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.”
I understood the words coming out of her mouth, I just didn’t like them.
“Why…we have always talked through our plans together…why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you love me too much, and you love our children just as much as I do. If I told you…shared this…you would have told me to wait until they were older. Or worse, you would have agreed and not been able to fake the pain. I saw you when Sedric died; you could barely function. I didn’t go through all of this just for there to be doubts. Not just with the city, but with our family. Declan would have caught on within the day, he would have spoken to Cora. Cora would be relaxed and Neal and Mina would understand. I needed you to sell it. Yes, I used you, and I’m sorry. This wasn’t a nuclear bomb, it was a drone strike….I even had to kill Frankie. It’s just me, you, and Evelyn who know.”
I rubbed my face, my brain feeling like it was going to explode. “So what am I supposed to do, fake my death too and we run away together?”
“I said I’m cold, not heartless. You can’t leave our kids now. They are still too young, plus people would suspect something was off.”
Yes, my dead-alive wife was insane; I was now positive. “So you want me to stay with our kids until they are ready? And where will you be, eating gnocchi while I play single dad?”
She made a face at me. “You are really taking the fun out of my gnocchi.”
“Melody!”
“Yes!” she snapped back. “I’m going to be in the shadows, watching you and our kids grow up but never there. And when you think Ethan’s ready, we will leave. I won’t leave you unless you ask me to…I hope you don’t. You are looking at the small things; I’m looking at the big picture. The only way we get out happily is if we get out early.”
“Melody, you’re talking about years!”
“I can wait for you Liam because I plan on living a very long life. With no one searching for me, I can watch over all of you—”
“I need air,” I whispered, getting up and moving toward the door. Like a vampire hiding from the sun, she moved toward the corner.
“No one can see me,” she said again.
Rolling my eyes, I opened the door and closed it behind me.
“Perfect timing, I made your favorite snack,” my mother said to me, holding up the red Jell-O in a glass jar.
“Mother, the world has just shifted under my feet—”
“Let’s talk privately.” She linked arms with me, taking me toward her room. She whispered, “Pretend to still look sad.”
Dear God…help me, I’m surrounded by madwomen.
When I walked into her room, the first thing I noticed were all the photos she had pinned up on her wall. Every family event and school portrait were up there, a lot of them with my father. I hadn’t gone into her room in…I couldn’t even remember.
“I look at this every morning to get me through the day,” she said, taking a spoonful of Jell-O. “It works on most days now, but other days it’s just as bad as the day your father left me. You understand that pain now, correct?”
I took the bowl from her. “She lied. You both lied. However, for her to come up with something like this…it’s the most selfish thing she has ever done. It negates all the good she has ever done as a mother. No good mother could do this…it’s cruel.”
“Don’t speak for mothers until you carry a child for nine months and go through hours of labor just to push their fat head out,” she snapped before taking a deep breath. “It’s hard to see now when you look at Ethan, Wyatt, and Dona. Their pain trumps everything. They’re still young. I ache for them and just when I feel like I cannot bear to look at their faces, I remember your father. He didn’t become the Ceann na Conairte without almost losing everything. You suffered as a child, were hunted so many times—”
“What are you talking about?” Was I hunted?
“Your father wanted you all to go school. Do you know how many times he stepped in to stop snipers, kidnappers, people who hated us so badly and just wanted to spill Callahan blood? The world is cold, dirty, painful, and bloody. Your kids need to know that or else they will die, and I refuse to put anyone else from this family in a grave before I go. My guilt over your father keeps me up sometimes.”
“Guilt?”
She nodded, reaching out to touch his photo. “Remember when I said your father gave me the best gift?”
“Yeah, you never said what it was, though.”
“Control,” she answered. “What Melody did, he planned to do years ago. ‘Just tell me when you are ready to say goodbye and we will disappear.’ He said that from the very beginning, and he would have left everything. We would make it out of this life when no one else in this family could. Each time, he was ready to leave—your sixteenth birthday after you got better, your eighteenth birthday when you were an adult, your twenty-first birthday, even the week after your marriage to Melody—he said we should go, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave you all yet, not after missing so much of you as children. I told myself just a little bit more time. Let’s wait another day, which became another year. Then next thing I know your father’s blood is all over me and he’s gone. No more days of anything. Every last child of Shamus and Margaret Callahan murdered. If your father came back to me today after all these years, told me he did it for me, I’d slap him, yeah, and then I’d kiss him and never let go. For the first time in my life I’m jealous of my own son, because if I could choose, it wouldn’t be Melody who came back…”
She bit her bottom lip and blinked back her tears, placing her head on the wall over his picture. I said nothing; there was nothing I could say. Placing the Jell-O on her dresser, I hugged her. I wasn’t sure if it was her or me who had lost weight, but I didn’t like how tiny she felt.
“Go, Liam, please, it’s been a long day.”
“Ma…okay.” I didn’t know what else to say to her, so I just kissed her head and gripped my cane as we limped to the door.
When I stepped out, Declan was waiting for me, leaning against the wall with a bottle of brandy in his hand and Irish cakes.
“When my parents died, I remember you brought me these…” He forced a smile.
“I remember bringing fruit punch, not brandy,” I whispered.
He shrugged. “I figured you’d want something stronger.”
For the first time, I didn’t want to drink. My mind was too hazy as it was…I knew he wanted to comfort me, but I couldn’t accept it right then.
“Later, Declan.” That was all I could say before turning from him.
“You turned the cameras off in your room,” he stated. I hadn’t done that, but I had a feeling I knew who had. “Don’t do anything…don’t make us bury you too.”
I tried to think of the right words.
“Liam.”
“I promised my kids. I’m going to be here in the morning. Just…go,” I said, but I was the one that wandered back into my room.
Locking the door behind me, I glanced around but she wasn’t there. Part of me believed I had lost my mind, that she had pushed me too far. This hurt too much…and yet I still searched for her. She was an obsession. We were both insane. The way we lived our lives, the way we took others’ lives, the way we loved…none of it was normal.
“How did you know I would be in here?” she whispered, sitting the corner of her closet, a bottle of wine in front of her, though she wasn’t drinking it.
“God knows you love your shoes,” I replied. “You aren’t going to drink? Tell me the new plot of Las Pasiones de Melody.”
She smiled, brushing her hair behind her ears. “I want to, but if I get drunk, I’m going to go to the kids; I’m barely holding on. It isn’t like when I disappeared last time, Liam. There is no hope. I deleted myself.”
“At least you went out at the top of your game,” I muttered, staring down at her. The whole city loved her even more now than they had while she was alive…people were cruel like that.
“The first day, I almost gave in and came back,” she confessed.
“Why didn’t you?”
“Your mother stopped me.”
Thanks for that, Ma… I huffed, gripping the cane beside me tighter.
“If you’re against this, Liam, I’m not going to make it—”
“So you figured you’d force me? Like always? Just act first and he’ll forgive me? Is that what you thought? Everything we had, you destroyed it…you destroyed me. Every time I look back, I see myself chasing after you. I’m exhausted. I’m tired of chasing you, Melody.”
“Okay,” she whispered, getting up and walking past me. “I’ll be out of the city—”
Grabbing her arm, I wanted to smack her. “How is it possible for you to keep walking away from me so easily, goddamn it?!”
“Easy?” She ripped her arm away. “Nothing is easy for me, Liam. NOTHING! You—”
Kissing her was like coming up for air. Feeling her body pressed up against mine jump started my heart and in that moment, nothing was important because she was there…she was alive.
MELODY
DAY 8
Throughout my life, I had been called a lot of things.
Bitch.
Whore.
Cunt.
Monster.
Devil.
Witch.
Heartless.
The list went on. Since childhood, I pushed myself. For my father, for the family business, for everyone, I hardened myself to the point that even I wasn’t sure if I had a heart anymore. Then I met him, and bit by bit, the stone surrounding me cracked. I fought it. I fought him because I need to be strong. The world was not meant for women. The last thing I ever wanted to be was one of those women in romance novels that needed to be rescued or who ruined themselves for men.
There is no riding off into the sunset.
There are no happily ever afters.
Life was pain and you had to deal with it.
Those were the lessons my father had taught me, and I’d never once questioned them until the day I met him. It was disgusting and horrible…after all the fighting and blood and training, I was a woman just like everyone else and I wanted my happily ever after. I wanted him.
“How am I supposed to hide you away?” he whispered as his head rested on my bare chest. I ran my hands through his hair.
“We’ll figure it out… Eventually, everyone will think you’ve just gotten a mistress,” I replied.
He laughed. “You’ve been claiming to be my wife and mistress since we got married.”
“That’s because I knew I would stress you out more than having both. Melody Callahan, I’m like a box of chocolates: you never know what type of woman I’ll be next.”
“Yeah, I do.”
“How can you know when I don’t even know?”
He sat up, looking down at me. “No matter what happens, you are still my woman. That is a very special, single edition box of chocolates.”
Placing my hand over his chest, I bit my lip.
It’s okay. We’re going to make it.
“I love you, Liam. I’m sorry I made you suffer…I love you. I really love you.” I couldn’t stop saying it.
He kissed my head and then my nose, eyes, and cheeks before his lips hovered over mine. “I love you too…my beautiful mistress.”