Calisto
At first there was light.
Clear and streaming through his lids.
Waking him up.
Calisto, stiff in his arms and neck, pushed himself up from whatever he had been slumped over. A steering wheel.
Then there was pain.
Radiating and sharp.
It started in his neck, traveled through his upper torso and limbs, and straight down his back. He sucked in a harsh gulp of air and then let out a groan, his fingers tightening around the steering wheel as he tried to ride the waves of pain to a more manageable state.
It didn’t help all that much.
As much as he blinked and stared around, he couldn’t quite make out what was wrong or where he was. The blurred vision probably didn’t help any, and neither did the pounding headache making him cringe and wince with each and every movement.
Then, when he did wince, a stinging pain seared through his cheek.
Calisto smacked his mouth, feeling the dryness there. He reached up with his right hand, patted his cheek, and hissed, pulling his fingers away just as fast at the sensation of pain that followed the action. Thick, red liquid covered his fingertips.
For a long while, he just stared at his fingers, trying to figure out what that red shit was. His gaze traveled from his fingers to the broken windshield in front of him, and the tufts of smoke coming out of the smashed front end of his SUV, to the brick wall that was also spattered lightly with red. He could hear the hissing and pops of the engine, and he could see the long crack his vehicle had made in the brick wall when it hit it.
Damn, how hard had he hit it?
Calisto blinked again.
And again.
With shaking hands, and a dizziness making him sick to his stomach, he grabbed the rear-view mirror and twisted it downward. The red made sense when he could see the ugly, two inch long gash on his cheek that was bleeding a little too much for his liking.
It was only then that he noticed the right side of his jacket was soaked in the blood from the wound.
Fuck.
That was going to need stitches.
More than anything, Calisto needed clarity in his mind, but the more he tried to get the blurriness from his vision and clear the haziness from his mind, the worse it all became and the sicker he felt.
Concussion?
Likely.
Calisto decided to take it all in one thing at a time and he would go from there. The most obvious thing was the brick wall he’d obviously driven into. And while his windshield was broken, the glass was scattered across the hood, like it had been broken from the inside. That didn’t explain his cheek, or why his back window was broken.
Another pop from the engine answered a hiss, and Calisto decided he should probably get the fuck out of the SUV just in case that gray smoke meant something bad was about to happen.
You’re not usually this slow on the ball, he thought.
Ignoring his taunting inner voice, Calisto pushed open the driver’s door, and stumbled out into what looked like a back alleyway. It took him a few minutes, and couple of times looking around at his surroundings, but he realized quickly enough that he was outside of his club.
Calisto wet his lips and smacked his mouth again.
Jesus.
He really wanted some water.
Just a couple more stumbled, swaying steps, and Calisto neared the back of his SUV. His hand found the black painted metal of the back, and he leaned against the passenger door to help keep him upright as he breathed through his nose to quell the nausea.
Shit, he must have smacked his head awfully hard against the steering wheel.
Or something …
Once he felt good enough to move again, he rounded the back of the SUV, and stopped up short. At first, he wasn’t sure what he was seeing, but that seemed to be a running theme since he opened his eyes. Tilting his head to the side, Calisto stared at the back end of his SUV, trying to make sense of the littered, circular holes that had busted out taillights and ruined the nice paint job.
Suddenly, and without warning, the knowledge of what those holes were came to Calisto with a sharp, painful clarity.
Bullet holes.
When he squeezed his eyes shut, he remembered the dark form, and the gun drawn. He could hear the breaking glass again, and the sensation of his body being propelled forward into his dashboard and steering wheel when he hit the brick wall at a speed that could have killed him.
He was trying to get away.
Calisto touched his cheek again, and sucked in more air at the pain. He stumbled his way back to the front of the SUV, looking over the glass from the broken windshield and the brick wall.
His blood had spattered the brick wall—he’d seen the blood. There was no blood on the glittering pieces of glass that had scattered over the hood, which meant his injury came after the windshield had been broken.
Calisto found what he was looking for all too soon.
A bullet embedded in the brick wall just below his blood splatters.
The cut on his face wasn’t from hitting the dashboard, or the broken windshield.
It was a bullet graze.
That’s why they left, he thought, because they thought their job was done when they saw the blood and you not moving.
Calisto thanked God for his shitty luck and someone else’s stupidity. A man should never leave a scene until he was sure his target had stopped breathing. That was one of the first rules he’d learned growing up under Affonso’s direction.
At the thought of his uncle, Calisto’s stomach turned again, and he just had time to move away from the vehicle before vomit spilled from his throat. It burned on the way out, strong and acidic.
Hunched over with a hand to the wall, Calisto breathed through his rage and dizziness.
All those months …
All the lies …
Calisto blinked.
Emma.
Vegas.
Skin. Auction. Fear. Sex.
Calisto’s tongue peeked out to sweep his bottom lip as he breathed as rhythmically as he could. Another blink, and he was seeing new things.
White dress. Lace. Father Day, Affonso, and the altar. His own fist clenched against his knee. Red, frowning lips behind a veil. He was sorry for delivering her for that day—that awful day.
With every breath, each blink, the memories bled together for Calisto until his mind was a screaming, aching, jumbled mess of things he had forgotten. And with each forgotten moment—for every lost emotion—the pain intensified until he was vomiting again, and tears streaked down his cheeks.
How had he forgotten?
How was it possible that one day he had woken up, and forgot how he loved her?
Their time …
Their words …
Stolen minutes, brief seconds, and darker days.
Calisto’s knees hit the pavement hard, and his fingers curled into fists against the brick wall of his club, making his fingernails break from the pressure.
It was difficult, having all of his memories from before bleed into the time he had spent without them.
Anger festered and then flared, overwhelming his heart.
Guilt ate at him.
Pain suffocated him.
But through it all, his mind—hazy and full—focused on two things.
Emma.
Cross.
Emma.
Cross.
Once he had gained enough of his bearings to stand straight, Calisto stumbled back to the open driver’s door of the SUV. Somehow, he had a feeling that not very much time had passed from the moment he wrecked his SUV, to now. He only thought that because no one had yet to come out of the club and find the wrecked vehicle, or him. Then again, he’d hit the wall of another business that was only open on the weekends, and it was possible there was no one inside to hear the crash.
Calisto had all he could do to keep from retching again as he dug around on the floor of the SUV, trying to find his cell phone. He was definitely concussed, and it wasn’t a particularly good feeling.
Finally, he found the fucking phone.
He hit the power button, illuminating the cracked touchscreen. Just from the home screen, he could clearly see that there were a few missed calls and a couple of messages. Swiping his thumb across the screen, he typed in the code to unlock the device and see exactly who had called him.
Calisto ran down the numbers.
Ray.
Wolf.
One of his managers.
Ray again.
The messages were the same thing—the same people.
Calisto went back to the previous log screen, and focused on what he knew was there. In a day, Affonso made it a point to call him several times. Usually, it was to run some kind of errand or to chat about whatever fit Affonso’s fancy that day.
He only had one call from Affonso.
Just one.
The call that had asked Calisto to the hospital.
Affonso hadn’t even tried to call him after that. Not once.
Going back into the missed calls, Calisto found that Ray’s last call had come in shortly after he’d woken up from the crash. Probably when he was at the back of the SUV.
Calisto swallowed the thickness building in this throat, not liking what any of this meant to him.
Ray wouldn’t be calling if he knew Calisto was dead—or even if he thought so.
Wolf—the Capo that Calisto was closest to in the Donati family—had never been someone Calisto was suspicious of, and he was supposed to meet the man for dinner later to discuss business. It would make sense that he would call.
The manager of Calisto’s restaurant always called around the same time everyday just to see if the boss was coming in or not.
There was only one thing that was unusual about the phone calls.
Only one thing was out of place.
Affonso hadn’t called—he always did.
But he wouldn’t if he knew you were dead, he thought to himself.
Calisto squeezed his eyes shut, needing the darkness to think, and wanting to block out the pain thrumming in the base of his skull.
Ray had been the one who shot at him and drove him off the road all those months ago. There was no question about it—Calisto’s memories on that night were as clear as crystal, much like everything else now was.
But this time, Calisto seriously suspected Ray wasn’t involved at all.
Affonso.
Calisto blew out a slow stream of air, and opened his eyes again, the phone still clutched in his hand. It would be easier to understand if he knew why Affonso had chosen to come after him.
Why now, when he could have done it at any other time over the last eight or nine months since his accident?
Calisto stilled—eight or nine months.
About the time the pregnancy lasted.
About the time it took Affonso to have a healthy son born alive.
About the time it would have taken Affonso to know he didn’t need the defiant, boundary-pushing, bastard son that was Calisto.
Sickness spilled into the back of his throat again. Calisto clenched his fists so tight, his fingernails broke the skin of his palms.
Yet, as quickly as that anger came and rushed his senses, it was replaced by a deep, burning anxiety that filled his blood with ice. Affonso had to know—that was all Calisto could think about.
Cross’s paternity—the affair—Affonso had to know.
He would have come back from his getaway to find Calisto without his memories, and Emma pregnant.
Calisto’s heart stopped at what that truly meant.
It all made sense, and the rest of the pieces began to click together for him. The past few months with Emma, and his confusion at her distance. Her fear whenever he had taken her aside, even innocently, just to talk. The moments she’d opened her mouth, looking as though she wanted to tell him something, or maybe like she was about to warn him, but quickly decided against it.
The anger came back hot, heavy, and swift. Not at Emma, but at Affonso.
There was no doubt in Calisto’s mind that somehow, Affonso had forced Emma into a spot where she had no choice but to lie to him, and to hide things from him that would have explained a great deal of his sense of loss and confusion since the accident. She’d been pregnant, and once again, alone for all this time.
How could he possibly ever be angry at her for doing what she needed to do?
Calisto was sure he would get that explanation.
But at that moment, he had to work on fixing other things first.
Fixing—killing.
What difference did it make?
It was the only option he had, considering what had just happened to him. If Affonso felt comfortable in coming after Calisto, would Emma be next?
His breaths came out a little more painful at the thought alone.
Calisto wasn’t sure why his uncle had chosen not to punish his wife for her affair, or why he let Calisto live for as long as he had, but it was Affonso’s only mistakes.
He had his memories back now.
He wasn’t about to forget again.
At that very moment, Affonso probably thought he was dead.
But for how long?
Calisto didn’t know where to go first, or even who to go to, so he did what felt right. He grabbed a cab, and headed back to the one place he knew was safe, for the most part. His apartment.
The very moment after he closed the door, he rested his head against the cool metal, and took a few minutes to gather his wits again. The cab driver had taken notice of his odd state, and asked if he wanted to go to the hospital several times.
Over and over, Calisto refused.
A hospital wouldn’t help him right now.
He didn’t need his name going on a damned record.
Pushing away from the door, Calisto shrugged off his bloody jacket, and the dress shirt underneath. He tossed the ruined articles aside, going straight to his bedroom for clean clothes. He was just reaching into his closet for a hanging dress shirt, when his hand froze mid-air, and his heart clenched painfully.
All these months …
He looked around his place, staring blankly at the stuff he’d just overlooked because he couldn’t draw memories to them.
But it was more than the stuff.
It was more than his place.
Calisto yanked the shirt off the hanger, and made a beeline out of his room, toward his office. Once he was behind his desk, his knees hit the floor, and he was reaching for the fucking safe.
The safe he couldn’t remember the passcode for.
The safe that held everything.
His memories. His mother. Her letters. His documents. The faked birth certificate Affonso had forged after Calisto was born.
All of it was inside there.
He didn’t even have to struggle with the code like he had been for months on end. He knew what the digits were now.
The month of his mother’s death.
The month Emma had miscarried.
The month little Affonso had been born and died.
Poignant moments in his life that he had tattooed on his goddamn body. Dates that wouldn’t mean much to an outside person, but reminded Calisto of what it felt like to be alive, and how it felt to lose something important.
He heard the tumblers click.
He pulled down on the handle.
The safe opened—finally.
For a long while, Calisto just stared at the mountain of papers inside the safe. He hesitated, wondering if he wanted to go through the hell of reading all of his mother’s letters again, not to mention the ones she’d given to him that were written to her from Affonso all those years ago.
His hesitation faded fast.
He’d forgotten her—forgotten her hell.
Calisto owed this to his mother, at the very least.
One by one, he pulled the papers and letters out. He read them, touched the curves and strokes of the ink where she had made her words, and then he folded them up and started making a pile.
He didn’t entirely know why, but he thought he might need them.
It was only after Calisto had pulled out most of the papers did he find other documents that would have reminded him during his memory loss of how much of a bastard Affonso Donati was.
Document after document of payments, birth certificates, and information for children—illegitimate children that Calisto had been taking care of for years. His half-siblings.
Calisto froze all over again.
Ice-cold in his veins.
Fire-hot in his heart.
The Irish.
Connor O’Neil—the boss.
Calisto’s clear, crisp memory of that one meeting he’d had with the Irish boss burrowed deep into his brain, holding tight and refusing to let go.
He knew exactly why Affonso wanted the Irish gone, and why he would allow blame to be placed on them. It was just more secrets he wanted to keep. It was possible that Affonso believed the Irish had been the ones to attack Calisto all those months ago, and that he didn’t know it was actually Ray, but Affonso’s motives were never as clean-cut as he tried to make them out to be.
He always had other agendas.
This was no exception.
Calisto grabbed the stack full of letters and slammed the safe shut. He ignored the dizziness as he scooped his phone off his desk, and shoved it into his pocket with the letters.
He did have allies.
He’d simply forgotten about them for a time.