Breathless & Bloodstained (The Chicago War #4) (33 page)

“You’re serious,”
Tommas said.

“As a heart
attack. You’re right, I care little for everyone else. If I thought it would
benefit me somehow, I could easily kill them all or force them to kill one
another to get me where I want to go. The bigger problem, Tommas, is that doing
so will leave me with nothing. In the end, once the dust clears and the blood
is washed away, I will be left with little but a struggling organization that
can no longer stand on its own two legs.”

“What good is a
boss with no family to run?”

“Exactly,” Joel
agreed. “I’ve had a while to think all this over. I would rather have a piece
of a large pie, than nothing at all. Are you amicable to sitting down and
having a proper discussion about this offer?”

No
.

Tommas still
didn’t trust Joel.

The situation
still felt bad.

“The last sit-down
we had didn’t exactly end with either of us getting what he wanted,” Tommas
mused. “What makes you believe this one will?”

“We can arrive at
the same time. Outside at a location of your choosing. Men, decided on beforehand,
from both sides can check for weapons. Whoever you and I choose to bring to the
meeting can be there. Have your cousin bring his wife if you want a female to
ensure the peace.”

“Right, because
that would deter you, I’m sure. Don’t even try it, Joel.”

But, Tommas was
listening. Joel had essentially offered Tommas a lot in a few sentences. He’d
given him control over where, how, and when the meeting could happen. He’d
allowed Tommas all the power.

“You’re amicable
to separating the Outfit?” Tommas asked.

“Yes,” Joel
replied.

It sounded like
the truth. Tommas knew nothing with Joel was truthful.

The bigger problem
Tommas faced was figuring out exactly what Joel was planning. It would be damn
near impossible. He also had to consider Abriella. He promised his girl a
forever—one of their own choosing and making. No matter what, he needed to give
Abriella her forever with him.

Tommas only really
had one option.

“I’ll call you
with the details within a couple of weeks,” Tommas said.

“I look forward to
it, Tommas.”

CHAPTER
SIXTEEN

“D
ad?” Abriella
called down the long hallway.

Her father didn’t
answer. Concerned for Peter’s emotional health, Abriella slipped into the wing
that had always belonged to her parents and shut the connecting door. Peter had
taken the murder of his wife harder than Abriella thought he would. Her father had
rarely left the Trentini mansion since they buried Sara, and he had yet to
return to his law practice.

She knew her
father loved Sara. She simply hadn’t realized how much.

Almost every day,
Abriella made her way into the other wing of the mansion just to sit with her
father so he didn’t feel alone in the large space. When Joel wasn’t around
spreading his usual nastiness, Abriella went over to cook for her dad and to
eat with him.

Peter, for the
most part, was quiet. He didn’t speak a lot. He didn’t cry in front of
Abriella, either. But his heartbreak, his grief, was palpable.

Even walking
through the wing in search of her father, Abriella could practically feel the
man’s pain embedded into the walls.

Did he cry when he
was alone?

Did he talk to her
mother?

Did he want to
follow Sara?

Shaking those
thoughts away, Abriella trekked into the kitchen. She found her father sitting
at the table with a full cup of coffee between his hands and his expression
unreadable. Blank like a white piece of paper.

Emotionless.

Dead, even.

A cold shiver
rolled across Abriella’s shoulders.

“Hey, Dad,” she
said quietly.

Peter glanced up
from his coffee, his hands tightening around the mug. “Morning, Ella.”

She smiled, but it
didn’t quite ring true. “Do you want me to cook you something for breakfast?
Eggs, bacon, toast? Whatever you want, Dad.”

“I’m not very
hungry right now.”

Abriella crossed
the room and pulled out a chair to sit beside her father at the long oak table.
Reaching over, she grabbed her father’s wrist and held tight. The side of her
hand brushed the coffee mug, but it wasn’t hot. In fact, it was cold.

“How long have you
been awake?” Abriella asked.

Peter stared down
at the black coffee. “I didn’t go to sleep, I guess. I’ve been thinking about a
lot of things. I must have lost track of time.”

“Oh, Dad …”

Her father winced.
“Don’t do that, Ella. Don’t worry about me.”

“Kind of hard not
to.”

“I’m sorry. I
shouldn’t be causing you any stress. You probably have enough to deal with
where your brother is concerned.”

Abriella laughed
bleakly. “Joel’s craziness is nothing new. He’s old news. It’s you that I’m
worried about, Dad. I know you’re sad and that you miss Mom, but—”

“More than you
know,” Peter interrupted softly.

The heart in
Abriella’s chest, the one she was sure had frozen over long ago, cracked with a
splinter of pain. The wetness in her father’s eyes was enough to melt even the
coldest of souls.

“How many more?”
Peter asked.

“I don’t
understand what you mean.”

“How many more
people have to bury the ones they love for this chess game the Outfit plays?”
Peter shook his head and rubbed at the spot over his heart like it was aching,
and he wanted to soothe it somehow. “My youngest child is going to make me a
grandfather soon, but I can’t even see her because your brother hates her
husband. My other daughter is being set on the sidelines until something good
comes along, and she can be used to benefit her family’s name. And my oldest,
the boy who isn’t really mine even though I tried to love him like he was, is
the cause of it all, Ella.”

“Dad—”

“We failed,” Peter
murmured. “Sara and I, we failed at taking care of the babies we brought into
this world. We weren’t always given a choice, we were forced into a marriage,
into a life we didn’t ask for, and we tried to make the best of it.”

“You didn’t fail,
Dad.”

“We did, Ella. We
never fought to have our own lives and control, and by default, we lost. I’m
sorry that we weren’t better for you.”

Abriella grabbed
her father’s wrist harder. “You’re the best dad.”

Her parents had
certainly made mistakes throughout the years. They had overlooked things, let
others have the control over their family and children, and they followed the
herd like they had been told to do.

She didn’t blame
them for that.

They didn’t know
any different.

“I love you,”
Abriella said, wanting her father to know. “Alessa loves you, too. Please don’t
feel like we blame you for the way our lives have turned out. We don’t, Dad,
and we never have.”

Peter smiled
sadly. “You’re a good girl, Ella.”

Abriella snorted.
“Not highly.”

“You’re good where
it counts. I wish your brother would see it, too. You deserve the world and so
much more, sweetheart. I want to see you happy, Abriella. All your mother ever
wanted was to see her children happy, not confused and heartbroken like she had
been for most of her life.”

“I’m happy,”
Abriella said, lying in hopes that her father would feel better.

How could she
possibly be happy with her life in shambles like it was? How could anyone be
happy in the midst of a war that just kept on taking and killing? She was
struggling to breathe day after day, and missing something vitally important
for her happiness in her heart. 

Peter stood and
patted Abriella on the cheek with a gentle, loving touch as he passed her by to
go to the sink. He dumped the contents of his cold coffee before turning on the
electric kettle to boil more water.

“I think I will have
some breakfast after all,” Peter told her. “How about waffles instead of eggs
and the usual?”

“Sure, Dad.”

Abriella stood
from the table and helped her father gather the things they needed to cook. As
they worked side by side in silence, Abriella felt closer to her father than
she had in years. They were both still heartbroken. They both missed people—one
dead in the ground, and one just beyond reach.

Maybe it was a
kindred thing as much as it was their shared blood.

For a moment,
Abriella did feel some sense of happiness. But she needed more. She wanted
more. She craved peace. She was hungry for the safety of those she cared about
and for the friendships that had been forced away. She missed dinners filled
with friends who cared, and the familiar connection of people who lived a
lifestyle that no one on the outside could ever possibly understand.

Had the Outfit
ever really felt like those things?

Abriella couldn’t
remember a time when it had without some sort of underlying issue causing
problems, but it could be like that. She knew it could. Her friends, her
family, and the lives they were starting was proof that it could be better. They
wanted it to be better.

It could be
happy
.

“Dad,” Abriella
said, never taking her eyes off her work.

“Yes?”

“I’m not happy,
but I want to be.”

“I know, Ella.”  

“Tommy.”

“Hey, Ella.”

Tommas’ voice was
a soothing balm to Abriella’s tired heart. After being cornered by the
detectives at her college the day before, she had been on edge ever since. When
she arrived back to her wing of the mansion, she found Joel gone. According to
the cook, Joel said he had business to do and didn’t offer any information
about when he would be back.

Abriella took the
chance to call Tommas with the mansion’s home phone. She still hadn’t gotten
her burner phone back from Tommas after forgetting it and her text book in his
car.

“It was my
mother,” Tommas said.

Abriella’s brow
furrowed at his random statement. “What?”

“My mother—she was
the one who gave the info about our relationship to the officials.”

“Are you sure?”

That didn’t sound
right to her. Serena Rossi was a vile woman, to be sure, but turning rat on her
own son seemed low even for her. Not to mention, what good would it do for
people to know that Tommas had been in a long-term relationship of sorts with
Abriella?

Other than to piss
off Joel, that was.

“Positive,” Tommas
finally replied. “I took care of it. Don’t worry about that nonsense. Joel
hasn’t given you back your cell?”

Abriella scowled.
“No.”

“It’s been a
couple months since he took it.”

“I know. But Joel
left this morning to do business. Or that was the message he left behind about
where he was going. No one is here but me and the cook. Dad is in the other
wing.”

“How’s Peter
doing?”

“Terribly.”

Tommas hummed a
sad sound. “I’m sorry, Ella. I tried to stop it once I knew your mother was—”

“I know you did,
Tommy.”

And that, more
than anything, meant the world to Abriella. Just the fact that Tommas had his
plans for Joel set in stone; the fact that he could have had the seat as the
boss, and he attempted to call it off to keep her mother from possibly being
hurt in the process meant everything.

He
tried
.

He hadn’t meant to
hurt Abriella.

Tommas proved he
would have given up what was right at the tips of his fingers if it meant that
Abriella wouldn’t have lost her mother.

“I know you tried,
Tommy,” Abriella said again.

“Still kills me,”
Tommas murmured.

“Talk about
something else, hmm?”

“I’m buying a new
restaurant this week.”

Abriella laughed.
“Why?”

“I’ve been looking
at a specific one for a while, but I’ve gone back and forth on whether the risk
and cost of opening was worth the price. I thought you might like a seafood
place or something.”

“Maybe.”

“But that’s not
the only reason I’m buying it,” he admitted.

“Why are you being
strange, Tommy?”

“I’m always
strange, Ella. Nonetheless, I need a restaurant that is untouched and unknown
by your brother. He called me early in the morning—too early, frankly. He wants
a sit-down.”

Abriella’s head
snapped up at those words. “You can’t be serious.”

“As a heart
attack. I don’t trust him, but he’s given me control of all the planning for it
and how it should go down. He’s agreeable as long as I let him have his men
check mine when we arrive. He suggested something …”

“Tell me.”

“The Outfit, Ella.
He suggested we split the Outfit between us.”

Abriella’s heart
stopped dead in her chest. “Split … Like two bosses?”

“Exactly.”

“But—”

“He made it sound
good,” Tommas cut in quickly. “As if that’s what would be the best thing. Joel
made it seem like he didn’t want this feud to continue, because there might not
be a damn thing left standing when it’s done. And he’s got a point. A good one,
Abriella.”