Page 262 of Rosetti Family New York
I don’t answer. I reach out to touch her face, then remember the blood under my fingernails and pull back. This isn't her fight. It shouldn't be. Yet here she is, standing by my side like she belongs there. Like she’s already accepted what being with me really means.
“I wanted to be with you tonight.”
That’s the most honest thing I’ve said in years.
My brothers have all regrouped at Mom and Dad’s place to get ahead of this war, to lay out our next moves, to plan for what everyone knows is coming. They all think in terms of tactics and strategies, of lines drawn and lives lost. I do too, that's the Rosetti way. But tonight my head wasn't in it. My heart wasn't in it. I couldn't follow them back there, not after everything that’s happened. Not with Dale’s blood still on my hands. Not with Sloane on my mind.
A debrief, they said, as if dissecting this chaos and sorting it into neat, manageable pieces would make sense of any of it. They’ll have the maps out, the lists of names, the who-should-take-out-who-and-when. Besiana will be there too, cool and controlled, plotting our family's next move with chilling precision. She’s good at this. Better than any of us, sometimes.
But I needed to be here, far from their strategies and schemes, away from the logic of it all, with Sloane, hoping she could see in me something other than the blood I spill.
“I'm glad.”
No hesitation. No stutter. She steps into my chest, arms wrapping around my waist, careful of the blood. I stand stiff for a second, then fold. Just a little. Just enough.
She smells of flowers and fresh fields, and I breathe in deep, feeling her warmth seep into me.
“He was my friend. Once,” I murmur.
“And he betrayed everything you stand for,” she whispers. “I’m sorry…,” she adds softly. “That he… that it was Dale.”
I searched for months to find out who was skimming the take. Months of suspicion, of following every lead to a dead end, of watching my back as I tried to root out the traitor. It was a ghost, leaving just enough of a trail to make me doubt everyone around me. Months of suspecting the Callahans, of suspecting my own men. But I never suspected him. I should have known better. It turned out to be the one Callahan I thought I trusted. Dale.
“I’m not,” I finally say, my voice as rough as sandpaper. “He sold her like she was nothing.”
Sloane pulls back to look at me.
“She wasn’t nothing. Not to me. Not to you.”
I search her face, waiting for her to flinch, to pull away from the mess I am. She doesn’t.
She looks up at me, her eyes glassy but resolute.
“Dale is gone, right? Forever?” she asks.
I can’t bring myself to say the word ‘dead’, not when it might mean she stops looking at me like that. So I just nod.
“And the fight ring is under your control now, right?”
I nod, keeping my voice steady.
"The Rosettis are in charge now. We’ve weeded out the rats, tripled the men on site. Emilio’s taken control of the accounts."
Her brows furrow.
“And the Callahans? What happens to them?”
"They'll retaliate," I say, the cold certainty of it sinking in. "They won't take this lying down."
“A war…” she whispers, almost to herself.
Her hands shake as she wraps her arms around herself as if the words are a cold wind.
“Yes,” I confirm, not sugarcoating it.
A war is inevitable in our world. It's just a matter of when and how bloody.
“And you?"
