Page 53 of Caught in the Crossfire

“You look like shit,” he repeated. “Drink.”

I flipped him off. And drank. Both of us covered up coughs, because as much as we’d undergone in the last few years of training under Uncle and my father, as much as we’d done and seen, we were still fifteen.

Two drinks and an hour later, Cas passed out in my bedroom while I was still wired. I spun in my chair at the antique desk Mamma gave me for my tenth birthday. She’s said I’d grow into a man with this desk. She was right, but neither of us knew she’d never see it.

I couldn’t fall asleep. I stood, carrying my glass along with the bottle down the hallway and to Papa’s office. As soon as the door opened, his scent smacked me in the face, and I physically recoiled, almost dropping the bottle.

My fingers tightened.

“Get your shit together, Max,” I hissed through gritted teeth. My eyes stung with unshed tears, but still they refused to drip down my cheeks. I refused to let them.

My feet carried me forward, around my father’s desk. I collapsed into his chair, downing the rest of my glass. I poured myself another few fingers, but I made a mess and spilled on his desk.

“Shit,” I whispered, glancing around for something to clean up the spill with. I couldn’t ruin his desk. Not where he sat and tookphone calls and bounced me on his knee as he tried to teach me what it took to run a business, a Family, like ours.

I rifled through the desk drawers—my fingers fumbling through their contents. What was I looking for?

Oh, yeah. Something to clean a spill.

I pulled open the bottom drawer on the right. A leather-bound notebook sat inside. My father’s name,Massimo Volpe,was emblazoned in gold in the bottom right corner. A journal?

My hands shook and my vision spun as I pulled out the notebook. Its pages were filled and filled with my father’s thoughts and plans dating back ten years.

I blinked, trying to get my vision to stop spinning. The last entry was dated just a few days before his death.

My throat closed up, and I slammed the journal shut. I laid my head on the desk, the spill forgotten, as a tremor rolled through my body. The alcohol churned in my stomach.

I groaned. Why had I let Cas talk me into drinking?

“Get it together and read it, you fucker,” I berated myself. I wasstrong. My father had taught me to be strong.

Cas’s snore echoed down the hallway, and I sat up, glaring at the leather. I didn’t have to read it. I could save it for later. When I felt more settled. When I wasn’t drunk.

But those pages called to me.

I slapped my cheekshard, trying to get my head back on straight.

Carefully, I flipped to the last entry and started reading.

Max, if you’re reading this, I must be dead.

My eyes went wide, and my vision swam. “What?” I whispered to the empty air. I reread the line over and over.

I’ve been writing this journal for you for over ten years, hoping that one day—in the eventof my likely death—you’d find comfort in its pages. But as I write this last entry, even I am devastated by the knowledge that I’ll soon leave you. I’m so sorry, son. I wish our lives could be different. I wish we could be free. But we’re the kings of our world, and that requires sacrifice.

Whatever story you heard about my death is probably not true. If you heard it was an accident, if you heard I was killed on an assignment, or assassinated, or died in my sleep, don’t believe it. I was murdered, and I know who did it.

My hands shook and my lungs seized.

I uncovered the truth.

The truth about everything.

I don’t have the time to explain, but the answers lie in the pages of this journal and the others I’ve hidden for you to find. For the last ten years, I’ve felt something was wrong. I thought your Uncle was lying to me.

Now I know.

He has ruined us. Ruined everything. If I’m dead, that means I couldn’t stop him.