Calisto
“Took you long enough, Donati.”
Calisto shot his sparring partner a grin as he let the gym worker tape his hands up properly. “Best I could do on a last minute call, Gio. Next time, give me some more time to get out of shit.”
Giovanni bounced on his heels, slapping his hands together from the other side of the cage. “I wondered when you were going to be back up on your feet and ready for another go in the cage with me.”
“Been a rough few months.”
“So I heard. Sorry about that, amico.”
Friend.
The softer tone of Gio’s words weren’t lost on Calisto, but he let them be said without much of a response. Giovanni Marcello wasn’t the kind of man who was openly affectionate, even with friends. Frankly, no man in their business was.
Gio belonged to a fellow New York family, the long-reigning Marcellos, actually. His older brother was the Don of the family, and the most powerful man who sat at the Commission table once a year when all the major crime syndicates got together to chat about territory, business, and issues.
Usually, men from different families didn’t mingle. That’s just how Cosa Nostra worked. Calisto had his own shit to handle being Affonso’s consigliere, and Gio had his thing to handle being who he was in his family.
But the two had been friends for a long time—about a decade.
Calisto didn’t see the problem with meeting up every once in a blue moon to shoot the shit with Gio, and pass a few punches in the cage. If anything, it helped to keep the peace between their families and on the streets of New York, given that there was a camaraderie and an old friendship there.
That was good for business.
With his hands taped up properly, Calisto turned to face his old friend. A mouth guard dangled from Gio’s fingertips. The gym worker passed a new one to Calisto before he left the cage.
“Heard your head is kind of scrambled,” Gio said, smirking just a little.
Calisto couldn’t help but laugh. “Yeah, you could say that.”
“How would you say it?”
“Two and a half years of blackness.”
Gio lifted a brow. “Completely?”
Calisto shrugged, wishing the weight on his shoulders would leave. “Basically.”
“Shit. That’s …”
“Rough?” Calisto supplied.
“I guess that’s a good enough word as any. Are you sure you’re supposed to be sharing punches with your head and all?”
“Exercise is healthy. This is exercise.”
Gio shook his head, chuckling. “Not what I asked.”
“I just …” Calisto trailed off, scowling as he glanced around the gym and the people watching. He hadn’t even known about the place when Gio called him earlier in the day, asking if he could meet up. But apparently, according to Gio, he and Calisto had been coming to this gym for nearly two years at least a couple of times a month if they could spare the time.
“Spit it out,” Gio demanded.
“I want to feel normal for five minutes. I haven’t felt okay in a long while.”
Gio quieted for a stretch of time before he said, “Getting your ass kicked feels normal to you?”
Maybe.
Calisto couldn’t really explain it, but despite how he didn’t know the gym or the cage, and he couldn’t even remember spending any time with Gio here, it did feel familiar.
Somehow
“It’s a part of that two and half years,” Calisto said vaguely, offering little else.
Gio seemed to understand. “All right. Can we chat a bit of business first?”
Now, Calisto was a little shocked to hear that come out of his old friend’s mouth. Very rarely over the years did Calisto and Gio talk la famiglia when they spent time together. It was like an off-limits zone that they didn’t even have to acknowledge, but was simply just there.
“What kind of business?” Calisto asked.
Gio rapped his fingers to his side, leaning against the cage. “Dante is getting irritated about the mess your uncle caused with the Irish. It’s spilled over into our territory, and the Calabrese.”
Dante Marcello could be a difficult man to handle when he was in a mood. It was one of the things Calisto liked best about the fact he wasn’t the boss. When shit happened between families, Affonso was the one who needed to deal with it, not Calisto.
“It’s been ongoing for a few months,” Gio added when Calisto stayed quiet.
“Since my accident, I know.”
The O’Neil family had been the cause of his accident, apparently. Calisto only knew what he was told, but he’d had a meeting with the Irish boss earlier that day, and it must have not ended well given the fact someone came after him, intent on ending his life.
“No,” Gio drawled, his brow furrowing, “it was happening even before that, but it’s gotten worse since then.”
Calisto rubbed a hand down his face, blowing out a heavy breath. “I don’t—”
“Remember. Yeah, I get that, man.”
“Affonso is determined to cull the Irish. That’s really all I can say. Given what they did, it’s his right.”
Gio didn’t look pleased with that answer. “But it’s affecting other families now. Mine, the Calabrese. Even the Russians have had some run ins, and I don’t like that shit at all, since I have territory down in Brighton that mingles with theirs. I’m the only man between the Three Families that doesn’t feud with the Russians, and I would really like to keep it that way.”
Calisto tossed his hands up in the air. “What do you want me to do? It’s not like I think killing the fucking Irish is going to magically make shit better. I’m not the one out doing it, I’m just doing what the Don wants me to do, Gio.”
“Dante wants a sit-down. The Marcello, Calabrese, and the Donati families. He wants a solution figured out now before this gets any worse.”
Fuck.
Wonderful.
“And that’s why you called me over here today, because he figured you could get a response out of me faster than Affonso?”
Gio shrugged, but he didn’t deny it.
“That’s a dirty way to play,” Calisto said when his friend stayed quiet.
“We Marcellos do what we have to do when things need to be done,” Gio replied, unfazed.
Well, that much was true.
Calisto also had a healthy dose of respect for all of the Marcello family, not just Gio. They were the dominating family in New York for a reason and had been for several decades. The three major Cosa Nostra families in New York had long since learned to get along, but there was no denying that the Marcellos held more power than the Calabrese and Donati families, and as such, they bent to the demands of the Marcello boss when he wanted something.
Clearly, Dante wanted something.
“I’ll get it arranged,” Calisto said. “Tonight, even. I have some papers for my restaurant at my place to grab, but on the way to the restaurant, I’ll stop by Affonso’s home and sit down with him. It’s the best I can do.”
“It’s appreciated.”
Calisto smacked his hands together. “Enough talk. Are we going to spar a bit or what?”
“Still not sure you should.”
Laughing, Calisto brushed it off. “If anything, you might knock some memories back into me.”
Gio scoffed. “Right. With the way you constantly protect your head, I fucking doubt it.”
Calisto blinked across at his friend, his fingers going numb. Maybe it was like a daze had settled over his senses for a second, too, but he wasn’t all that sure.
But it was there, just on the edges of his memories.
Something …
“Calisto?” he heard Gio asked. “Donati, you okay?”
He clenched his tingling fingers into a tight fist, breathing deep.
Gio’s got a bloody mouth.
Next week, stop protecting your face so much.
The voices flew into Calisto’s mind, but he didn’t get a visual to go along with them. Just the words, the familiar tones of the gym’s manager and Gio. But even without the visual, he had the memory of his emotion and senses washing back the words.
Irritation. Restlessness. Sadness. Jealousy.
It swirled in and around the memory, coloring it heavily with bright strokes, making Calisto feel like it might be important.
The doctor hadn’t said how his memories might come back, but he did say it could be different every time something triggered it. And instead of full memories flooding him all at once, it could be a slow trickle of information that eventually came together like a puzzle.
One little piece at a time.
“Cal?”
Calisto swallowed hard, willing the dryness in his throat away. “When was the last time we sparred here, anyway?”
Gio’s gaze flickered with concern, but he answered. “The summer, I guess.”
“Give me more than the summer, man.”
“Uh … June? Yeah, June. Birthdays and all that month. I had a lot of shit going on.”
Calisto nodded, filing that away. “June, okay.”
“Did you remember something?” Gio asked.
He wasn’t sure.
Yes. But no.
It wasn’t like saying he remembered how he felt on any given day and what someone had said in a passing moment would do him any good.
Calisto chose to brush it off, hoping the memory would lead to something else. “No, just curious.”
Gio didn’t look like he believed him, but he didn’t push for more. “All right. Spar?”
He shoved the mouth guard in.
“Spar,” he mumbled.
“Cazzo merda,” Calisto growled, smacking his hand against the face of the black metal safe.
Metal clanged, but it did him no good.
Again, he dropped down into a squat and fiddled with the dial on the face of the safe, determined to get the damn thing opened. Earlier, he hadn’t lied to Gio when he said he needed to get some paperwork for his restaurant. An issue had come up about the deed for the place, given it was in a plaza like situation.
Calisto had bought the restaurant years ago, and he’d purchased it as if the property were a sale, and not a rental. Nonetheless, legal issues had come up.
And he needed, amongst many things, the paperwork for the place—including the deed and contract when he purchased it.
It was in his safe, in his office.
A safe he’d apparently changed the fucking code to.
Obviously, he had changed the safe’s code over the course of the last two and half years, because he couldn’t remember the damn three numbers it wanted if his life depended on it. He also couldn’t figure out why in the hell he would change the three digits, as that required a whole process with a safe master who came in and changed the guts of the safe just to reset the tumblers.
Well, Calisto knew why he would at least keep the safe instead of getting rid of it. It had belonged to his deceased father, but his mother had given it to him about a year before her death. Though he didn’t remember the months leading up to her death, he did remember her wanting him to take the safe. She hadn’t kept anything in it for a long time.
If he had changed the digits for the dial to open it, it must have been because he didn’t feel comfortable using the ones it needed before. Maybe someone else had known the numbers.
Calisto wasn’t sure.
He just wanted inside the fucking thing.
Frustrated, Calisto tried different combinations of numbers. His birthday. His mother’s birthday. Even his uncle’s birthday. He tried other dates that jumped out in his mind as important, but they also failed.
Nothing.
He needed those damn papers for his lawyer, or else he was going to be stuck paying rent to a bastard he didn’t owe money to. Years of owed rent, for that matter.
More irritated than before at his lack of knowledge of even the most basic things in his own damn home, Calisto stood and then promptly fell into his computer chair with a mumbled curse. A throbbing ache had started in the base of his skull, warning that a major headache was eminent. He’d had those damn things pretty regularly ever since he woke up in the hospital.
Your brain is constantly working too hard, he was told.
Stop pushing it, another doctor said. You’re not doing yourself any favors by demanding more than it can give you.
Fuck.
They just didn’t understand.
He couldn’t let it go.
Calisto spun the computer chair around, and scrubbed his hands down his face. The date and time flashed in the corner of his computer screen, catching his attention. It had been just three weeks since he found his priest murdered. The officials had finished their investigation inside the church, and thankfully, left him the hell alone after that first initial interview. They had yet to release Father Day’s body, despite the many requests from the Diocese to do just that. A proper funeral should be held for the man, and Calisto wanted to attend.
The police had marked the murder as a robbery gone wrong. Calisto still wasn’t sure he believed that nonsense, but he didn’t know what else to think, either. His uncle had known he was going there based on nothing more than a memory he wanted explained, Affonso’s attitude had been less than pleased, and then the priest ended up dead.
That wouldn’t sound good to anyone who heard it.
But why would Affonso do that?
What could he want to hide?
Calisto didn’t have a good answer for that, because obviously there wasn’t one. His mind was just making up its own end to a story to explain things it didn’t understand or know. But it still didn’t sit right with him no matter how he looked at it. Having no other options, he had to drop it and move on.
October had practically sneaked up on him before he even knew what was happening.
He hated how the world seemed to be turning much faster than he could keep up with.
Taking another look around his office, Calisto wondered just how scatterbrained he must have been before the accident. Papers and files were everywhere, piled on his desk and the chairs. Even the couch had taken a hit. Either he had been in the midst of reorganizing something—unlikely, as he kept shit organized anyway—or he had been looking for something and the mess was left behind.
Or you just didn’t care, he thought.
Calisto’s brow fell at the passing idea. That was probably closer to the truth than his other two options, given he hadn’t cared much about the space since he returned to his home. Actually, he’d added to the piles since then, dropping papers and a file here or there and then leaving it before he went off on something else again.
As if this place wasn’t important, and he was just passing through, using it to rest when the time called for it.
He supposed it didn’t matter, not at the moment anyway.
Other things needed attended to, and so his messy office and life had to wait.
Calisto found Affonso sipping on a glass of bourbon and laughing with his underboss, Ray. Neither of the two men tampered their laughter at Calisto’s arrival into the office, and so he assumed whatever it was that amused them wasn’t all that bad.
“Could have called if you were coming over, Calisto,” Affonso said, placing his drink on the desk.
Ray said nothing, just watched Calisto out of the corner of his eye as he took a seat in one of the high-back leather chairs across from his uncle’s desk.
“Do I need to?” Calisto asked. “I’m rarely here as it is.”
Affonso shrugged. “Worth noting. Why did you come?”
“The Marcellos want a sit-down. You, them, and the Calabrese. The Irish nonsense is getting out of hand as far as they’re concerned, and they want it to stop by whatever means necessary. I think they’re willing to put a hand in it themselves if that’ll make it go away.”
Ray cursed under his breath. “I warned you, boss.”
Affonso didn’t pay Ray any mind, as his attention was solely focused on Calisto. “And when did you get asked about arranging this … sit-down?”
“I met up with Gio today. Friendly stuff, not business, zio.”
“I should hope not.”
Calisto resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He was twenty-eight, working on twenty-nine years old. He’d been his uncle’s consigliere for four years, but Affonso still acted like he didn’t know what he was doing sometimes.
It irritated him to no end. He respected Affonso as the Don of their family, but his uncle was also the man who put him in the seat he was in, as his right hand.
Didn’t that say something?
Calisto knew what he was doing.
“I wanted to bring it to your attention,” Calisto said, refusing to feed into his uncle’s need to reprimand who his friends were. “Better not to poke the bear that is the Marcello family, right?”
Ray shifted in his seat, looking entirely uncomfortable. “Maybe they can help with the Irish, seeing as how our streets are like a war zone right now.”
Affonso scowled. “Perhaps. My issue with sitting down at a table with the Marcellos isn’t the topic at hand, but that man’s wife.”
Calisto figured as long as Affonso was open to the meeting, then that was the important thing. “I’ll set it up.”
He got up out of the chair, ready to leave.
“Leaving already?” Affonso asked, picking his glass back up for another drink.
“Long day,” he offered in explanation.
Affonso looked him over, dark eyes surveying him like he was trying to find something specific. Calisto wasn’t entirely sure what his uncle could be looking for, but he was doing it.
“Do you need something from me?” Calisto asked.
“If I do, you have a phone,” Affonso said.
Point taken.
Calisto left the office without a goodbye.
A long day was a goddamn understatement.
Shutting the door to the office behind him, Calisto noticed the doors to the library were slightly open. They hadn’t been when he first arrived. He’d spent a lot of time in the library, playing the piano as he sat in a wheelchair during his recovery.
Stepping up to the door, he peeked in, hearing the melody of the piano coming from within the library.
Emma sat at the piano, her fingers dancing over the ivory keys, and a small smile playing on her lips. At her feet, the little black dog slept happily. Her loose dress did little to hide the swell of her stomach, and she stopped playing for a moment to rub her pregnancy bump.
“This always helps you, baby boy,” she whispered, obviously talking to the unborn child. “Just a little while longer, huh?”
Calisto couldn’t help his own smile growing as Emma went back to the piano and began playing again. He opened the doors a little further, stepping in just far enough that he could lean against the wall and listen to her play.
She was good. The tune was familiar, one he too enjoyed playing. Before long, Calisto had closed his eyes and was drumming his fingers against his side in tune with the piano.
For a second, he was lost in it all.
Lost in her playing.
Emma didn’t miss a key in the song, so she must have been practicing.
Calisto’s eyes popped open as the music stopped and a throat cleared. Instantly, he found Emma looking at him over her shoulder.
Something unknown burned in her eyes, like she was silently asking him a question, but couldn’t make the words come out for him to hear them. After a long silence stretched between them, Emma dropped her gaze, a pink flush coloring her cheeks.
As much as it looked sweet, it also seemed sad to him for some reason.
He wished he knew more about this woman, but his mind was blank. She seemed so interesting, like she was someone he might relate to and whose company he might find enjoyment in. Unfortunately, he was always running from one thing to another, and constantly stuck inside his own head when he wasn’t, and there hadn’t been much time for him to really sit down with Emma.
Maybe he would try to fix that.
Emma’s head lifted again, her stare flicking to his as she smiled.
“You sound wonderful, Emmy,” he told her.
She turned into a statue at his words.
Calisto tipped his head to the side, confused. “I’m sorry. Did I say something wrong?”
Emma’s red lips parted like she was going to say something, but she quickly closed her mouth and shook her head. “No, of course not, Calisto.”
“Then what’s wrong?”
“You called me Emmy.”
He had.
Calisto racked his brain, searching for a reason why he had done that, and coming up with nothing. No one called her Emmy. Not Affonso, not his men, or the few people she talked to. He hadn’t once heard anyone use that nickname for Emma in the few times he had been in her presence that he remembered.
“Who calls you Emmy?” Calisto asked.
Emma’s face remained passive—blank, even. But he saw it, the brief flash of pain and sadness in her gaze, and the tremor that rocked her bottom lip before she bit hard into it.
“No one,” she said quietly.
Calisto didn’t believe that, or he wouldn’t have used it. “Someone must.”
Emma waved it off, saying, “No one here, Cal.”
“But I do?”
Subtly, she nodded. “Yeah, you do.”