Grabbing her hand, I squeeze it reassuringly. “Yeah, we did, babe. You okay?”

An hour ago, we testified against the largest crime family in New York City. If that wasn’t signing our own death certificates, the heart palpitations I’m having might just finish the job. Ali fixates on the stairs beneath us instead of answering my question. Avoiding reality, she ignores me completely and I can’t say I’m surprised. It’s how she handles every situation. But I am hurt. I risked my life for the safety of hers. I want to climb inside her head and shake some sense into her. She checked into rehab four days ago, willingly. Maybe she’ll open up to someone there.

“I’m not, but I will be.” She forces a smile.

“We did what we had to do,” I try convincing her. One of us has to be strong, so I keep my chin up and my emotions at bay, just the way it’s always been.

Ali’s shoulders slump forward. “I know. Except now we’ll be looking over our shoulders forever. And not only that, I betrayed the one friend who has always had my back.”

Her eyes fill with new-found sadness at the mention of Adriana. “I’ll never get her back, Lindsey, that’s what kills me the most inside. I just sent her brother and her dad to prison.”

“You will. Hey, come on now.” I grab her chin and lift her head to meet mine. “Everything will be okay, just not today. But that’s all right because we’ve got each other.”

“I hope you’re right. At least I won’t do any time now. And thank you. I don’t know what I’d do without you, sis. You’ve been more of a mother to me than our real one ever was.”

Her words pull at my heartstrings, the sentiment bittersweet. Nothing hurts me more than seeing my sister in the same pain I’ve felt since losing our mother. We all need a mom, and she doesn’t hold memories of the few good years with ours. She was too young to remember. Her only memories are the haunting ones after our dad’s passing. Yet at the same time, I feel accomplished knowing I’ve shown her enough love and care she considers me as a replacement for the real thing.

It doesn’t matter that we’ll be looking over our shoulders until we’ve received punishment for our betrayal to the Marino family. It will come, and when it does, I’ll go down fighting because I refuse to sit back and watch my sister rot in a cell for assholes who think they own our silence. I’d shown my loyalty to them for taking Oliver, Ali and me in all those years ago. For giving me the resources to fight out my anger and lock away my stepfather. Giuseppe, his wife, and children, welcomed us into their family. He’d given our lives purpose. We could afford to go to college and get our degrees because of him. He gave us a way to make money to assure we never ended up hungry and homeless, the way he found us. But I’d long since paid my debts. I owed them nothing.

“You’re my sister. I’ll always be there for you.” I circle my arm around her shoulders and we walk down the steps. “Now let’s get you back to the clinic.”

Mason

A slap stings my back. “You gonna stand there and stare at her all day or what?” Roamyn’s voice tears me away from Lindsey.

I slide on my sunglasses and button up my suit jacket. “Come on. Let’s get back.”

I cringe when I pass the grieving faces of the Marino women as they say goodbye to their husbands, their sons, their brothers, and cousins. Today, the underbelly of these streets changed and justice was served. Today, shit got motherfucking real. Dread continues to swallow me whole. A positive end to today is exactly what we hoped for, so why does it still feel like we’ve lost?

The silence of my office brings peace for a few hours while Roamyn is out and Elias is at a meet with the Misery’s Angels MC. I’ve got Cassidy organizing protection for Alison at rehab where she’ll hold up until further notice, and Lindsey, I’m covering her ass tonight myself. She just doesn’t know it yet.

After the uproar in court earlier, there’s no way I’m letting anyone else watch her tonight. Giuseppe Marino was way too fucking calm. The guy got told he was being sentenced to years in a federal prison and he was fucking smiling like a goddamn Cheshire cat. The look he gave Lindsey and Alison sent chills down my spine as I stood squeezing the gun at my side just in case he could shoot bullets with his eyes because, fuck, the asshole wanted them dead, that much I was sure of.

Lindsey put up a solid front. Alison had turned to her with tears in her eyes, and she grabbed her hand and smiled. When she was spoken to, she was polite, honest. The woman could work a room like no one I’d ever seen, her ever-changing disguise fooling everyone, except me. Had I not sat in the courtroom watching her closely, I wouldn’t have noticed. But while she stayed strong for her sister, when she thought no one was looking at her, I was. I watched as uncertainty grew behind those murky eyes and I had to physically stop myself from striding over to her and pulling her into my arms.

Before I could go to Lindsey though, I had a call to make. Charlotte wasn’t going to be happy.

***

An ache forms in my neck as I hold my phone between my shoulder and my ear, resting it there to call Cora, Charlotte’s sitter.

The line picks up and a bright “Hello?” sounds through the phone.

“Cora, I have a huge favor to ask.”

“Sure, what’s up, Mason?”

I grab Charlotte’s school bag from her, putting it on the countertop and she bolts into her bedroom before I can remind her she has homework to do. “I was hoping you might be able to stay with Charlotte tonight. I have to work and I won’t be home till the morning.” I hesitate before continuing, “If you can’t, that’s okay.”

My guilty conscious trips me up already. I hate leaving Charlotte, even to send her to school in the mornings. With my line of work, worry weaves its way into my system every second she isn’t near.

“I can stay with her. I don’t have plans after work and I’m about fifteen minutes away. I just need to grab some things for overnight. Give me twenty minutes?”

“Yeah, sure. Thanks, Cora,” I reply, genuinely thankful for her help, because if it wasn’t for her knocking on my door five years ago at one thirty in the morning offering to help settle one distraught little girl who she could hear from inside her apartment next door, I would never have met her and found another person I trust my baby girl with. I’d been a father barely a week. My face made clear how sleep deprived I was, that and the apartment was littered with nearly every parenting book ever printed. Yet, no matter how many times I paced back and forward with her in my arms that night trying to soothe her, nothing worked. I sure as shit wasn’t going to turn down some much needed help, and it turned out, Cora had some magical woman touch which Charlotte seemed to take to. She also happened to be a nanny, one who passed a background check and I’ve now grown to care for.

Charlotte emerges from her room distracted by something on her iPad. “Dad, why are you going back to work so late? I heard you on the phone with Cora.”

I sigh, hating I’m leaving her again so soon. I need to be there tonight for Lindsey but my heart tears in two when Charlotte gives me big, pleading eyes.

“I’m sorry, baby girl, but someone else needs me for the night. She’s in trouble and someone’s got to watch over her to protect her from the bad guys. That’s got to be me, but I promise you I’ll be back in the morning to drop you off at school, okay?” I kiss her on the forehead and hold her to me. “It’s just for tonight. Plus you’ll have Cora here. You know she’s more fun to play with than me.”

I keep it light, hoping a little humor will distract her.

Charlotte laughs, despite the slight disappointment I can see she’s trying to hide. “Nah, Dad, you’re the best. But it’s okay.” She puffs her chest out and I proudly smile. She’s trying to be strong. She’s growing up so fast, each day quicker than the one before. Some days it feels like I’m missing it all happening before my eyes, even as she sits across from me at the breakfast table each morning. All because my mind is too occupied by work and the hell pouring down on me from above.