Antonio
The room was packed full of people. Alessandro and Elisabetta stood on one side of the room. Gia and Imogen were on the other side. I could see everyone sizing each other up. Gia and Alessandro glared at each other, and I hoped that they would let bygones be bygones, at least for now. We needed to figure out what had happened to Callie, and I needed to figure out what was going on with Jimmy.
“Where is Callie?” Imogen said, sounding frantic. She walked over to me. There was hatred in her eyes as she stared at me. “You’re a jackass, an asshole. And when we get her back, I hope to God, she never sees you again.”
“Well, it’s nice to meet you, too,” I said, pressing my lips together.
“You think this is funny, you fucking jackass? The way you used her? You took her virginity. You—” She stopped as she looked around. Gia was holding her shoulder.
“It’s okay, Imogen. It’ll be okay. If anyone can find Callie, it’s Antonio.” She looked at me. “I hope we’re not putting our faith in you blindly, but you’re the one that got her into the situation. You are the one that needs to make sure she’s okay, because if she’s not, I will make sure that the Marchesi family is taken down once and for all.”
“Yeah, and how are you going to do that?” Alessandro said snidely.
She turned to look at him for a second and then looked away and at me. “And just so you know, just because I’m here doesn’t mean I like you or your brother again. It just means that one of my good friends needs your help.”
“Well, it’s because of you that she needs to be found. But I get it. I fucked up,” I said, shaking my head. They couldn’t hate me any more than I hated myself. I couldn’t believe that I’d gotten Callie into the situation.
“Don’t tell me you’re going soft now, bro,” Alessandro said, shaking his head as he headed over to me. He looked down at Gia, scorn in his eyes. “And don’t speak to my brother that way. You can be a little brat to people in your family and maybe to the Di Lorenzos, but you’re not going to be a brat up in this house.”
Gia looked at him and rolled her eyes. She looked over at Imogen. He was staring behind her.
“Is everything okay?” Gia asked Imogen softly.
“Yeah.” She nodded. She was staring at Elisabetta.
“What is it?” Elisabetta said, walking closer to the two girls. “You keep looking at me, and I don’t understand why.”
“You just remind me of Callie,” Imogen said, “the way you stand there looking uncomfortable, but you have a smile on your face. You kind of smile like her.”
“Oh?” Elisabetta said, her eyes widening. “She’s pretty, so I guess, thank you?”
“Yeah, it’s just weird is all,” Imogen said, shrugging. “I just wish we knew where she was. I’m so scared and worried, and I wish I would’ve told her to never meet up with you. I wish I never would’ve encouraged her to have fun. I wish that she was at home, reading her book and calling me on the phone and talking about romance in novels and not romance in her real life.”
“Yeah, because that romance became a nightmare,” Gia said, shaking her head.
“I mean, let’s be real,” Imogen interrupted her. “There was never really any romance in the first place, was there, Antonio?” She looked at me, and I stared back at her.
“I know you don’t know me, and I know you don’t understand, but this is a lot more complicated than—”
“I know enough,” she said. “Gia filled me in.” She pressed her lips together. “And I’m sorry about what happened to your mom, but you don’t take that out on an innocent twenty-two-year-old girl who’s never done anything wrong to you. And yeah, I also know that people say the sins of your father, la-di-da-di-da, whatever. You’re a jackass, and I’m sure you’ve been called that many times before, and I’m sure you don’t care, but when you burn in hell, it’s going to be because of what you did to Callie.”
I press my lips together. “Do you think I’m not in hell already?”
“Look, this is getting us nowhere,” Alessandro said quickly. “Elisabetta, can you call your mom? Can you see what’s going on? Can you—”
“I don’t know what my mom will tell me,” she said. “My mom didn’t even tell me who my father was.”
“What? Who’s your father?” Imogen asked softly.
“Don Roberto Marchesi,” Elisabetta said. “I’m their sister. Well, their half-sister.”
“Oh, wow.” Gia’s eyes widened. “I didn’t see that coming.”
“There are a lot of things that you don’t see, Gia,” Alessandro said.
I was about to say something to him when my phone started ringing. I grabbed it out of my pocket. My heart was racing when I saw it was Jimmy.
“Jimmy, where are you?” I said quickly.
“It was Tommasso Romano, boss,” he said, sounding like he was coughing.
“Are you okay? What’s going on?”
“I’m going to be okay, boss. I… I was taken. Me and the other boys, we were taken. We’re at war. You got to be careful.”
I had a feeling something was up.
“So, is Tommasso working with the Di Lorenzos?”
“No, it’s not the Di Lorenzos. Nico’s not involved. Some of the guys that took me, I heard their accents. They’re Russians. He’s teamed up with the Bratva.”
“Fuck! Is Tommasso a stupid fucking idiot? Why would he team up with the Russians? You know they’ll only shoot him in the head with his own gun.”
“I don’t know, boss. I told you when you disrespected his daughter something like this was going to happen.”
“It is what it is. Where are you, Jimmy?”
“I’m in some shithole upstate. I just popped a cap on three guys, and I’m driving back to the city.”
“You need any help? You want us to come and get you? What’s going on?”
“Nah, I’m okay. I’ll be there soon.”
“Jimmy, they’ve got Callie.”
“Fuck!” he said. “I knew something bad was going to happen. But at least they don’t have you, boss.”
“It’s almost like they had me, Jimmy,” I said. “They’ve got Callie.”
“But we were kidnapping her, boss.”
“And I wasn’t going to let a fucking hair on her head be hurt. You know that, Jimmy.”
“It’s because you like her, huh, boss?”
“I don’t have time for this, Jimmy, but we got to find her.”
“I know,” he said. “I should be there in an hour, okay?”
“Okay. I’m here with Alessandro and Gia and Elisabetta and Imogen.”
“Who the fuck’s Imogen?” he said. “Not some broad you’re fucking. Is that really smart to have her there while you’re looking for Callie?”
“Oh my God, Jimmy, this is how I know you’re okay, because you’re making stupid jokes.”
“What, boss? I’m just saying I never heard of no Imogen chick before. Who the fuck is she?”
“She is Callie’s best friend. She’s here from California. She was worried after everything that happened.”
“Oh, you mean how you fucked her?”
“Jimmy…”
“What? I’m just saying. She was really upset, boss.”
“Now’s not the time, Jimmy. I don’t even know where she is.”
“Well, we know Tommasso Romano’s got her.”
“Yeah, but we don’t know where.”
“True. I’m sorry, boss. I fucked up. I should have been able to take care of you and her. I just didn’t see any of this coming. They blindsided us when we were traveling down the interstate. All of a sudden, they were on our tail and then they were hitting us, and—”
“I know, Jimmy. I was in the back of the van.” I sighed. “I fucked this up. It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have tried to get one over on Callie. I should have—”
“You just wanted her to trust you again, boss.”
“And look where that led me. She’s never going to trust me again.”
“If she loves you, she will.”
“Look, I’m not talking about this right now, Jimmy. I’ll speak to you later, okay?”
“Okay, boss. You be safe, you hear?” He started chuckling. “What, you going all soft on me, Marchesi?”
“Never,” I said and hung up. I looked around the room. Everyone’s eyes were on me, intent.
“Do you know where Callie is?” Imogen said hopefully. “Is he with her?”
“No. He was upstate somewhere. Tommasso’s working with the Russians.” I looked over at Alessandro.
“Fuck.” Alessandro shook his head. “So we are really at war?”
“We’re at war.” I nodded.
“Dad needs to know.”
I sighed and dialed my father’s number. He picked up.
“What is it?”
“Dad, we got a problem.”
“What?”
“Tommasso Romano is a traitor.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s working with the Russians, and he wants to take us down. He’s called a war for us. He’s kidnapped Callie. He tried to kidnap me.”
“You need to fix this, Antonio.” His voice was deathly quiet. I could hear someone speaking in the background. “Luisa wants to speak to Elisabetta.”
“Really? Is this the time for that?”
“Put her on the phone,” my dad said, and I pressed my lips together.
“Elisabetta, your mom wants to speak to you.”
“She does?” Elisabetta looked slightly taken aback.
“She does.”
I handed her the phone, trying not to burst into anger. It wasn’t anyone in the room’s fault what had happened.
“Hey, Mom, I’m fine. Everyone’s fine. Nothing happened to me. No one did anything to me. I know you think I should be at school, but school wasn’t working out. Remember, I told you we were reading that book, War and Peace?” She paused. “Well, no, I’m not saying it to distract you, Mom. I’m just saying that I think that I want to…” She paused and rolled her eyes. Then, she mouthed, “I’m sorry,” to me, and I just shook my head.
What the fuck was Luisa talking about to Elisabetta? That was more important than me figuring out what was going on and why my dad had not been more surprised that Tommasso Romano had gone to war with us. Tommasso was our consigliere. He was pretty much the most important person in our famiglia who was not a member of the actual family. Something was going on here, and I didn’t understand what it was.
Elisabetta was mumbling something on the phone, and I could see Imogen looking thoughtful as she stared at her.
“Sorry,” she said, handing me the phone back. “Here.”
I stared at the screen. It was dead.
“So, I guess Dad’s not going to be any help.”
I stared at Alessandro. “Did you really expect he would be?”
“We need to find Tommasso Romano,” I said. “There’s something bigger going on here that we don’t know about.”
“I agree,” Alessandro said. “Nothing’s adding up, and,” he said, “how did Tommasso know that we were going to kidnap Callie?”
He stared at me, and I stared at him and shook my head. “I don’t know.” I pressed my lips together. “But we need to find Tommasso, and we need to take him down.”
“You do realize that’s probably what he wants,” Gia said.
I stared at her for a couple of seconds. “What do you mean?”
“If he’s taken Callie, it’s because he wants to get to you. Right?”
“Right, I suppose.” I shrugged.
“And if he wants to get to you and draw you out, then that’s exactly what you’re doing by going to him.”
“Then I guess today is his fucking lucky day because I’m on my way and he’ll be lucky if he survives.”