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“Giancarlo, what’s the next move?” Fozzi asks when several moments of silence pass. He eyes me from across the room with that concerned expression of his—brow creased and his mouth bent into a frown.

My phone rings from within the breast pocket of my dress shirt. Claro’s name pops up on the screen. I spend a second staring at the green and red buttons, debating if I want to speak to him right now.

When sober, my patience runs thin for his stupidity.

“Gianni,” Ma says, appearing at my side. She doesn’t hide the urgency in her voice. “You have to answer. It’s important.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I snap.

Fozzi’s frown deepens. “Talking about what?”

I ignore him, moving away from Ma and her pestering. She’s like a plague seeking to infect me with her worries and guilt. She can’t just leave me be, leave me to deal with shit on my own. She’d rather emerge from the past and cause pain in the present, ruining the future.

Maybe Pa was right. She was better off dead.

“Hello,” I say crudely. “What do you want, Claro? This isn’t a good time.”

“He’s passed,” Claro answers without preamble. He sounds croakier than usual, like he’s in between slopping down liquor and crying. “Giancarlo, your father…he’s gone.”

My heart stills in my chest. An icy coldness fills my lungs and trickles down my spine, leaving me paralyzed. I’m a detached son of a bitch, barely human, but the words do something to me—they make something inside me snap in half. Maybe the last sliver of humanity I have left.

When I speak, it’s quiet and subdued, though my heart’s started beating again. It pounds fast in my chest like a fucking jackhammer.

“How?” I ask. A thickness forms in my throat, turning my voice as croaky as Claro’s.

“Peacefully in his sleep. He didn’t suffer. His nurse says his heart gave out.” He produces a phlegmy snorting sound, too mixed up in his liquor and grief. Seconds pass with me listening to him unravel as I stand composed yet erratic on the inside.

Pa is gone.

Pa’s gone.

He’sdead.

Dead. Dead. DEAD.

The word repeats over again in my head.

Ma reappears out of nowhere, a ghost I can’t escape. Her form remains as incorporeal as ever, though the blood on her dress appears less hazy than the rest of her. She reaches for me in comfort, but I swing my arm right through her. She fades into nothing, mouthing the words, “I’m sorry, Gianni.”

“Giancarlo?” Fozzi says.

“WHAT?”

I’m losing it. Between Claro’s drunken sobbing on the other end, Ma’s haunting me, and Fozzi standing off to the side like a dumbass, I’m too on edge.

“This couldn’t have come at a worse time. Has your brother reached out to you?”

His question snaps me back into reality. “Giovanni? He’s—”

“Not dead,” Claro says. “Giancarlo, hesurvived. He’s flown into the country. Thank Christ your father got to speak to him before he went. But you know what this means, don’t you? The two of you—you can’t battle it out. Your father wouldn’t want it.”

Giovanni is alive? How can that possibly be? He was on the yacht when it blew up into a blaze of fire. It’s unfathomable he could’ve possibly survived.

If he is back, if he’s in the country, he’ll be raising hell in no time.

“Where is he?” I ask.

“He wouldn’t tell me, but Giancarlo you two can’t fight. Have you been using? It makes you reckless—”

I hang up, my head pounding. I need fresh air. I need a fix.

I needFalynn.

My eyes close as I imagine her and the softness of her touch. Her fingers running through my hair. Her body pressed up against mine. The comfort she’d provide me if only she were mine like she was my brother’s.

My brother, who apparently has survived. If he has, he’s with Falynn. I don’t have a doubt she’d be one of his first priorities.

“We have to go,” I grunt, storming toward the door. “It’s time to play offense and get them before they get me.”

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