Page 57 of Joey

“Every fucking part of you. I’ll talk to you soon, okay?”

“Okay. Can I call you later?”

“Call me before you go to sleep.”

“I will.”

“I love you, Joey.” He hangs up before I can say it back.

ChapterTwenty-Four

MAX

The elevator doors open, and I half expect Kristin to be standing in the hallway waiting for me, but the scent of bacon and eggs wafts from the kitchen. Leaning against the door, I take a moment to process the events of the past twelve hours.

I feel guilty about leaving her alone last night, but not half as guilty as I do for telling Joey to leave with her brothers. The look on her face almost broke me. But it was the only option. They wouldn’t have given up easily. We would have only ended up nearly killing each other, and I don’t want that either. At the end of the day, those men are my brothers. It would kill me to lose them, but I will if that’s what it takes. Because I would die a thousand painful deaths before I willingly lost Joey Moretti.

At least I know she’s safe with her brothers. Plus, now that I’m not welcome in their house, I can focus all my attention on finding Kristin’s father. I figure I’ll get some answers by following every lead I can get my hands on. Then I can tell Joey everything and stop keeping secrets from her. And hopefully Dante and Lorenzo will have cooled off enough for me to tell them that I’m in love with their sister. It will all work out perfectly, right? So why does it hurt so fucking much to be away from her?

“Max, is that you?” Kristin calls from the kitchen.

“Yeah,” I shout as I walk down the hallway.

“You want some?” she asks, her back to me as she works at the stove.

“Sure.”

I take a seat at the kitchen island, and she turns to greet me. Her smile fades quickly. “What the hell happened to your face?”

I brush my fingertips over the cut above my eye. Dante has a mean right hook. “Oh, it was nothing.”

Hands on hips, she approaches me, and she looks so much like our mom that it takes me back over twenty years. I never think about my mom. She walked out on me, and as far as I’m concerned, she doesn’t deserve a second of my time. But having Kristin here has brought back all kinds of memories I’d rather forget. How great Mom was at making pancakes. Her laugh. How she would try to scowl when she yelled at me but could never quite manage it. How she always smelled of flowers. Those kinds of memories hurt, so I bury them deep. It’s easier to focus on the fact that she cheated on my father with his own brother and then left her only son when he was thirteen years old because she wanted an easier life.

It would be easy to resent my little sister, who only got the best of her. But I suppose she didn’t get much; Mom died when she was six.

“It doesn’t look like nothing,” she says, pulling me out of my thoughts. “Was it anything to do with my dad?”

“No. It was…” What the hell do I say?

“Was it about a girl?” Her eyes widen and she grins.

“I guess.”

“Who is she?”

“Bacon and eggs, yeah?” I nod at the stove, changing the subject away from my fucked-up love life.

She grumbles and goes back to cooking.

I watch her add more bacon to the pan. She was a terrible cook a few days ago, but she seems to be a quick study. Her dad must have done all the cooking at home. I wonder what kind of father he was to her. My own dad did the best he could. It was just the two of us after Mom left, at least for a couple of years. He was never the same after she betrayed him with his own brother. He lost his edge; all the fight went out of him. He was like a shadow—drifting through life, constantly distracted by something he could never fix—so distracted that he didn’t see the knife the guy pulled on him until it was too late.

“I’m gonna go to Jersey tomorrow morning. See what leads I can follow up there. Maybe I can find that safety deposit box.”

Kristin turns off the stove and plates up the food before carrying it over to the kitchen island. “You want me to come with you?”

“No.” I shake my head. “You’ll be safer here.”

She wrinkles her nose. “I don’t like being here alone, Max.”