Joey: A brother’s best friend, standalone dark mafia romance (Chicago Ruthless Book 2)

“Hey, there,” Kat Moretti’s soft voice penetrates the fog in my brain as light filters through my flickering eyelids. I look sideways to see her standing beside the bed, and it takes me a few beats to realize I’m in the Moretti mansion. Every single part of my body thrums with a dull ache.

I glance down at my stomach and note the bandages and the telltale signs I’ve had surgery. “You fix me up all by yourself, doc?”

Kat is a nurse, but we affectionately call her doc because she patches up our guys as good as any doctor I’ve ever met.

“Nope. Lucky for you, I got nowhere near you with a scalpel or a needle,” she says, rolling her eyes. “We had to get a surgeon in. You had a little internal bleeding so we wanted to make sure …”

“Figures,” I groan as I shuffle into a more comfortable position.

I need to call Kristin and make sure she’s safe, but there’s someone else I’m desperate to see first. “Where’s Joey?”

“Joey?” Kat blinks at me, and the look on her face makes my stomach twist in knots. Or maybe that’s just the drugs they gave me. “Isn’t there someone else you should be concerned about?”

I frown, confused, but then I hear her voice. “Max?” Kristin says softly from the corner of the room, her face pale and her eyes red from crying. She rests her hands protectively over her bump.

“Kristin? Thank fuck you’re safe. But … Wait. What are you doing here?” My head throbs. What the fuck is going on?

“If it wasn’t for your girlfriend here, we wouldn’t have even known you were missing.” Kat’s voice drips with disdain, and my head pounds harder. Why do I feel like I’ve woken up in an alternate universe?

Hang on. What the fuck did she just say? “My girlfriend?”

“I’m sorry, Max. I didn’t know if I could trust them,” Kristin says.

Pinching the bridge of my nose, I suck in a deep breath that burns my lungs. This can’t be happening. “You told everyone you’re my girlfriend?” I ask, ignoring Kat’s fierce glare.

“Y-yeah,” my sister answers, her eyes wide and fearful. I guess she couldn’t have known why that would be such a big deal, but the thought that for even one second Joey believed … Fresh bile burns the back of my throat.

“Fuck, Kristin!” I push myself up and swing my legs off the edge of the bed.

Kat rushes over and tries to push me back down. “You should rest!”

“I need to speak to Joey,” I insist, yanking the blood pressure cuff from my arm. Jumping off the bed and onto the floor, I groan at the fiery agony that sears through my abdomen.

“Max. You just had surgery,” Kat says, sighing.

“Where is she?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m sorry, Max,” Kristin sniffs.

“You have nothing to be sorry for, sweetheart,” Kat assures her, but I tune them both out because all I can think about is Joey and what she must think of me right now. How long have I been out of it? How many hours, minutes, seconds has my girl spent thinking that I’m the kind of piece of shit who’d do something like that?

I run out into the hallway, adrenaline coursing through me, making me stronger and more determined with each step. “Joey?” I shout as I head toward the den. “Joey!”

I see Dante first as he walks out of his study. “Keep your fucking voice down,” he orders.

“I need to see Joey. Where is she?”

“She doesn’t want to speak to you right now.”

“I don’t give a fuck. Where is she, Dante?”

Lorenzo steps up beside him, fastening the buttons of his suit jacket. They stand side by side—against me. I roll my head side to side, back and forth, prepared to go through the two of them to get to her if I must.

“She’s not interested, Max.”

Blood thunders in my ears. “Joey,” I yell louder. I know she’s here somewhere. She has to be.

Dante takes a step toward me. “I said keep your fucking voice down. My daughter is asleep,” he says with a snarl, teeth bared like he’s spoiling for a fight. I never thought I’d stand on this side of the infamous wall of Moretti rage, but I will take both him and Lorenzo down if they don’t let me see her. And if I can’t get through them, I will fucking die trying. S~ᴇaʀᴄh the Findɴovel.ɴet website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

We glare at one another, none of us prepared to back down even a little. Each of us believing we’re right.

I sense her even before I hear her soft footsteps, and I’m filled with adrenaline and anguish when I look up to see her drifting down the staircase. Her bloodshot eyes make me wonder how many hours she spent crying. What the fuck have I done?

“Joey?” Her name comes out like a plea.

“Shouldn’t you be with your girlfriend?” She spits the last word like it’s poison on her tongue.

“She’s not my girlfriend, I swear to you.”

She reaches the bottom stair and makes her way to stand beside her brothers. All three Moretti siblings glare at me like I’m the enemy. But something about her standing by their side looks exactly right. Until now, I never noticed how much she has in common with her brothers. She’s equally smart, strong, and capable—and although she tries to hide her true feelings behind a veneer of sarcasm and snark, when she’s hurt … well, my girl brings the full Moretti arsenal. “She’s just some poor girl you knocked up then?” she snaps, her eyes brimming with fury.

I close my eyes as a fiery poker stabs my gut, but it’s nothing compared to the searing agony of Joey’s contempt.

“Not my kid either,” I groan, my hand pressed against my stomach. It feels like my guts are spilling out onto the floor.

“Fuck, he’s bleeding,” Lorenzo says and crosses the hallway, putting his hand on my shoulder. “Let’s get you back to Kat.”

I shrug him off. “I’m not going anywhere until I speak to my fucking girl,” I shout, even as my head spins and I sway on my feet.

Joey steps forward, baring her teeth. “I’m not your girl, you lying, cheating asshole.”

“Yes, you fucking are.”

She stalks toward me, and her scent scrambles my senses. I don’t know whether to drop to my knees at her feet, kiss her, or give into the dizziness and black out. “Tell that to that girl carrying your baby, Maximo. The one who’s been sobbing by your bedside for the past six hours.”

“It’s not my fucking baby,” I protest.

“You need to get back to Kat so she can take a look at you,” Lorenzo insists, wrapping an arm around my waist.

“I need to speak to my fucking girl.” I try to shrug him off again, but I don’t have the strength this time.

She rolls her eyes. “There is nothing you can say—”

“Kristin is my little sister, Joey. That kid she’s having is my nephew, not my son.”

“What?” Joey frowns and shakes her head. “You don’t even have a sister.”

“I fucking knew it,” Dante says.

Joey slaps her brother on the arm. “If you knew that, why the hell didn’t you tell me? Asshole.”

Dante sighs. “I mean … I didn’t know …” He shakes his head. “It’s a long fucking story.”

“Can we do this later? Max is fucking bleeding all over the marble here,” Lorenzo snaps impatiently.

I look down at the blood-soaked bandage wrapped around my abdomen and close my eyes to fight back the nausea. “I thought your wife was good at stitches, buddy?”

Dante’s chuckle is cut off by his wife stomping toward us.

“She is, but I didn’t stitch you up, and you’re not supposed to be out of bed yet, dumbass!” Kat yells. “Get him back in the bed.”

“You heard the doc,” Lorenzo says as he spins me around and practically carries me down the hallway.

I glance over my shoulder, struggling to remain conscious. “Jo—”

“I’m right here, Max,” she says, but I can’t read her tone. Does she believe me? Does it even matter to her now? Whatever, I’ll make sure it fucking matters to her. She’s still mine.

Back in the makeshift hospital room, Kat gingerly peels the wet bandage from my stomach. “Should it be bleeding like that?” Joey asks from beside me.

“He busted his stitches, is all. They weren’t all that secure from what I can see.” Kat looks up and scowls at Dante. “I think prohibition was in place the last time that surgeon you found operated.” I try not to flinch at the glare she turns my way. “Besides, these things can happen if you go running down hallways right after major abdominal surgery.”

“Major abdominal surgery,” Lorenzo snorts. “It was barely a scratch.”

Kat gets to work cleaning my wound with efficiency. I bite back a curse and chuckle. “Yeah, barely.”

“I can give you something more for the pain?” Kat offers.

“No. No more drugs.” I shake my head. “I want my thinking clear.”

“Whatever you say. But this is going to hurt like hell.”

Kat urges me to lie down, then quickly stitches me back up.

Only when my head stops spinning do I look up, scanning the room until my eyes lock on Joey’s. I hold out my hand for her, and it feels like a goddamn eternity passes before she gently entwines her fingers in mine. “You are the only fucking girl for me, Joey Moretti.” I say loudly so that there will be no doubt of that fact in anyone’s mind.

“Max?” My attention goes to where Kristin still sits in the corner, a horror-stricken expression on her face, her eyes shimmering with tears. “I’m s-sorry. I d-didn’t know.”

I give her a weak smile. “I know. It’s okay. But you can trust everyone in this room. I promise you that. Tell them who you really are.”

Kristin sucks in a deep breath as every pair of eyes in the room, except for Kat’s, trains on her. “I’m Max’s little sister.” She looks at my girl. “I’m so sorry, Joey. I can’t imagine what you must have thought of me. I didn’t know you and he— If I had …”

“But why did you tell us you were his girlfriend?” Joey asks, her beautiful face pulled into a frown. “Why not just tell us the truth?”

Kristin opens and closes her mouth like a fish out of water, but no words come out.

“Because of who your father is?” Dante offers for her.

Closing her eyes, my sister nods.

“I don’t understand.” Joey looks between Dante, Kristin, and me. “Who is her father? Why didn’t you tell me you had a sister? Why didn’t any of us know about her, Max?”

I squeeze Joey’s hand. So many questions, and I don’t have all the answers yet. “I didn’t know myself until about two weeks ago when Kristin showed up on my doorstep.”

“So you’ve known for two weeks. Why couldn’t you tell me? Is that why we didn’t go back to your apartment that night?”

I open my mouth to answer, but Kristin beats me to it. “I asked Max not to tell anyone I was here,” she says, standing and walking toward the bed. “My father told me that I couldn’t trust a Moretti, so I made Max promise to keep me a secret.”

Joey shakes her head. “But why are you here? Why now? Why couldn’t you trust us, but you trusted Max? You know he’s one of us, right?”

“Because he’s my big brother,” Kristin whispers. “My father told me if I was ever in trouble, Max was the only person I could rely on.”

“You knew about Max then?” Lorenzo’s eyes narrow with interest and suspicion.

She shakes her head vigorously. “No. Not until two months ago. I had no idea.”

Dante pinches the bridge of his nose. “But your father is Vito DiMarco, right?”

Joey’s frown deepens. “Vito DiMarco?”

“My uncle,” I explain.

“Your uncle is also your sister’s father?” Her eyebrows shoot up to her hairline.

“Yep.”

Lorenzo claps his hands and gets everyone’s attention. “Can someone start at the beginning and explain what the fuck is going on here?”

“Kristin? You know the whole story and Nurse Ratched here isn’t exactly being gentle, ya know?” Wincing, I glare down at Kat who just stabbed the needle into my flesh with more force than before.

“I will kick your ass, DiMarco,” she says good-naturedly, keeping her head down and remaining focused on the task at hand.

“A-are you sure?” Kristin asks me.

I give her a reassuring nod. “These people are my family. There’s nothing you can’t tell them, I swear.”

“Okay.” She chews on her lip for a second before she goes on. “A few months ago, my dad started acting strangely. Like he was always pretty paranoid, but he upped the ante, you know? Wouldn’t let me leave the house. Always checking in on me.”

“Seems like he didn’t keep that much of a careful eye on you.” Dante tilts his head and stares at her rounded abdomen.

Kristin flinches and rubs a protective hand over her belly. “Well, that, um. That’s a different story.”

My brotherly instincts flare to life. She isn’t here to have her actions judged by a room full of strangers. While I know that wasn’t Dante’s intention—he’s an asshole, but he isn’t that kind of asshole—she doesn’t owe them an explanation. Especially not like this, not right now. We’ll need to talk about that prick soon enough, but she doesn’t need to be here when we discuss how we’re going to find and kill the father of her baby.

Reaching out with my spare hand, I gently squeeze her wrist. “Maybe we don’t focus on the jackass who knocked you up right now?”

Kristin nods gratefully and continues. “Dad was extra suspicious, but he said he was just being careful. We moved twice in the space of six months. When I finally had enough and demanded to know what the hell was going on, he was still sketchy, but that’s when he finally told me about Max. How our mom was married to Max’s dad when she fell in love with him. How they risked everything to run off together.”

Lorenzo snorts, and I throw him a warning look. That’s clearly the version of events Vito told his daughter, and it’s the story she believes. None of the choices our mother and her father made back then are on Kristin. She feels alone enough in the world right now without all of us telling her what a piece of work her father really is.

“Go on,” I say, urging her to continue.

“He said that if anything ever happened to him then I needed to find Max because I’d be safe with him. He drummed two messages into me. The only person I could ever trust was Max and that I should never trust a Moretti.” She pauses, letting the information sink in.

The tension in the room goes up several notches, and I’m relieved that she’s intuitive enough not to share the message my dear old uncle told her to give me. That would almost certainly send Lorenzo and Dante off the deep end.

“Then, one night about three weeks ago, he didn’t come home. I called and I waited, hoping I’d hear from him, but after two days I knew something bad must have happened. So I took the emergency fund and came to Chicago.”

“That’s when she showed up at your door?” Dante asks.

“Well, my apartment building, but yeah. I knew as soon as I saw her …” I trail off, recalling the first time I saw her. How frightened and pale she looked. How much she reminded me of our mom.

“And she’s been hiding out at your place in secret ever since?” Joey’s words drip with venom. I can’t blame her. She has every right to be pissed at me.

“We’ve been looking for Vito. I was going to tell you …” Sighing, I shake my head. I’ve never kept anything like this from them before. “And I didn’t want to bring any more drama to your door right now …”

“And she made you promise not to tell us, right?” Joey snaps and turns her rage on my sister. “Never trust a Moretti, that’s what your father taught you?”

Kristin looks down at the floor, her cheeks flushing pink.

“Joey, don’t.” I squeeze her hand tighter. “She’s just a kid. She was scared. She only knows what her father told her. That’s not on her.”

My girl scowls at me, but she doesn’t pull her hand away.

“So when you came here, you told us you were Max’s girlfriend because you didn’t trust us enough to tell us you were really his sister?” There’s no malice or accusation in Lorenzo’s tone, but Kristin’s throat constricts as she swallows under the heat of his gaze.

“Y-yeah.”

I gesture for her to come closer and wrap my arm around her waist. “It’s okay. They just need to know what’s going on.”

Dante clears his throat and addresses Kristin. “You can stay here until Max is back to full strength and we find out what’s happened to your father.”

Her eyes widen with surprise. “I can’t stay here now that Max is back.”

“You can and you will,” Kat says in a steely tone as she finishes off the last of my stitches. “Your father may have had his reasons for not trusting this family, but you are Max’s sister, and he’s our brother. You have nothing to fear from anyone in this house.”

Kristin gives Kat a faint smile. Dante’s wife, with her confidence and kindness, is impossible not to trust.

Still, my sister looks at me for reassurance. “You’re safe here, I promise. And I’ll be right here with you. Okay?”

“Okay,” she says, nodding and blinking back tears.

“We’ll fix you up in the guest room that’s just down the hall from Joey’s room. And Max, where will you be staying?” Kat arches an eyebrow at me, and the mischievous glint in her eyes has me biting back a grin. I need all the help I can get and having her on my side is more than I could’ve hoped for.

Dante scoffs, glaring at his wife. “He’ll be in the guest room on the other side of the house.”

“Dante,” Joey huffs.

Dante snorts. “He’s not staying in your room,”

Lorenzo puts a hand on his younger brother’s shoulder and keeps his voice low. “Maybe we should let Joey decide?”

“Since when are you on her side on this?” Dante asks with a frown.

“Since I have better things to do with my time than police our adult sister,” Lorenzo replies with a sigh. “Joey’s a grown woman now, whether we want to admit that or not. Hasn’t she proven that she’s capable of behaving like an adult?”

“Thank you, Lorenzo,” Joey says, giving her oldest brother a genuine smile. “It’s nice to have one of you believe in me.”

Dante rolls his eyes and puts his arm around her shoulder. “You know that I know you’re capable, Joey. Of course I believe in you.”

“Then you don’t believe in Max? Is that it?”

Shaking his head, he releases a heavy sigh. “It’s not that straightforward.”

“Nothing worth having is,” she counters.

Fuck, I wish they would all get the hell out and let me talk to her alone. I have no intentions of sleeping in her room with her, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be spending plenty of time in there with her. The Moretti siblings could go on arguing all night about this. I cough loudly, and they turn their attention back to me. “Can I have a minute with my girl?”

Lorenzo and Dante look at each other, but Kat ushers everyone out of the room, speaking over their protests with instructions that I need to rest. Shooting me a knowing look over her shoulder, she mouths for me to be careful and closes the door behind her, leaving Joey and me alone.

My girl props her hip on the edge of the bed beside me, her fingers still laced through mine.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Kristin, baby girl. I was going to as soon as I figured out what was going on. It just never seemed like the right time.”

“When she told me … and I thought …” A tear runs down her cheek, and she swats it away.

“I know, baby.” Lifting my heavy arms, I wrap them around her, pulling her close and holding on tight. I’ve been desperate to touch her for so long that I’m still not entirely sure this moment isn’t a figment of my imagination, but her familiar scent and the hot tears soaking my chest assure me this is real.

She nuzzles my chest. “I thought I’d lost you, Max …”

“I’m right here.”

“You almost died,” she whispers, lifting her head and looking at me with tears rolling down her cheeks.

“I’d never die on you.”

“You ever even attempt to get yourself kidnapped again and you’ll wish you were dead, DiMarco,” she says, faking a scowl.

“I promise never to even think about it.”

She sits up, her dark eyes locked on my face. “I hate that you weren’t honest with me.”

“I know.”

“If you had been …” She wipes away another tear.

I cup her face in my hands. The fact that she even thought me capable of something like that burns me from the inside. Doesn’t she, of all people, know me better than that? But I can’t fight with her right now. I can feel nothing but grateful that she’s here with me. “I hate that you thought I’d betray you like that, Joey. The fact you could believe me capable of hurting you that way is worse than a knife to the stomach. I regret every single second that you spent hating me.”

“I never hated you, Max.”

“No?”

“No. I can’t.”

“Not even when you thought …?”

Joey shakes her head. “Not even then.”

I brush my fingertips over her cheek. God, I want to take her to bed and stay there with her for the rest of my goddamn life. “Are we okay?”

“I guess,” she whispers.

That’s not exactly the emphatic yes I hoped for, but it will have to do for now. “I need to talk to Dante and Lorenzo.”

“Do it tomorrow. Rest today. There’s a room ready for you upstairs.”

“The one on the other side of the house from you?”

“Well, we did make that one up for you. It was supposed to be for you and Kristin, so I wanted it as far away from me as possible.”

“I’m sorry, baby.”

“I know.”

The fact that she was still willing to have me here, both of us, well, that reminds me how fucking incredible this girl right here is. “You were going to let me stay here? Me and Kristin?”

“Yes. Although I guess you won’t want to share a room with your kid sister?” She laughs softly, and the sound makes my heart beat faster.

I brush my fingertips over her cheek. I’d much rather share one with her, but how do I tell her that I can’t, maybe not ever? How the hell do I trust myself around the one person it would kill me to hurt?

Her eyes darken as the skin on her neck turns pink. “I guess you could stay in my room,” she whispers seductively.

A ball of emotion lodges in my throat. I want nothing more than to stay in her room with her. Go to sleep next to her soft, warm body and wake up with her in my arms. Fuck her every single night and every single morning for the rest of my goddamn life.

“I need to talk to your brothers, baby,” I say, struggling to sit up.

She steps back, frowning at me while she chews on her lip. “Kat told you to rest.”

“She stitched me back up. I’m good. Besides, I’m going to shuffle down the hallway and then sit in their office. Nothing heavy. I promise.”

“Please don’t get into anything now, Max,” Joey pleads. I take her hand and pull her back to me, brushing my bandaged fingers through her hair. “I only just got you back,” she whispers.

I press my lips close to her ear, and she shivers in my arms. “Baby girl, I promise you I’m not going anywhere, okay? But I need to speak to your brothers. I have to do this right.”

She stares into my eyes, and even though I know she wants to fight me on this, her shoulders drop in defeat. “Fine. I’ll wait for you in the den.”

“Good girl.” I don’t miss the way her breath catches at those words, and my cock throbs. Thoughts of her kept me sane while I was tied up and tortured, and I’m fucking desperate to feel her again. To taste her. To claim every single inch of her as my own. But I need to make things right first.

When I reach Dante and Lorenzo’s study, there’s a guard outside the door as usual. I wonder if he’s been given orders to keep me out, but he nods a greeting and opens the door for me, which I take to mean that the Moretti brothers didn’t keep me alive just so they could kill me themselves.

“Max,” Dante says with a nod.

“Take a seat.” Lorenzo indicates the chair opposite them, but I remain standing for now.

“We’ve been thinking about who might have taken you and why—” Dante begins, but I cut him off.

“Before we get into any of that, I need to ask you both something.”

They stare at me, and I suddenly realize what it must feel like to be on this side of the desk for a change—metaphorically speaking.

“I want your permission to date your sister,” I say, my hands stuffed into the pockets of my bloodstained sweatpants.

Dante’s eyes narrow. “And if we say no?”

I shrug. “I guess it doesn’t change the outcome. I’m going to date her anyway, but I’d prefer to do it with your blessing.”

“You swore, Max. Joey was off-limits.”

“That was a long time ago. We were kids making stupid promises to each other. I get that I should’ve told you first, but it all kind of happened so fast. I tried to fight it, but I couldn’t. Still, I want to do this right. You two are my family,” I say, choking up on the last word.

“A family you were prepared to walk away from? Because you knew what would happen if you fucked around with Joey.” Dante says, his tone cold and detached.

“I would never ask either of you to choose between me and Anya or Kat. Never. But if you make me choose, I will choose her. Every single fucking time.” I step forward and place my palms flat on their desk. “I know you’re worried that I might hurt her—” I stop to swallow the words that get stuck in my throat. “But I never would. I’ll never drink when I’m with her. Never take so much as an aspirin if she’s staying in my bed. I don’t know if—”

Lorenzo holds up a hand. “You can’t seriously think our problem with you dating our sister has anything to do with the Delgado girl?”

I blink at him.

“That was twelve fucking years ago, compagno,” Dante adds.

“I fucking killed her,” I remind them. “And I still don’t remember a goddamn thing.”

“You were drunk and on drugs. You weren’t thinking straight,” Lorenzo says, his brow furrowed in a scowl.

“I still did it. If I ever hurt Joey like that—” I drop into one of the chairs in front of their desk and scrub a hand over my face.

Dante leans forward in his seat. “We don’t want you to date our sister because it’s messy, Max. If you and she …” He shakes his head. If Joey and I don’t work out, it would put us all in an untenable position. “It has nothing to do with what happened with that girl.”

“But it should! You should want me to stay away from her because you know what I’m capable of. The things I’ve done. I want to stay away from her because of them.” I drop my head into my hands. “But I can’t.”

Dante clears his throat. “So, you date our sister, but you never spend the night together? How the fuck does that even work, Max? She’ll never go for it.”

“As long as I don’t fall asleep—”

“Now you’re going to stop sleeping?” Dante snaps.

“No,” I bark. I don’t know the answers. All I know is that I can’t live without her. And I can’t hurt her. “I’ll figure something out. Maybe I could get some therapy or something?”

Lorenzo snorts. “Therapy?”

“Yes. Therapy,” I repeat. “To figure out what happened. Because if I could just remember …” I shake my head.

“You need to stop fucking torturing yourself, Max,” Dante says with a sigh. “You were both so wasted, you didn’t know what you were doing. She was into some kinky shit like you, and it went too far because you were both too fucked up to stop it. That’s all.”

I stare at him. I wish it was as easy for me to explain away, but not being able to remember what happened that night haunts my every waking moment. I’ve killed plenty of people—my body count is higher than both Moretti brothers’ combined—but I remember them all. I watched the light go out of their eyes every single time.

Except for her.

I took her life and don’t even remember doing it. How the hell am I supposed to sleep next to the most precious person in the entire world and not worry that one morning I might wake up and find her lifeless face on the pillow next to me?

Lorenzo cuts off my internal argument. “You should tell her.”

“I should what?”

“Tell her. She deserves to know,” Lorenzo replies with a shrug.

“You didn’t think that earlier,” I remind him.

“I didn’t realize it still ate you up this much.”

“And if it didn’t eat me up? If I could just forget about the fact that I murdered an innocent girl while we were having sex, that would be okay? I wouldn’t have to tell her then?” I snap.

“If you’re making decisions about Joey’s life—about the kind of life she’ll have if she chooses you, then she deserves to know before she falls for you any more than she already has.”

Dante nods solemnly, siding with his brother. “He’s right, Max.”

“What if she hates me?”

“She won’t,” Lorenzo fires back.

“She deserves the truth, compagno. All of it,” Dante says.

“How else are you going to explain the fact that you’re not sleeping in her room tonight if you don’t?” Lorenzo asks.

“I’ll tell her I’m tired, or …”

Dante shakes his head. “You’ll break her fucking heart. If you’re going to ask to date our sister, Max, then you will tell her the fucking truth.”

I slump in my chair. I know they’re right, but what if it costs me everything? What if it costs me her?

A soft knock at the door snatches all our attention.

“Come in,” Dante shouts.

My entire world walks into the room, and the soft smile on her face makes me want to cut my tongue out of my mouth so we don’t have to have this conversation. “It’s getting kind of late, and Kat says Max should rest. We can talk about everything that happened tomorrow, right?”

Dante and Lorenzo voice their agreement.

“Good. You can stay in my room,” she says to me, her eyes shining with a happiness that I worried I’d never see again. Fuck, can’t I just have one more day when she still looks at me like that?

Lorenzo clears his throat. “Shall we give you the room?”

“No, stay.” They know everything anyway. At least if they’re here, I won’t back out when I see the look of horror on her face. I’ll have no choice but to tell her the whole ugly truth.

“Is something wrong?” Joey asks from where she stands beside me.

“Take a seat,” Dante replies.

“Why? What is it?” she asks, an angry edge creeping into her voice. “You don’t get to keep Max and me—”

“It’s not that, Joey,” I interrupt before she starts berating her brothers. “Sit down.”

“You’re freaking me out, Max.” Her voice wobbles.

I take hold of her hand, curling my fingers around hers and tugging her down into the chair next to me. “I have to tell you about something I did.”

“What—what did you do?”

“I killed someone, Joey.”

Falling back in her chair, she starts to laugh, and I gape at her. “Max. You asshole.”

“This is serious, Joey. Not just anyone. A girl.”

Her laugh cuts off abruptly. “A girl? What girl?”

“Her name was Fiona. She was a … friend of ours.”

“Fiona?” She frowns.

“It was twelve years ago, Joey,” Lorenzo adds.

“But why? What did she do?” Joey asks, her fingers still entwined in mine.

“She didn’t do anything,” I say quietly. “I don’t even remember what happened. I woke up and she was dead in bed beside me.”

Her face turns pale, and her nose wrinkles with horror and disgust while my heart threatens to burst through my fucking ribcage. “No.” She shakes her head emphatically. “Fiona, right? The girl with those stupid pigtails?”

“Yeah. Fiona Delgado.”

“No,” she says again, still shaking her head.

“Joey, I know—”

“No, Max. You didn’t kill her.”

“I did, Joey. I woke up and she was dead. With my handprints around her neck.”

“No!” she shouts now, pulling her hand from mine as she looks to her brothers. “Those weren’t Max’s handprints.” Her hand flies to her mouth and tremors wrack her body.

I lean forward, placing my hand on her back. “Joey, baby?”

“Those were his handprints,” she whispers, her eyes wide as she looks first at her brothers, then at me. “Sal’s.”

Lorenzo and Dante lean forward. We stare at her.

“What are you talking about?” Dante asks softly.

“He killed that girl. The night of your graduation party. I saw him.”

“N-no,” I stammer, shaking my head.

“He did. I saw him. I saw him and some other guy talking about getting rid of the body.”

“You’re sure it was Fiona? You were only ten, Joey,” Dante says.

“I know what I saw, Dante!” Joey shrieks. “Dad promised me twenty bucks if I stayed out of the way of the party all night, so once you and your buddies were all too drunk to walk, I went to call in my debt. But when I got to his office, he was with some guy, and Fiona was dead on the floor. I recognized her pigtails. I knew it was her because I always hated her and the way she told me to get lost whenever I was talking to Max. But then she was dead …”

I lean forward, dropping my head into my hands. I feel like I’m about to throw up for at least the third time today. This is fucking unbelievable. For twelve long years, I’ve tortured myself with the memory of that morning. With the image of Fiona Delgado, naked and dead next to me. And I’ve wracked my brain almost every single day since then to piece together what happened because I don’t remember a single second of it. I always put it down to being so wasted on brandy and cocaine that I blacked out. And I haven’t touched either of them since. But of course I don’t remember. Because I didn’t fucking touch her.

“You’re sure about this, Joey?” Lorenzo asks.

“I just freaking told you I am.”

“What exactly did you hear Pop say?” Dante says.

“The other guy was asking what they were gonna do with her, and Dad said that he had the perfect plan for her. He called her a money-grubbing little whore, and I didn’t know what it meant at the time, but I remember how angry he sounded. It gave me goosebumps all over my skin.”

“Then what?”

“Then he saw me, and he was all sweet to me—the way he could be sometimes, you know? He said the silly girl in his office tried to hurt our family and that he was going to take care of it. He gave me my twenty bucks and told me to go back to bed.”

“Why didn’t you ever tell us, Joey?” Dante asks.

“I-I didn’t really know what it meant, and it wasn’t the first dead body I’d seen. He made me promise never to tell anyone and then … well, it wasn’t the worst thing he ever did.”

I dry heave, and Joey rubs my back.

Barely a day has passed when I haven’t thought about her and tried to remember what I did. Especially since Joey. I’ve smoldered with the desperate need to know what I did to that girl, so I could make sure I never repeated the same mistake again.

“B-but she was in my bed.” I stand up, my head spinning. “She was there with me.”

“Then he must have put her there because I assure you that she was dead when I walked out of his office.”

“No.” Running my hands through my hair, I shake my head. “No. He wouldn’t— He let me think—”

“He would, Max,” Lorenzo says, deadpan.

“B-but.” I blink at him, searching his dark eyes for answers. He looks so much like Sal. I don’t think I ever really noticed that before. “Did you know?”

He scowls. “No,” he insists.

Of course he didn’t. He hated his father. He would never cover for him like that.

“I’m sorry, Max. If I’d known that he made you … that he framed you … I would have told you a long time ago.” Joey’s pain-filled voice makes my heart ache for her.

I squeeze her hand. “It’s not on you, baby.” I grind out the words as rage and sheer fucking relief course through my veins.

“I always knew there was something not right about the whole situation. The way you found her in bed that morning.” Lorenzo says, appearing deep in thought.

I blink at him. “You did?”

“I’ve told you this many times, Maximo. But you would never listen.”

“I can’t …” I shake my head. Immediately after it happened, and on the handful of occasions we’ve discussed it since, he questioned the events that led to Fiona being in my bed, but I thought he was just trying to jog my memory or make me feel better.

Dante stares at me. “This makes sense, Max. Fiona was never your type. She’d been hanging around you for months, and no matter how drunk you got, you never so much as brushed her arm.”

“Yeah, but I was so drunk that night …” My head spins so fast I think I might pass out. Sal gave me the last glass of brandy I remember drinking that night.

“You didn’t kill her, Max,” Joey says. Leaning over in her chair, she wraps her arms around my neck and presses a soft kiss on my shoulder. “I’m sorry he made you believe you did.”

“Then how the fuck did she end up in my bed?”

Nobody answers—I guess because the answer is so fucking obvious.

I alternate between hanging my head in my hands and looking at my best friends while Joey holds onto me like I’m in danger of floating away in the middle of this shitstorm. “Why would he do that?” I ask when I find the words to speak. I was never anything but loyal to Salvatore Moretti. He had no reason to doubt me—to frame me for murder, if that’s what happened.

“Because he was a sick, twisted fuck,” Dante spits. “But we already knew that.”

“I’m so sorry, Max,” Joey says again. “If I’d just mentioned something. I hate that you carried this around for half your life.”

“You have nothing to apologize for,” I assure her.

Lorenzo pinches the bridge of his nose. “It’s late and I need to check on Anya. We could spend the rest of our lives discussing the piece of shit that was our father, but nothing is going to change what he did now.”

“I agree. I think we should all get some sleep,” Dante suggests. He jerks his chin at me. “Is there any information about who took you that can’t wait until morning?”

“No. It can wait.” Sleep sounds like fucking heaven right now. Maybe when I wake up, I won’t have spent the last twelve years driving myself crazy trying to remember something I didn’t do. “But I should check on Kristin before I go to bed.”

“I checked on her before I came in here,” Joey says. “She’s sleeping. I don’t think you should disturb her. She hardly slept at all while you were gone.”

“None of us did,” Lorenzo adds, throwing his sister a concerned look.

Fuck, I should stop feeling sorry for myself and take better care of my girl. Should focus on the revelation that I’m not at risk of murdering her in her sleep after all, because as fucked up as this whole thing is, the fact that I can crawl into bed with her tonight—hell, every night—should be compensation enough for anything her father ever put me through.

“Shall we go to bed?” Even though the way she says the words is entirely innocent, my cock still twitches to life.

I stare at her. She makes the whole goddamn world make sense. “Yeah.” I guess the past doesn’t matter so much when my future is standing right here.