took Dario a few long breaths before he opened his eyes and took the handkerchief I offered him. He rubbed his lip, not slapping my hand away when I turned his face toward me, giving him a once over. “You’ll do. Ice that lip when you get home.”
“Asshole.”
“Yeah, I am.”
He watched me, not speaking, like he expected me to elaborate. He wanted a reason for the little exorcism I’d just forced him into. Dario wasn’t thick. He was a smart guy, but so much time away from us had clouded who he was. His head was muddled with how his life had been. He needed reminding that things on the outside weren’t the same.
“Dimitri,” he started, but went quiet when I glared at him.
I inhaled, scratching at the stubble on my chin as I looked toward town, wondering how long I’d have to wait to get my brother back, hoping that this shook some sense into all the fucking fog in his head. “I am an asshole because I have to be.” I glanced at him, eyes narrowed. “Pop is out. Johnny…he wants out too.”
“What’s our cousin got to do with…”
When I tilted my head, letting loose one humorless laugh, Dario dropped his mouth open, his eyes rounding.
“No. Fuck that. You can’t take over for him. Ma would lose her shit.”
“He has a family now. A wife, a child and no one that he trusts. Who else will do it?” I stood, tired of the look my kid brother gave me, sick when I thought about the complaining I knew he’d start in with.
“The shit here, in this town, D, this is nothing like Johnny’s business. This is…” He waved a hand toward the small buildings and lights illuminated near the town square. “It’s a few hot shipments and slipping dock managers thick envelopes to get cheap shit for good store owners. But Johnny’s shit…that’s not…that’s…”
“It’s not that big of a leap.”
My cousin wasn’t a don.
None of us were.
But he had connections, obligations that had made him rich. If I took over for him, like he kept asking me to do, it would free up any worries about anyone working over my dock managers or shooting up my men. It would give me leverage I didn’t have here.
“You’d be a different man in the city.” Dario stood, stuffing the handkerchief in his pocket. “We…probably wouldn’t recognize you anymore.”
“Yeah,” I told him, pulling my attention away from the town and back to my brother’s bruised face. “Think I know what that’s like.”
“There’s a difference. You aren’t going to prison.”
I moved up the right side of my mouth and Dario seemed to understand what I didn’t say. There would be no guards, no warden, but taking on our cousin’s business would put me in a place I didn’t want to be. The spotlight.
Dario let out a sigh, and the split in his bottom lip opened again but didn’t bleed. “You gotta stay here.”
“I might not have a choice, man.”
Maggie’s face from the night before crawled into my skull, reminding me of how right she’d been. I had to protect them and doing that might mean losing her in the process.
“Your girl—” Dario said, like that was the simplest answer.
“She’s getting scared.”
My brother dropped his shoulders, moving to my side. “Then stop giving her a reason to be afraid, asshole.”
I ran my fingers through my hair, scrubbing my face. I waved a hand, dismissing Johnny and Maggie and the shit I didn’t need anyone’s advice on. “What I need is for you to step up.”
“I’m…trying.” Dario went back to my car, sitting on the hood again and I moved next to him. “This…all of this, is fucking with me. I spent day in and day out for five years being told what to do, where to go, when to eat and shit and work, when to sleep, when to fucking think. And now I’m here, and you say to me, ‘handle this,’ or ‘take care of this’ and I’ve got no idea how I’m supposed to do anything anymore and then you throw this redhead at me and damn, D, is she something else.”
Laughter bubbled inside my chest. I couldn’t keep it locked down.
Dario threw a glare at me, his face contorting into a scowl and I held up my hand, a weak apology he ignored.
“I’m sorry, man…I just. Fuck, I never thought I’d see the day when Dario Carelli let a woman scare him.”
That glare transformed to surprise, then moved right into