Ten million? It had to be a joke? How insulting, not only to the rest of the families but to Tex himself. Only ten million? Ten million did not get us results. Blood. Maybe. Death? Absolutely. But results? Ones we needed in order to move on to the next step of the plan? It wouldn’t happen and it needed to happen; otherwise, they would all die.

I would die.

There would be nothing left.

A cleansing was coming.

And I was doing everything I could to keep it from happening, but that’s the thing about not existing—about being a ghost. Interfere too much? And people start to talk.

Nixon might as well have been a detective with as many questions as he was firing at me. Why did I really go to the wedding? Why was I at his house? Why was I helping when I usually stay behind the scenes? What did I have to gain?

I sighed, feeling more ancient then my twenty-eight years and glanced at my phone. “Fine, we wait until it’s higher.”

“But—”

“That’s all.” I hit end. My screen immediately turned into the picture I’d kept of Mo. The one and only picture I’d snuck when she wasn’t looking which, when I thought about it, wasn’t the most romantic thing in the world.

But it was all I had.

One picture.

One night.

The end.

Funny, because she’d told me as much—but I hadn’t believed her. I’d never experienced that type of attraction to another person. An attraction that’s so strong that you end up doing stupid things.

Like planning for the future.

Mafia rule number one? Don’t plan, it’s rare to experience a happy ending.

Ten million. The number may as well have been written on my forehead. Damn, they were going to have to do better than that.

I had two choices.

Let the chips fall.

Or maneuver each chip for my own purpose—for the family, for Mo, for blood.

The problem? I wouldn’t come out looking like the hero, but the villain. In fact, I was pretty sure that if I took that step… if I stopped hiding in the shadows, I’d end up shot.

Dead.

Buried.

I looked back down at my phone, my heart hammering in my chest. If I did nothing, she was as good as dead, they all were. It would only be a matter of time before things came to a head. Maybe not this month, maybe not next month—hell, it could be a year before things progressed.

But again, the ending was always the same.

“Mo,” I whispered touching the screen with my fingers, caressing the glass because the last time I touched her face, she’d pulled away, taking my heart with her.

The only time she’d given in to me—given in to
us
, was because she was angry at him.

I was her best defense then.

I was her best defense now.

“Damn it. “I closed my eyes and allowed myself a brief moment to imagine what freedom would be like. I could run away, knowing that each step I took was stained with the blood of my family.

Of the girl I’ve loved since I was five.

So, with shaking hands, I lifted the phone, dialed Nixon’s number and said the words I never thought I’d utter again.

“What?” Nixon barked into the phone. “Everything good on your end?”

“I’m in.”

“Sergio…”

“I’ll lock up everything tonight, meet you at the house, stay as long as you need… time to retire the ghost, brother.”

Nixon cursed, the phone went silent for a minute. “You do this, you make yourself a target. You’ve been in hiding for a reason, Sergio.”

“Let me worry about it.” My stomach clenched. “I’m back, get ready, a shit storm’s coming and I’m pretty sure the wind’s blowing straight from Sicily.”

“Right.” Nixon sighed. “I’ll be waiting at the house.”

“Okay.” I pressed end, slowly dropping my phone to the counter. It rang, once, twice, three times.

I answered on the fourth, not bothering to say hello.

A voice rasped in my ear, “I will come for you. I promised I would if you ever showed your face again.”

“Fine.” I barked as dread filled my stomach. Damn I worked way too hard to protect a family who hated me so much. “What’s the worst that could happen, Pops? I get shot?” No sooner had the words left my mouth, then the mirror in front of me shattered falling to the ground in slices of discarded glass. A second gunshot rang out, ripping the leather from the couch.

I sighed, bored with his games already. And funny, they’d just begun. “Tell Don that his shot is off by a half inch, I’m still standing. Oh, and next time you shoot at me, at least hit something worth shooting. I hate wasting ammo. So should you, considering I have all the family money and you have, what? Five dollars to your name? Then again, that’s what happens when you make a deal with the feds. Tell Ma hi. Oh, and Pops?”

My father cursed wildly on the other end. “
Do
not call me that!”

“Good to hear from you.” I grinned and ended the conversation. Yeah, I’d made my choice, it was probably the wrong one, but hell, at least it would be entertaining.

The house was silent as I locked up, setting the security cameras so I could monitor what went on in my absence. I grabbed the keys to my BMW coupe and felt nothing.

No remorse.

No fear.

But perhaps… I looked down at my phone, a bit of regret.

Regret because she wasn’t mine to protect. But I was going to do it anyway. Regret because I was going to make her life hell by trying to prove to her that I could be good for her.

After all, she didn’t even realize that Tex was already a dead man, regardless of whether the planned worked or not.

He would always be a Campisi.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Expectations are always greater than we realize.

Tex

S
UNLIGHT STREAMED THROUGH
the curtains, damn near frying me to death and not making my headache any better. Cursing, I rolled to my side, trying to figure out where the pounding was coming from and who I had to shoot to make it stop. I officially had a hangover from hell. As I rubbed my eyes, I glanced at the night stand. A glass of water was waiting along with two painkillers.

Mo wasn’t in the bed with me anymore. Not that I blamed her. Lying next to her was torture anyway. Feeling the curves of her body. Even when I was too drunk to do anything about it? Sheer hell. Swear, I almost grabbed my gun and ended myself right then and there. But Mo had given me such a loving look, and though I pretended to pass out. She’d touched my face.

Damn we were bad for each other.

Like an addiction we couldn’t quit. I wanted to put her on the shelf and walk away, but that’s the thing about perfection. The sinner in you wants it so desperately, hoping it will make all the dark go away, that instead of walking away, like you should, you take it, you stare at it, and you devour it until there’s nothing left. I wondered if Mo realized how much I was doing that to her… how I used sex with her as a way to make myself feel whole, less tarnished.

Groaning, I rose to my feet, popped the pills in my mouth and slowly made my way towards the door.

I opened it softly and glanced down the hall.

Sergio was standing in the kitchen talking to Nixon in hushed tones. Mo was in the corner eating cereal, her eyes about as big as the Cheerios she was trying to choke down. Great, someone probably died.

Cursing, I stomped down the hall, fighting the urge to ram my body into Sergio’s causing him massive blood loss, and grabbed a bowl from the cupboard.

“Someone’s not a morning person,” Sergio said in low clipped tones. The fact that the bastard was still speaking with his slight accent, which frankly made him sound like a giant ass, didn’t help matters.

“Yeah, well…” I stretched my arms above my head. “I had these weird nightmares where I was holding a really sharp knife to someone’s neck and then all of a sudden he’d piss his pants. I never did see the guy’s face, though he screamed like a bitch, had a slight accent, six-foot one, with the tattoo of a cross on his left hand.”

Sergio rolled his eyes.

Nixon glared at me.

Mo coughed next to me.

“What?” I shrugged. “I can’t share my hopes and dreams with you guys?” I poured the cereal into my bowl. “Some family.”

“Ten million,” Sergio said smoothly. “Makes you feel like less of a man, doesn’t it? To think, that’s the price of your measly little life. Hell, last year a made man went down for twelve.”

“It’s too early for me to kill you.” I yawned and poured some milk into my cereal.

“You think I would let you?” Sergio chuckled, sounding amused as hell.

“I think you’d have no choice.” I chomped down on a bite of cereal, the crunch the only sound in the kitchen except for Nixon’s teeth clicking against his lip ring. For whatever reason, he knew this was my battle not his. “And ten million is still ten million. Think of all the surgeries you can pay for after I rearrange that pretty face, hmm?” I pointed my spoon at him. “Now it doesn’t sound so bad.”

Sergio smirked, his eyes roamed from me to Mo and then back to me. “It’s cute really… how you can’t really take a hint. All brawn no brains, isn’t that what people say?”

“Girls.” Chase walked into the room and yawned. “Stop fighting or Mil’s gonna come out here with a gun. The woman’s exhausted, let her sleep.”

“Maybe if you didn’t keep her up all night…” I laughed.

Chase held up his hand. “So dehydrated taking a piss was like trying to find water in the Sahara.”

“Details I didn’t need to know,” Nixon piped up. “Ever.”

“You guys always talk about your women like this?” Sergio asked looking around the room.

“Actually,” Mo said with a sigh, “this is tame.”

I grinned. “Sharing is caring.”

“No wonder people keep trying to kill you guys off… no respect.” Sergio tilted his head at Nixon. “So, are we in agreement?”

“About the no respect?” Nixon crossed his arms.

“About me staying at the house.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” I pushed out my chair and rose to my feet, my hands clenching at my side. “What the hell, Nixon!”

“Yeah.” Nixon broke eye contact with me and shook Sergio’s hand. “But the rules apply to you just as much as they apply to Tex or any single guy. Lay a hand on my sister without her permission and I cut it off.”