December 6th
Jail was a cold slice of hell, Lucian thought. He was a man who cherished his freedom, and jail took it away without a care. A man did not realize how good he had things on the outside, where he could choose his own bedtime, decide what he wanted for meals, and eat when he wanted to. No one understood what it was like to be refused the outdoors and fresh air except for one shitty hour a day.
Never mind the fact he hadn’t had a good fuck with his wife for … Jesus, months.
Yeah, jail was a special kind of hell.
The only thing that made it even remotely bearable were the visits he got from his family throughout the week. Lucian was grateful for those as they kept him looking forward to the next damn day instead of simply staring at a wall.
It was a good thing he hadn’t been put in a prison to serve out his sentence because he wouldn’t get as many visits as he did. Honestly, he wasn’t sure that he would want his two youngest children—Liliana and Cella—visiting a prison to see him, either. At least with a jail, it was slightly less intimidating.
Prisons, not so much.
“Quiet day,” Dante noted.
Lucian rested back in the hard metal chair with a nod. “Seems like it.”
“Kind of strange for it being this close to Christmas.”
“If I was some of these guys’ families, I can’t say that I would want to come and visit them, either.”
Dante smirked. “I see.”
“Is what it is, brother.”
“Jordyn been down this week?”
“She’s supposed to come on Friday,” Lucian said with a shrug, “and bring the girls.”
“Not John?”
“Last week, it seemed like he didn’t want to come. Maybe by Friday his mind will have changed. It’s hard to say with that kid. He’s up and he’s down.”
“All over the place, really,” Dante said.
Lucian nodded. “I did talk to him yesterday. He actually said he missed me. I think this is a big part of his problem.”
With those words, Lucian lifted his cuffed hands to the metal table. Dante’s gaze dropped to the shiny metal tight to his brother’s wrists, and frowned. Getting your ass locked up as a Cosa Nostra man, was always a possibility. A shitty byproduct of their life. That didn’t mean they actually wanted to get locked up.
Staying out of jail was always the end-goal.
Still, Lucian saw a flash of something he didn’t like to see in his younger brother’s eyes. Between the visits with Dante, and the once a week trip Giovanni made to the jail to say hello, it could be taxing.
Dio.
He loved his brothers.
Always would.
Family first.
God second.
But their constant guilt over his current predicament was … tiring. Nobody but Lucian had the illegal gun the day he was pulled over. Given his previous charges and arrests, not to mention his last name and affiliations, the sentence he got was a good sentence.
A light sentence, even.
“You know, I got myself here, right?”
Dante shot his brother a smile. “Sure.”
“You also know that you and Giovanni worked some real magic to get my sentence reduced by over seventy-five percent, right?”
A sigh echoed.
“Yeah,” Dante said gruffly.
“Then let’s just leave it be.”
“I can try, but given certain things that are happening, I can’t entirely be happy that we didn’t get you on a suspended sentence, or some kind of shitty probation. Anything, you know?”
Lucian glanced at his brother. “What the hell do you mean?”
“Pardon?”
“What’s happening that I don’t know about?”
Dante straightened a bit in his seat, and glanced away. Lucian knew that look on his brother—he knew it damn well. That posture, that hard stare at nothing at all, meant Dante had absolutely zero plans of answering Lucian’s questions.
His brother wasn’t required to.
Dante was the boss.
Not Lucian.
Their life was all about the respect, after all.
Beyond that, it also might not be very safe for Lucian and Dante to be having too personal, or business-related conversations while in the jail visitation area. There were cameras all over the place, for one damn thing. Guards at the three entrances and exits. Probably a wire somewhere. Hell, maybe the other visitors waiting on detainees weren’t even really visitors, but someone planted to listen in on the Marcello brothers.
Dante, the Don. Lucian, his underboss.
Paranoid?
Maybe.
Lucian didn’t give a shit. Being paranoid saved his ass more times than he cared to admit. This was just another one of those things. He didn’t trust fucking anybody—neither did Dante. It was part of their business, and how they were raised. It wasn’t about to change.
It also made this difficult because he really wanted to know what his brother was talking about …
“Are you going to tell me, or tell me to fuck off?” Lucian asked.
Dante chuckled dryly. “The latter, but you know, without the actual words. No need to be rude to you and all, given your … situation.”
“Fuck you.”
A grin curved his brother’s lips.
“Can you tell me?” Lucian pressed after a second.
Dante cleared his throat. “Not really.”
“Who knows?”
“Just us brothers, and Papa.”
Ah.
“Not even Cat?” Lucian asked, referring to Dante’s hellish wife.
Sure, he loved his sister-in-law, but she was still … well, hellish.
“Not even her, but that’s only because she hasn’t stumbled on something and asked.”
“Huh. So, not bad then?”
Dante looked back to Lucian with a wide smile. “Definitely not bad, big brother. Hey, what do you want for Christmas by the way?”
Lucian laughed. “Christmas is going to be long over by the time I get out of here, so don’t even worry about it. You don’t need to save presents for me, man. I’m good.”
“Still. What would you want?”
“Honestly?”
“Yeah.”
“To be home with my wife and kids, Dante. What else?”
Dante nodded. “Thought so. Well, I bought you a new Rolex with black diamonds covering the face of it, so like it and deal with that instead, all right?”
“Are the hands on the watch white?”
“With silver tips,” his brother confirmed.
Lucian whistled low. “Damn, I bet that looks good.”
“It does.”
“Merry Christmas to me.”
Dante cocked a brow, but said nothing.
“So hey, if I gave you a note, would you give it to Papa for me?”
“What’s the note?” Dante asked.
“A list.”
His brother just stared at him.
Lucian rolled his eyes. “Just some things I wanted him to pick up for me—to do.”
“Don’t make Papa your messenger, Lucian. He’s too old for that shit.”
What bee crawled up his brother’s ass?
“Not a messenger, Dante. He’s my Santa.”