Calisto
For a long while, Calisto simply stared at Emma without saying anything after her quiet confession. He wasn’t quite sure what to say. Before long, she had Midnight in her arms and was making her move to leave the library.
Calisto couldn’t let her do that, not after what she said.
“Wait,” he said, reaching out to grab her arm.
His fingers encircled her wrist, stopping her entirely. She froze on the spot, and it was impossible to ignore the heat that seemed to siphon straight from her skin into his palms, never mind the shiver that raced over her arm.
Calisto watched Emma as her gaze flicked between his hand on her wrist, and back up to his face.
“Just … wait a second,” he said quieter.
Emma swallowed hard, gaze darting to the open doorway. “Can you make it fast? I’m supposed to be resting. Doctor’s orders and all.”
Yes, Calisto was aware of that.
He just didn’t know the extent of the problems with her pregnancy, or why she had them at all. None of that had been explained very well to him except for the fact that Affonso made it clear the issues were personal business, and not for public consumption. Calisto had enough respect for both his uncle, and Emma as a woman, not to ask for more details.
But he was curious.
“I’ll make it fast,” he said.
Emma smiled a little. “Okay. Ask whatever is on your mind.”
“I called you Emmy.”
“I already said that, Calisto.”
“But no one else around here does,” he pressed.
She shook her head. “Affonso doesn’t like it.”
“Yet I call you it.”
“You used to,” she corrected gently.
Calisto took that in slowly. “Before my accident.”
“Yeah.”
“So … we were friends,” he said, catching her eyes with his own. “Or, friendly enough that I called you by a nickname your husband doesn’t approve of.”
Emma’s lips pressed together, like she was trying to hold back words. He saw the slight clench of her jaw, and how her hand balled into a fist around Midnight’s unmoving form. “I suppose you could say that.”
Calisto glanced down at her dog. He’d given her that puppy, too. None of this seemed right to him the longer he thought about it. It would never be acceptable for a made man to treat another made man’s wife with things like affection and gifts.
It would never be appropriate for Calisto to do something like that with any married woman, let alone his uncle’s wife.
“How close were we that I gave you a puppy and—”
“Friends,” she interrupted quickly. “We were just friends, Cal.”
Too quickly.
She would no longer meet his stare.
“Emma,” Calisto said, squeezing her wrist a little firmer. “If we were friendly enough before that I did these sorts of things with you, then why haven’t you told me? Or tried to sit down with me more just to chat? I would have appreciated the effort. Just because I don’t remember you and how you came about in this family doesn’t mean I don’t want to.”
She wet her lips, shooting another look at the doorway.
Why did she keep doing that?
“Hey, I’m right here,” he said.
Emma’s gaze snapped to his instantly. “I’m very aware of where you are.”
And she sounded frightened about that fact.
Scared that he was anywhere near her.
“Is there something wrong with me being here with you?” he asked.
“No, of course not.”
“You’re acting like there is, like you might get in trouble for just talking with me.”
Had something happened—had someone said something—that made her afraid to be near him?
Emma openly frowned, and briefly, Calisto was positive he saw a sheen of wetness in her green eyes before she was blinking the tears away. “I should go.”
“But—”
“I have to rest,” she said, repeating her earlier statement.
Not wanting to, but knowing he had no right to force Emma to stay and explain his confusion about their friendship before his accident, Calisto let her go. He took a step back, a wide step. It gave her lots of room to pass him by.
But at the doorway, she paused, glancing back over her shoulder at him. Her mouth opened to speak, like she was going to say something, but the loud, raucous laughter muffled from behind the closed door of Affonso’s office across the hall stopped her.
“What is it?” Calisto asked.
Emma tore her stare away from his, and she did it in such a way that told him it hurt her to do so. “I keep hoping …”
He tipped his head to the side, unsure and wary. “For what?”
“For something impossible.”
Calisto smiled. “Nothing is impossible, Emma.”
Her pretty features darkened with sadness. “Some things are, Cal.”
“Like what?”
Emma didn’t answer him, instead saying, “If something feels wrong to you, it probably is. If it doesn’t seem right, then it isn’t. Don’t trust based on loyalty and blind faith. He is not who you think he is. I just want you to know that, okay?”
Calisto wasn’t quite sure what to make of her passing remarks. He didn’t get the chance to question her on them, either, because she slipped out of the library without another word or look at him when she went.
Stunned, he stared at the spot where Emma had disappeared.
Her words kept ringing loudly in the back of his mind.
Their conversation was the most he had ever gotten out of Emma, and the longest time he had spent alone with her.
Well, that he knew of.
Calisto was just stepping out in the hallway from the library when Affonso and Ray appeared on the other side behind the opening office doors. Affonso looked Calisto over, and then behind him.
“Go on, old friend,” Affonso told Ray. “I’ll catch up.”
Ray went without question. Once he was gone down the hall and out of sight, Affonso turned back to Calisto with a smile.
It didn’t look true, strangely.
“Where is my wife?” Affonso asked.
Calisto straightened a bit. The first words out of his uncle’s mouth had been to question him on Emma’s whereabouts like that was automatically what Calisto would know.
Why would Affonso do that?
It seemed like lately, Calisto had far more questions than he had answers. He didn’t like that a lot of them seemed to be leading straight to his uncle.
And … now Emma.
He is not who you think he is.
If it doesn’t seem right, then it isn’t.
Emma’s words whispered a little louder in his head. Calisto wasn’t entirely sure why, but he thought they might be directed toward his uncle. From the very moment he had seen Affonso after he woke up, things just felt off to Calisto.
Affonso was not who he remembered. It was little things wrapped up in small issues, to be sure. His uncle’s attitude, his lack of apathy and trust. The way he controlled the most basic daily routines around Calisto, as if he didn’t think he could do it on his own. How he kept a distance between them, when he had never done that before.
Little things, yes.
But it added up to something that didn't feel right at all.
Calisto had believed for months that his uncle was hiding things from him, for many reasons. One of the biggest was the ending of a relationship between Calisto and a woman from a fellow New York family. He hadn’t loved her, but he’d considered marrying her for status, and his uncle. After waking up without his memories of the last two years, Affonso brushed the relationship off as something that hadn’t worked out and nothing more. It couldn’t have been that simple.
Still, it was one thing Calisto chose not to push on.
Like other things.
A lot of things.
Affonso told him something, and Calisto trusted his uncle, giving him … blind faith.
As a consigliere for their crime family, he should have been given access to almost anything he wanted in regards to his uncle’s dealings, but he wasn’t. Not even close.
Calisto had the distinct feeling Emma was trying to tell him something without actually telling him. He just had to figure out what it was.
“I’m not sure where Emma is,” Calisto lied smoothly.
Sort of.
He didn’t know where Emma had gone after she left the library.
Affonso cocked a brow, seemingly unpleased at that answer. “She wasn’t in the library? She spends most of her time in there.”
Calisto shrugged. “No. I went in to check the piano. It’s been awhile since I tuned it.”
“Does it?”
“Does it what?”
“Need tuning,” Affonso said.
“It could use one,” Calisto lied again.
The piano was fine.
“I can come over next week and do it,” he added.
Affonso’s face remained a mask of cold composure as he replied, “No, that’s fine. I’ll have that man come and do it. It’s his job, after all.”
“It’s not a problem, zio. I can do it.”
“No worries, I have someone for it.”
“It’s my father’s piano,” Calisto said, confused why Affonso would argue the point on the instrument. “I have always tuned it.”
It made him feel closer to a man he had never gotten the chance to meet, as odd as that may seem. It was one thing Calisto held onto.
“I’ve had someone else doing it for a while. You were busy these last couple of years.”
Oh.
Well, then.
Calisto went to respond, to agree and give Affonso what he wanted, but he quickly realized something before he could.
Affonso didn’t want him to come to the house. Thinking over the last few months since he’d gotten out of the hospital, and then left the Donati home to go back to his own place, his uncle had done this very thing several times.
Dinners with no invitation for Calisto. Excused.
Meetings that should be held in his office. Rearranged.
Visits with his cousins when they were home had been put off, or canceled with more excuses. Quick stops at the house to pass on a message or discuss an issue were ended before they had even begun.
Little things, Calisto thought again.
Things he had overlooked, but were far bigger in the grand scheme of things when he put them all together.
And here his uncle was, doing it again.
Keeping him away.
Why?
“Didn’t you have some money to collect tonight?” Affonso asked, forcing Calisto out of his thoughts.
He did.
“That and a Capo to see about a shipment coming in next week,” Calisto replied, keeping his tone easy and unconcerned.
Something was wrong.
Nothing felt right.
What was he missing?
“I suppose you should get on that, then,” Affonso said. “I swear, all you do is work, Cal.”
Calisto forced a chuckle. “Isn’t that what a good consigliere does for his boss? Works?”
“Sure, but you’re a man, too, my boy. Make some time for that. Find a pretty girl, why don’t you? Amuse yourself. You’re closing in on twenty-nine. Time to start refocusing on … different things.”
Like what?
Marriage?
Calisto’s stomach churned, and he didn’t even know why. He owned several clubs, and spent the majority of his evening time there on the weekends. Beautiful women went in and out all of the time. He had plenty of chances and offers, as far as that went.
But they didn’t interest him.
He turned them all down.
“Are you even listening to me?” Affonso asked.
Calisto just wanted out of the house all of a sudden. “Yeah, I’m listening, zio. But business right now, huh? It’s more important than a woman to keep me occupied.”
Affonso laughed, his hand coming up to clasp Calisto’s shoulder.
The weight of it felt off.
Too heavy, maybe.
“Business,” Affonso echoed, “is always more important than women.”
The one thing Calisto hated more than anything was Manhattan traffic in the middle of the week on a Tuesday morning. It was damn near impossible for someone to get from point A to point B in any reasonable amount of time. There was always some sort of construction happening, an accident clogging up the lanes, or a road closed for some type of event.
For a state like New York, he figured they should have had this congested traffic bullshit corrected by now. It was ridiculous.
Drumming his fingers on the backseat of his new Escalade, Calisto glared at the cars ahead of him and silently willed traffic to move.
“Chill out back there,” his driver said from the front. “We’re not late.”
Calisto sighed. “Yet, Tiny. We’re not late yet.”
“I will get you to tribute before the boss, trust me.”
Deciding that arguing with his enforcer would get him nowhere, Calisto settled on glowering at the vehicles in the lane beside theirs that was going slightly faster.
“Tribute should have been held elsewhere with the traffic being like this today,” Calisto said.
“Boss likes upper Manhattan.”
“I’m aware. The Irish stay away from there.”
Because that nonsense was getting out of hand. Or rather, it already was, but the issues had started to escalate in just a couple of days. A shootout had occurred the night before at a business one of the Donati Capos owned—a restaurant. The Capo took a bullet, and four patrons of the restaurant were killed, along with a waitress the Capo apparently had a thing going on with.
The Irish took responsibility for the attack almost immediately.
Now, there was police attention. More so than before.
Affonso was doing his best to keep his men happy and calm, but that was fucking impossible when a person didn’t feel safe doing regular business. There was a sit-down coming up between the Three Families in New York, and Calisto hoped that whatever the other two families could offer up would help to end the feud.
Frankly, Calisto had no interest in seeking out the Irish. They had spilled more than enough blood to make it clear they were not interested in talking. They wanted territory, at least that’s what it seemed like, and Affonso refused to hand it over.
Besides, Calisto’s accident—caused by the Irish—was enough trouble for him. He didn’t give a good goddamn how Affonso made the Irish go away as long as they went and stayed that way.
“You know, I could have taken the Subway and gotten there faster,” Calisto noted.
Tiny laughed. “I could see you riding the Subway now in that four-thousand-dollar suit.”
Calisto brushed off the enforcer’s joke, as his phone buzzed in his pocket, taking his attention away for the moment. Pulling it out, Calisto swiped his thumb across the screen and typed in the four-digit passcode to unlock the phone. His old phone had been practically ruined in the accident, and wasn’t even capable of being turned on. Still, he kept it at his place on his desk, in case he ever wanted to take it in and have whatever was on it put onto a thumb drive.
Pictures, contacts, videos and that sort of thing.
He just hadn’t found the time. He had kept the same number for his new phone.
A message from an unknown number filled the screen. It looked like a notification of some sort.
Nick’s Ink. One year notification for touch-ups. Respond with yes or no by text message for an appointment.
Calisto read over the message five times before it began to sink in what he was seeing. The rosary tattoo down his arm that led to the intricate cross inside his palm was in a particularly sensitive area. He’d looked up some information on tattoos on hands, and found that he would need to have his touched up on a six month to one year basis, but again … he hadn’t found time to do so.
Briefly, he wondered if the tattoo artist might have some kind of information on Calisto’s tattoo beyond just the date he had gotten it.
Like maybe why he had it done in the first place.
“Tiny, do you know a place called Nick’s Ink?” Calisto asked.
The enforcer passed him a glance in the rear view mirror. “Sure. Just a couple of blocks away.”
“What street?”
Tiny rattled off the address. “It’s a good shop. That’s where I told you to have that rosary done, but you probably don’t remember.”
“No, I don’t,” Calisto said heavily. “Sorry, man.”
“It’ll come back.”
Maybe …
Calisto glanced down at the message again, and had an idea. He wanted to know more about his tattoo, and the artist might be able to provide him with the information he needed.
“Tiny?”
“Yeah?”
“Not late yet, right?” Calisto asked.
“Nope.”
“I could run a couple of blocks and meet you up there when traffic finally makes it down, yeah?”
Tiny shrugged. “Probably.”
Calisto opened the back passenger door, unclipping his seatbelt at the same time. A car honked a horn as it moved past their SUV at a slightly faster speed. He ignored it.
“What in the hell are you doing?” Tiny asked from the front.
“Nick’s,” Calisto said. “I’ll see you when you make it there.”
“Why?”
Answers, he thought.
He needed answers.
A bell jingled as Calisto pushed open the door to the tattoo shop. He wasn't entirely sure what he expected to find inside, but the clean atmosphere, leather seating and walls decorated with art was a good start. He didn’t exactly think a tattoo shop in mid-Manhattan would be filthy, but it was hard to say sometimes.
This place was clean and inviting.
A young couple sat on a leather loveseat, flipping through a book and chatting quietly to one another. Calisto passed them by to speak to the black-haired woman at the counter, her arms covered in sleeves of intricate and beautifully done tattoos.
“Hey, Calisto, right?” she asked when he approached.
How many times had he been here?
“Yeah,” Calisto said. “That’s me.”
“You here to see Nick? He just left for lunch.”
Shit.
“Nick was the guy who did this?” Calisto asked, lifting his arm up.
The girl’s brow furrowed. “I mean, yeah. He designed it. You came in for like two meetings beforehand to check out his sketches and approve them, and it took two sittings to finish it up. Your hand was the worst, so you came back for a second sitting.” She stared at him for a while longer and then asked, “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like you don’t know what I’m talking about.”
Calisto swallowed back the lump in his throat. “Because I don’t.”
He quickly explained his accident, leaving out how he had been run off the road and shot at. At the word “amnesia”, the woman finally seemed to understand.
“That’s rough,” she said, softer than he expected. “So you must not remember anything about the tattoo, huh?”
“No,” he admitted. “But I want to know about it. I’m not a …”
“Tattoo kind of person,” she filled in, grinning. “You said that a couple of times when you first came in. That’s why Nick was so insistent you make sure you loved what he was going to put on you. He didn’t want you to regret it in a few years.”
Calisto glanced down at his arm, a sense of comfort passing through him as he looked over the rosary beads and the cross tattooed on his skin. “I don’t even remember it.”
“Yeah, I got that.”
“But I don’t regret it, either. So that says something.”
She nodded like she understood. “You were pretty stoked about it, from what I remember. But hey, if you’ve got some time, Nick will be back in like an hour or so. He’s got to do the newlyweds’ matching rings.”
Calisto checked his watch. “I don’t have that kind of time, actually. My … boss is waiting on me.”
“We can set up an appointment for your touch-ups on the cross,” she suggested.
“Let’s do that.”
Calisto could wait a little while longer to maybe get some answers.
After the girl had his appointment made, he turned to leave, but she called out to stop him.
“Wait a second … I think Nick kept his originals for you, in case you wanted to have them or something,” she said. “Do you want them?”
Calisto hesitated.
What would original sketches do for the questions he had?
But what would it hurt?
“Sure,” he said.
She quickly disappeared into the back of the shop, only to return a few minutes later with a handful of sketchpad papers. Calisto took them with a “thanks” and left the shop, finding Tiny waiting on the side of the busy street, leaning against the SUV.
“Find what you were looking for?” the enforcer asked.
Calisto shrugged, glancing down at the papers in his hand. The sketched rosary and cross was the exact same as the one on his arm, except …
He looked a little closer.
He brought the paper higher.
Quickly, he shuffled through a couple of the sketches, finding the exact same thing on each one on three of the black-gray rosary beads side by side. Tugging his suit jacket off, and knowing damn well he probably looked crazy, Calisto pulled up the sleeve of his dress shirt.
He counted down the beads.
Thirteen, fourteen … fifteen.
“What in the hell are you doing?” Tiny asked.
Calisto ignored him, and his gaze traveled between the tattoo on his arm, and the sketch on the paper. It was there on his arm—they were there.
Faint, but there.
Five dates. They’d been hidden in the swirls of the rosary just so, he realized. A passing glance wouldn’t be enough to see them without someone pointing them out. On the paper sketches, it looked like Nick had purposely darkened the dates just to show how they would be incorporated and hidden.
Calisto took the dates in again.
Some he recognized.
His mother’s death. His father’s death, and his grandfather’s passing date.
The two others were unknown. One of the two was just a month and the year. The February of the previous year. He thought about what he knew had happened around that time because of what people had told him. Affonso and Emma had been married in early February, and the month before, Calisto had spent time in Vegas. The third date had the day tacked on as well, and it was for late September of the previous year as well.
What were they for?
He understood the importance of his mother’s death, and why he would want to memorialize something like that, but the other two were unknown.
“Tiny?” Calisto asked.
“Yeah?”
“Does February of last year or September Nineteenth of the same year mean anything to you?”
Tiny thought about it for a moment. “Not to me, I guess.”
“Would they mean something to me?”
“I don’t know, boss.”
Jesus.
That was becoming the story of Calisto’s life.
Literally.