Sweetest Sorrow (Forbidden Book 2) (11 page)

How was he still so hard?

"Never—and I mean
never
—look at a guy's dick and laugh. That's just all sorts of messed up."

Genna's gaze drifted back to Matty's face, seeing his eyes open again. "Did it bruise your ego?"

"I've got no more ego left to bruise," he said. "I left it back in New York, along with everything else… certainly my pride and most of my common sense… probably my dignity, too."

Genna smiled. "You've got me, though. And we've got this place. That counts for something, right?"

"Counts for everything." He squeezed her to him, kissing the top of her head. "Who needs self-respect when you've got decent sex and a half-ass working air conditioner?"

* * *

B
usiness as usual
.

As Dante stood in front of the open refrigerator in the kitchen, he realized life had continued as usual around there. Every day was like the one before it, like nothing had changed.

Like everything was normal.

Leftovers piled the shelves. The kitchen was stocked full of groceries. Wine had even been chilled. Primo Galante hadn't missed a beat. Life went on. The world kept turning. The calendar affixed to the wall had been changed, the month flipped.

Time hadn't stopped for them.

Dante shifted through the containers of food. Not that he was hungry, but he couldn't remember the last time he ate something that wasn't Jell-O.

The pizza from Nurse Russo
.

Spaghetti. Lasagna. Some other kind of pasta. None of it caught his attention. Definitely not the chicken salad… he couldn't stand the sight of it. He grabbed a bottle of water and took a sip, hoping it would help settle his stomach.

The faint sound of footsteps registered through the downstairs, reaching Dante's ears as they moved through the foyer, coming his direction. Dante didn't look. He did nothing but stand there, sipping water in front of the open refrigerator, as whoever it was entered the kitchen.

Silence overwhelmed them.

It sucked all the air from the room.

"Dante?"

Primo's voice was quiet. Hesitant. Dante took another sip of water before screwing the lid back on. Shutting the refrigerator door, knowing he wouldn't find his appetite now, he turned to the doorway to greet his father. "Dad."

The second Dante spoke, Primo's expression shifted, relief relaxing his features, like he'd feared Dante was a figment of his imagination.
Maybe I'm not the only one waiting for ghosts to pop up.

"It's good to see you, son," Primo said. "Good to have you home. I never thought—"

"Never thought you'd see me again?" Dante guessed.

Primo nodded. "Not alive. I thought—"

"They killed me?" Dante guessed again.

"Yes." Primo took a step closer. "They sent me a message—a son for a son. The blood in the car… there was no sign of you anywhere."

"So you looked?"

Primo stared at him.

He didn't respond.

The son of a bitch didn't look for me.

"You looked, right?" Dante asked again, not dropping that. He knew his father well enough to know his silence meant he had no answer, but Dante wanted an explanation. "You said there was no sign of me anywhere, so I'm guessing that means you looked everywhere?"

Primo stared at him some more before offering an answer. "They had you. There was no point."

No point
.

Maybe Primo hadn't meant that the way it sounded, but those words were like a knife to Dante's gut. On one level, he got it. He'd even told his sister once: when the Barsantis got their hands on you, there would be nothing left. But that didn't mean they shouldn't still
look
.

That didn't mean there was
no point
.

"Well, what do you know," Dante said, motioning toward himself. "They left some part of me to be found. Not sure how much is salvageable, but here I am."

Something in the tone of Dante's voice, or maybe it was the bluntness of his words, sent Primo's guard up. Dante saw it in the way the man's shoulders squared, the way his jaw clenched. The relief dissipated as fast as it came about. Primo's eyes studied Dante's face.

Dante knew the tactic. He'd seen it employed hundreds of times. His father stared people down, breaking them with silence, using intimidation as a form of punishment. He'd done it to countless men. Hell, he'd even used it on Genna. But he'd never tried with Dante before. He'd never had to.

And as they stood there, Primo staring him down, Dante realized it wasn't working. He was immune. He felt nothing but anger, the kind that burned cold and not hot. It wasn't volatile rage.

He was numb.

"We should talk," Primo said, breaking first, to Dante's surprise. He'd never seen his father let someone else win that game. "A lot has happened."

"Like the explosion in Little Italy?" Dante guessed. "I heard all about it."

Primo's eyes narrowed with a flash of rage, a flash of
suspicion
, before he straightened his expression out. His voice, though, betrayed his calm demeanor. "From
who
?"

Dante considered concocting some story to avoid what he knew would become an argument, but that was just a part of him that wanted to save face.
Fuck it.
"Amaro."

That answer shocked Primo. "Johnny Amaro?"

"No, his son."

"What the hell does that boy know about anything? When did you even talk to him?"

"He visited me," Dante said. "Came to the hospital."

"He did
what
?"

"He heard I was alive so he stopped by to see how I was doing." Dante paused, intending to drop it, but words kept flowing from his lips instead. "It's kind of fucked up, really... Amaro being the only person who bothered to check on me."

That struck Primo hard… just as hard as the mention of Genna had hit him at the hospital. The man flinched, his face paling, like he couldn't believe those words had come from Dante.

"I came to the hospital," Primo said, taking a step forward, pointing at Dante. "You
know
I did. You saw me there. That woman—that nurse—told me to leave. But I called every day to check on you. I called to make sure you were getting better. So don't give me that bullshit about Amaro being the only one who bothered, because no one named Amaro cares about you. No one named Amaro gives a fuck if you live or die."

"Maybe not," Dante said, "but someone named Amaro respected me enough to tell me the truth."

Primo scoffed. "Respect? You think he
respects
you? If you think he told you anything out of respect, you've lost your mind! And truth? What does he know of the truth? He was probably there to gloat!"

"He's got nothing to gloat about," Dante said. "He lost a cousin, you know."

To be technical, Dante thought, Gavin lost
two
. Enzo died at Dante's hands. He personally had taken away one of Gavin's cousins.

"I'm well aware of their relationship to the Barsantis," Primo spat. "It just furthers my point. Whatever truth you think he gave you is skewed. His loyalties lie with
them
. He's not your friend. No Amaro is, nor will one ever be, not as long as you're a
Galante
. You need to get that through your head and get over this 'he respects me' nonsense, and you need to do it quickly."

Primo turned, intending to walk away, like he considered the conversation over, but Dante wasn't done talking. "So tell me."

Primo stalled. "Tell you what?"

"The truth," Dante said. "Tell me the version that isn't skewed. Respect me, since Amaro doesn't, and tell me what happened."

A moment passed, and then another, before Primo looked at Dante again. His expression was calm. He'd pulled himself together with ease. "You want to know the truth, son?"

"You know I do."

Primo took a few steps forward, his demeanor casual, like the man was just strolling through the room.
Unruffled
. It was a facade, Dante knew. A mask to hide behind, to not let Dante see he'd gotten under his skin, but it was too late. Dante knew he'd struck a bad nerve, one he might never recover from. Primo had, even momentarily, questioned his son's loyalty. Was there any going back from that?

"The truth," Primo said, "is that I did what I swore I would do. I went after Matteo Barsanti. I blew up his car. And if you expect me to feel even an ounce of regret about that, you're going to be disappointed. I refuse to grieve for a Barsanti."

"But what about my sister?"

Dante kept his voice even as he asked that. Emotion was vacant in his voice. He felt it, though. He felt the anger. He felt the pain in his chest. Man, it burned.

Primo said nothing.

Dante wondered if he planned to answer at all.

What could he say? How could he twist it? How could he justify harming his own daughter?

But eventually, Primo let out a deep sigh that almost... almost... sounded coated in regret. When he spoke, though, Dante realized he'd been mistaken. Not regret.
Shame
. He was ashamed of her. "Genevieve knew. She knew, and she turned her back on us, on this family, and she chose him instead. She chose a Barsanti. So do I grieve her? Absolutely. I grieve the loss of her every day. But not for the reason you're thinking. It's not because of anything
I
did. Your sister committed suicide, as far as I'm concerned. She did it to herself. I'm not to blame."

Primo strolled out then, just as coolly as he'd approached. Dante listened to his footsteps as they headed to his office.

Dante followed but paused in the foyer, hearing voices. His father was talking to someone. It took just seconds for him to recognize the other voice. Umberto. Dante debated interrupting, torn between confronting his father and wanting to get the hell out of there. His dilemma ended when the office door opened, Umberto walking out and closing the door behind him.

He frowned at Dante as he started toward him, carrying some stuff. Dante realized, as he approached, that it all belonged to
him
. His wallet, his car keys, and even his cell phone.

"Your father figured you'd want this stuff back," Umberto said, holding it out. "He said you'd want to leave, to cool off, clear your head, you know… that you're upset about things."

"Upset about things," Dante repeated, grabbing his wallet to scour through it. Everything was still in there, as far as he could tell, even a couple twenties. They hadn't bothered to steal his money.
What kind of half-assed criminals
...?

"Yeah," Umberto muttered as Dante shoved the wallet in his back pocket. "Sorry about all that, by the way… sorry about what happened."

"What do you have to be sorry for?" Dante grabbed his keys and phone next. The battery was dead, but Dante guessed it still worked, considering his father returned it. "It's not like
you
killed my sister."

Umberto didn't respond to that.

He just stood there.

No
. Dante groaned as he slipped the phone in his pocket, clutching his keys. "Come on, man, don't tell me
you
…"

Umberto half-shrugged. Dante didn't have to finish where he was going with that. Nobody knew the ins and outs of cars like Umberto Ricci, the guy who had done time for stealing them
twice
. He knew all about circuits and conduits and whatever the fuck else it took to get power flowing.

Of course he'd been involved.

He'd certainly know how to wire a bomb.

"You were gone," Umberto said, trying to explain. "Your father wanted it all to be over. He figured, you know, it should come full circle. He wanted the bomb to be exactly like the one that killed your brother. Key in the ignition…
boom
. And your sister, man, I didn't know. Nobody could've known she would go after him, that she would risk her life like that, knowing there was a bomb."

"I would've," Dante said. "I would've known she'd run straight for him, because that's who she was."

"An enemy sympathizer."

An enemy sympathizer
. Dante laughed bitterly at that. She'd been put in a box with a label, like she'd never been anything more than someone in love with someone so wrong. Fucking
Romeo & Juliet
in the flesh, dying stupidly over forbidden love. Dante wasn't surprised. He'd feared that for her. But it made him sick to hear it. She'd always been so much more.

"I meant she was the kind of person who would risk her life to save someone," Dante said. "Say what you want about my sister, but nobody can deny she was one of the good ones. She was innocent... a hell of a lot more innocent than any of us."

Dante walked out before Umberto could respond. Dante was in no mood to hear whatever he'd say to that. He didn't want to start off his night by punching the guy who had at one time been his closest friend.

Besides, the world was out there, waiting.

And wherever his sister was, wherever she'd ended up, he was going to make her proud. He was going to show her he hadn't forgotten the promise he made.

The promise that he'd be there anytime she needed him. He might've been late this time, but it was never
too
late to make things right.